How to Sell Better with Twilio

Twilio is a telephone wizard that runs on a cloud communications platform. It has building blocks to add messaging, voice and video to your web, and mobile applications.

In earlier days, you had to build the infrastructure from scratch and expose an API for the app development team. This was cumbersome, as you had to write a code for every new functionality you want to add to your app. With Twilio, the infrastructure is taken care of and you can start building the app in the language you already use.

Formerly, contracts were negotiated with carriers to set up interconnections and required more algorithms for routing and monitoring. This drill had to be repeated for every region. Using Twilio, the distributed software layer gives you the ability to reach everyone from the start. This gives businesses a quick start to spearhead their process with fewer hassles. Here’s how the world’s largest cab aggregator, Uber, built a profitable ride sharing experience with SMS and voice.

Whatever contact management software or CRM you use, Twilio seamlessly slips into the app’s functionality so that you can make, receive and control phone calls easily, as well as design workflows with an API for nuanced call control. It also can send and receive SMS, MMS and chat messages to your customers across the globe and ensure deliverability. There’s also a two-factor authentication service to strengthen the conventional login for websites. Much more becomes possible with the Twilio plugin in your CRM app.

Twilio gives new options to your sales reps by allowing them to contact prospective customers through calls and messages from the CRM. Here are the features that will help you sell better with Twilio and achieve a lot in the sales front. Get ready to amp up your sales revenue.

Appointment Reminders

With Twilio integration into the CRM, businesses can handle the crucial part of appointment scheduling with ease. The sales reps can automatically send confirmations, handle cancellations and reschedule meetings. They can send text reminders to any international number and ensure that it’s delivered to the receiver. The text-to-speech feature can be used to send a reminder in 26 languages. Pictures and calendar invites can be embedded in the MMS.

There are numerous benefits from the appointment reminders. The support costs can be brought down and, as it goes straight to the phone’s inbox, this offers a wider reach than a conventional email. This increases the open-rate by four times when compared to emails.

Once the appointments are confirmed, last minute cancellations can be accounted for and filled with waitlisted customers using a call or text. The two-way SMS and voice leaves enough scope for cancellations and re-schedulings.

Masked Phone Numbers

Have you ever seen customers getting aggravated by repeated calls or companies compromising the customer data? If the contacts fall into the wrong hands, then it becomes difficult to salvage the situation and bring back the customer’s lost confidence. To combat this issue, Twilio has a feature to mask the phone numbers while calling customers. This also keeps buyers’ and sellers’ personal numbers private, so that they need not worry about exposing their numbers on calls. This feature is extensively used by Uber. It’s a win-win for both the business and the customer.

If you are a portal with many listed buyers, you can avoid direct or off-platform communication between buyers and sellers using masked phone numbers. This helps you retain your revenue sources.

Businesses can use Twilio APIs to control when and how their users communicate. For example, you can disable calls outside of service hours, implement lost and found or prevent any follow-up after the service is concluded. You will also be relieved from additional expenses for buying phone numbers as you can use one number to bridge multiple buyer-seller interactions.

Call Tracking

Another important task which is required of sales reps quite frequently is tracking calls of the prospects and customers. With Twilio, you can assign local phone numbers to ad campaigns for metrics, real-time calls and message routing.

Call tracking improves lead distribution and analytics and enhances lead quality. By using a phone number to send localized messages, you can add a sense of urgency and ensure the delivery. This looks better for the business than web forms and emails.

Call tracking analytics help you gain insights into calls received, length of each call and how they found your business and contact information.

Instant Lead Alerts

You can double up lead conversions by sending instant alerts to your sales reps. Whenever a new lead signs up on the website, it doesn’t go away from your sales radar. This reduces the time businesses take to respond to online leads. Leads like to be called within a few minutes of their filling an online form. When their need is urgent, they want someone to help them with it very soon. This functionality improves the conversion rate.

Along with notifying the reps of new leads, you can add escalation logic to send hot leads to the top of the sales funnel. If the leads are sitting for too long, they can be routed to a new agent with an SMS alert.

Agile CRM supports Twilio integration and it helps in sales, marketing and service automation. The all-in-one CRM comes with a powerful telephone feature. Twilio supports this functionality with call recording and listening, as well as taking automated notes while on call.

Click-to-call

Click-to-call can mean no more hold times for call centers. Whenever you are faced with excessive traffic, click-to-call enables your company to convert web traffic into phone calls with the click of a button.

The best part about Twilio is that they have focused on developers, which allows them to easily implement Twilio solutions to their apps. This comes as an additional bonus for sales reps who are embracing Twilio plugins as new automation tools.