Bringing Text Messaging into the Sales Mix

Sales automation and analytics company InsideSales.com has text messaging on its mind. The company, which participated in Salesforce.com’s (News - Alert) DreamForce event last week, has demonstrated the newest addition to its PowerSuite sales automation and predictive analytics platform. With the introduction of PowerText to the suite, users can now add text messaging to its mix of communications tools.

While sales reps likely already use text, chances are they are using it in a way that isn’t able to be collected, recorded and analyzed. Since every communication with a customer is vital and should be retained inside the customer relationship management (CRM) solution, the addition of PowerText to PowerSuite will provide users with an SMS toolset easily accessible within the Salesforce CRM interface. The new feature will help extend tracking and reporting capabilities on a sales rep's contact effort with texting.

PowerText automatically delivers, captures and logs an initial sent text message and its response. Sales professionals can then use the captured interactions to report on their sales progress through Salesforce and to easily use text messaging as a sales communication tool. Additionally, PowerText data will enhance the InsideSales.com (News - Alert) predictive analytics platform, identifying and facilitating optimal communication and sales strategies.

"Success in sales comes with understanding and addressing the nuances of your target prospects and customers," explained David Elkington, CEO and founder of InsideSales.com. "Today that extends to their communication medium of choice: phone, fax, voicemail, email, LinkedIn, Twitter (News - Alert), Google+, Facebook, or text messaging through the mobile network. What's next? The ability to use predictive analytics to optimize the communication medium to the individual prospect and their preferences."

It’s not the first new feature InsideSales.com introduced at the DreamForce event. The company also launched new social media communication tools designed to help salespeople improve sales results. These include LinkedIn (News - Alert), Twitter, Google+, and Facebook capabilities all in the same interface with the PowerDialer for Salesforce 5.0 platform.

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