Every sales team wants better qualified leads and for those stellar leads to convert right away and then for those new customers to stay customers longer.

No matter the ins and outs of your sales process, selling to leads who will turn into loyal customers starts with one thing: trust. Put simply, the better and faster you are at building trust, the higher your conversion rates and the higher your customer lifetime value.

That’s why sales teams from Grow and JobNimbus rely on text messaging with Skipio and optimize lead nurturing processes by using a sales tool that enables them to reliably build trust.

Here’s just 4 reasons why Skipio is quickly becoming the favorite sales tool for reps who want to not just sell but actually develop lasting relationships with prospective customers.

People want to text with you

Think about all the time you spend on your phone. According to research by Asurion, in 2019 Americans were checking their phones 96 times per day, equivalent to once every 10 minutes. (In a previous version of this post from 2018, we noted that number was 47 times per day…)

Based on 96 phone checks in a day, it’s painfully obvious how much more likely you are get to in touch with a prospect if you text them. But more importantly, you text leads because they want you to!

Numbers vary by the survey, but generally somewhere between 70% and 80% of consumers prefer to communicate with businesses via text. Similarly, 64% of people perceive a company contacting them by text positively.

It makes sense, doesn’t it? No one wants to pick up when a random number calls and we delete any email that looks robotic. A well written text message, however, tells someone exactly who is reaching out and why. The convenience and transparency of texting both help you build trust.

Skipio simplifies this important outreach to leads and customers. You get a unique 10-digit number, and so does anyone else on your team. You pick the numbers, ensuring you get local area codes if that’s important to you. With your new number and the mobile companion app, you’re always primed to answer questions, continue conversations, and organize contacts.

All this means you keep your personal cell phone number private and you never risk losing contacts or conversations. Skipio saves it all in one place and helps you reassure leads that they can always count on you.

Connections Happen Instantly

A quick response alone often makes the difference between someone choosing one company over another. If your responses throughout the nurturing process prove to prospects that you value them and providing the best experience, you prove to them that you’re worth doing business with.

There’s no faster way to reach out and then continue conversations than Skipio.

You automatically reach out and speed up all your responses by integrating your CRM and calendar with the platform. That includes setting up automated workflows that enable you to send relevant text messages to each person at all the right times.

So, for instance, when someone clicks on your Facebook ad and fills out a form on a landing page to get more info about a specific product, they receive a message from you within five minutes, and it’s specific to them. When they reply, depending on what they say, Skipio sends your automated reply — a message you wrote and tested — or you follow up manually. Either way, the conversation continues and your trust builds.

This ability to respond instantly and continue that conversation in real time also speaks to the personal nature of texting.

You Prioritize Personalization

You probably email certain leads individually and personally follow up, but texting is inherently personal in a way email never will be. After all, it’s how most of us communicate with friends and family. Not that you want to be friends with your customers, but you get the idea.

When you thoughtfully engage people using Skipio — sending individualized messages, remembering to follow up at the right times, treating them like a person — they want to keep talking with you. They keep talking because they see you as someone they trust, someone trying to meet them where they are.

Again, all of that is possible because of Skipio’s integrations and automations. Every message can include personal info from your CRM and you ensure each one is delivered at a time that maximizes responses. At least when it comes to Skipio, automated isn’t a synonym for impersonal. The platform helps you write messages to send to one or many

Part of what ensures texting leads feels personal is the 10-digit number you choose, also known as a long code number. A 5-or 6-digit short code defeats the whole purpose of personalization. Those messages don’t require any sort of response from the recipient, which is one of the hallmarks of a personal message.

Skipio Balances Urgency and Convenience

People respond when they feel like they can trust you. Not that they consciously think, “I trust this sales person because they text me, so I will reply,” but how you contact them matters.

Think about the different types of outreach you most commonly see in sales: email, phone calls, text messages. How much pressure and urgency do they put on people to respond and how does that affect their trust in you?

Email: Low pressure to respond. People get to it when they get to it. Nothing’s urgent with email and therefore not much trust is built here.

Phone calls: High pressure to respond. They have to pick up to respond in the moment. But it immediately turns low pressure if they miss a call because it’s a hassle to call back, especially if they don’t know who you are.

Text messages: The “just right” amount of pressure to respond. Some people won’t reply, but you basically guarantee that they read the message. And when a lead does respond, it’s quick and painless.

When you text your leads with Skipio, they get the same personal attention and all the benefits of a real-time conversation without having to pick up a call from an unknown number at an awkward time and they don’t have to wade through their inbox to engage.

Sales teams keep in touch and build trust by utilizing drip messaging campaigns with SMART rules. Messages trigger at specific times based on rules that you set and they keep sending based on a schedule you set. You don’t forget about people.

This is huge for SDRs and account executives holding demos. Once someone books a time, the prospect automatically gets a confirmation and Skipio sends off personalized reminders leading up to the meeting. Those reminder texts don’t generally require responses, but they put on the right kind of pressure that gets leads to show up.

Fully invest in building trust with your leads through your lead nurturing

So many sales teams don’t yet realize just how powerful texting is in the sales process, especially when they want to build trust with new leads. And fortunately, automating portions of the lead nurturing process with Skipio won’t diminish these benefits.

Convert more leads into customers when you sign up for Skipio and start conversations that build better relationships.

This post was originally published on September 10, 2019 and was most recently updated on June 22, 2021. Updates include up-to-date statistics, information about new Skipio features/solutions, and custom graphics.