best sms app for salesforce

Customer relationships are critical to an organization's growth and success. Salesforce is the leading CRM for building and nurturing these relationships by delivering a comprehensive 360-degree view of customers. As a result, sales and marketing reps can participate at various stages of the customer lifecycle, enhancing their experiences. Salesforce provides a variety of products, including marketing, sales, and service, to meet the distinct needs of various business sectors. So, when it comes to transforming and fostering student connections in education, the combination of SMS from Salesforce and Education Cloud is a potential game changer. What is Education Cloud? Most education institutions use multiple tools and systems to handle their operations, which puts a strain on their IT budgets. However, Education Cloud provides a more cost-effective way to manage operations without the need for multiple systems. Education Cloud is a comprehensive system that includes a student information system (SIS), an academic management system, ERP, CRM, and a learning management system (LMS). This enables educational institutions to quickly simplify the educational process, provide a tailored experience to students, and reduce transformation expenses. One of the standout features of Education Cloud is that users can view student data from anywhere and at any time from any device. SMS Salesforce with Education Cloud One of the most significant advantages of employing text messaging is the ability to reach large audiences instantly without relying on internet connectivity. In addition, text message transmission is not confined to any one smartphone type. Even the most basic mobile handsets allow you to send and receive messages. This enables educational institutions to expand their reach by engaging with students even in locations with limited or no internet services. This is one great opportunity to leverage SMS Salesforce in higher education. How GirikSMS text messaging works with Salesforce GirikSMS is a 100% native Salesforce SMS app and integrates easily with Salesforce's Education Data Architecture (EDA), allowing you to connect with school stakeholders and manage inter-departmental operations and data within Salesforce. EDA, like GirikSMS, takes into account the full student journey and all of the departments that impact it: Recruitment and admissions Marketing Enrolment Student Success Faculty and staff Alumni and donor relations EDA gives faculty and administrators a comprehensive view of students, including who they are, where they are from, their interests and preferences, and who they engage with. When texting students, parents, counselors, or staff members, you can view the entire history of text message interactions and quickly determine the link between the entity and its affiliations with the institution (academic program, clubs, sports, cultural teams, and more). When interdepartmental collaboration fails, administrators suffer. The process, performance, goals, and objectives become hazy. Your software systems should be flexible enough to handle a wide range of use case scenarios. You want a single app to manage the complete student lifecycle. Every department on campus can boost communication response rates by engaging students, alumni, parents, staff, and other stakeholders via SMS messaging. Text messaging is the ideal way for any administrative department to meet its objectives. GirikSMS's capabilities enable each department to communicate seamlessly through comprehensive views, data analytics and reporting, and inter-departmental automation. How can educational institutions leverage SMS messaging from Salesforce? Here's how various departments can leverage text messaging to communicate with their targeted stakeholder audiences. Recruitment Text messaging over SMS and WhatsApp gives recruiters global access to prospective students. Quickly collect inbound marketing data using the survey capability in Education Cloud. When a student consents to receive text messages from your institution by sending a keyword to your institution's text messaging number or short code, you immediately acquire their phone number (the primary point of contact). GirikSMS's in-built automation takes the contact information (which could include name and email) and creates or updates Salesforce records. Recruiters can choose to record additional information, such as their major during that first interaction. WhatsApp templates enable recruiters to do remote outbound marketing. With GirikSMS you can send outbound templates from its in-built template library to pique the recipient's interest and encourage them to opt in. This technique enables institutions to reach out to international students who may be unable to attend college fairs or campus tours. One-on-one text conversations provide personalized touchpoints for candidates with high interest in the institution. For instance, if an athlete had a standout performance, let them know you noticed. When you express a strong interest in a prospect, you foster their relationship with the school. Use personalized bulk messaging by drawing on CRM data to inform students about events and resources depending on their location, year of graduation, and chosen field of study. Educational institutions are today hosting virtual exhibitions and open houses digitally. Even if institutions cannot meet the ideal prospective candidates in person, they can still ensure good attendance at virtual events. Admissions GirikSMS, being native to Salesforce, seamlessly enables automation with Process Builder or Flow ensuring a smooth transition from recruitment to admissions. Admissions staff can use text messaging over SMS and WhatsApp to guide potential students through the entire enrolment process. Remind students of upcoming activities and deadlines for applications and enrolment. Admissions counselors connect with students one-on-one to discuss enrolment and financial assistance. Automate application status updates to avoid excessive requests from students and parents. Student Success Once students confirm they will be attending your institution, your student success teams will have the opportunity to nurture relationships with them over several years. Students provide valuable input using short and simple text message surveys. While working with several leading higher education customers we have seen that clients frequently establish a post-term cadence to determine how staff might allocate funds and resources for the subsequent semester. As part of these text surveys, give students the freedom and flexibility to vote via text. What kind of events do they want your institution to host? Where could you place a discretionary budget to improve the quality of campus life? With GirikSMS and Salesforce, you can create simple text message surveys with question-and-answer journeys with zero code.  Send class enrolment reminders in bulk based on graduation date and credits completed. Send personalized, automated communications to students with a GPA below a specific standard, directing them to schedule a discussion with their assigned counselor. Deploy conditional logic in forms and surveys to schedule meetings with student success, advisors, and career counselors. Automate congratulatory text messages for students who excel academically. Encourage timely payment of outstanding dues through text reminders to parents with links to complete payment. Alumni and donor relations You kept your students engaged and happy until graduation. Now that they are your alumni, they can be your finest PR agents and donors. Maintain contact with them so that they can participate in and develop the school network, as well as support your activities and fundraising efforts. Students' emails may no longer work, but their mobile numbers remain the same. Students may move frequently in their post-graduate years, so make sure you send them unobtrusive texts to stay connected. Send a text message seeking their most recent postal or email address. Incoming texts from them will automatically update the relevant Salesforce records. Use segmented bulk SMS with personalized Salesforce merge fields to inform alumni about ways to stay connected with your institution. Remind alumni of forthcoming events based on their graduation date and area. Use text-to-donate to provide contributors with a quick and easy option to contribute, capitalizing on the immediacy of text messaging. Use automated survey features to update contact information and solicit feedback. Automate yearly surveys and forms to track how your alumni are doing professionally and where they are. GirikSMS: One app and one digital channel to keep all stakeholders engaged. To prevent students from falling through the cracks, your Salesforce SMS messaging solution must be available to all departments. GirikSMS's automation enables departments to effortlessly shift text conversations and workflows across teams and departments as and when there is a change in a student's life cycle stage. When several staff members communicate with the same message recipient, past text conversations appear in the Conversation View with color-coded context at a glance. GirikSMS SMS messaging for Salesforce transforms digital communications for educational institutions while being embraced by students, parents, and staff alike due to its extensive capabilities and ease of use.

Engaging with customers on the channel of their preference is key to establishing a connection with them. An intriguing statistic is that 35% of customers prefer receiving marketing communications via mobile platforms. If anything, it serves as a gentle reminder to businesses to think about utilizing SMS for business-related communications. Many businesses currently engage in this, particularly on high-volume shopping occasions like Black Friday. However, there are plenty of additional ways to use SMS to interact with your customers all year long besides the typical peak seasons. Let's look at a few strategies for using SMS to improve business communication throughout the year. What is SMS in business communication? The term 'SMS for business communication' refers to how businesses utilize text messaging to communicate with customers, convey critical information, promote products and services, and improve their overall communication. SMS-based business communication utilizes a software program rather than a specific person to communicate with people via text. This method, referred to as application-to-person (A2P) SMS, method opens up a world of possibilities. Consider a hotel as an example. To boost guest satisfaction, hotels could quickly text them to confirm their reservation. Alternatively, a doctor could notify a patient via SMS with pertinent information following a visit. Even though these communications are only being received by one individual, they are not from multiple people. Bulk SMS messages are also relevant. A retailer might send out a bulk SMS message to subscribers promoting a new product or providing a time-limited coupon. It's also important to remember that companies can communicate with customers via more than just text messages. They may also send audio files, graphics, photos, videos, and other types of multimedia via Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) messaging. Benefits of SMS for business communication As we've already indicated, a significant portion of your target market will prefer SMS correspondence. Here are four more advantages of employing SMS business messaging in addition to simply keeping your customers happy: Messages are read almost instantly SMS has an impressively high open rate and, even better, messages get read by most people fairly quickly. You can send business SMS with confidence knowing that a significant portion of your subscribers will not only see your message but will see it within a few minutes of receiving it. Because SMS can reach your target demographic much faster than social media or email, it works incredibly well for time-sensitive campaigns such as flash sales. SMS has a wide reach To put it simply, text messaging is available to everyone who owns a mobile phone. Consider this: SMS messaging can be used to communicate with over 7.2 billion people worldwide. SMS has an unparalleled reach! SMS messaging doesn’t require an internet connection SMS is compatible with any mobile device that has a mobile network connection. That's because SMS messaging doesn't require an internet data plan, it works on mobile network technology. While the proliferation of smartphones shows no signs of stopping, SMS allows users to receive messages on any kind of mobile phone, so you can reach a far wider audience with it than you could with internet-based approaches. Messages can be automated When it comes to managing repetitive tasks, automation is invaluable, and customers can also see its value. Consider this: regular SMS communications, such as delivery notifications, order confirmations, and password verifications, can be automated. Employees can rest easy knowing they don't have to perform these mundane customer service tasks manually once solutions like these are up and running. As an added bonus, you can use SMS templates to further streamline your communications. Ways to use SMS for business communications Here are seven ways to get started if you're ready to start reaching out to more prospects and customers via text messaging, which is how people like to be contacted by your business. Marketing campaigns SMS has an inherent limitation of 160 characters. There are two primary ways to use SMS for marketing. Individual texts with a clear call to action. A series of SMS messages that, typically over a few days or weeks, provide targeted offers or information to a particular segment of subscribers. Whatever method you choose, the most important thing is to make it easy and convenient to respond. Usually, this means providing a web link. That page can be a special campaign page that lets you monitor the response rate with ease. It might also be an already-existing page, such as a category or product page. Effective SMS marketing strategies cover the following: Promote flash sales Launch new products Revive older products that have been improved upon or updated. Run time-limited promotions Offer loyalty members exclusive deals; target certain subscriber categories with offers Encourage the sharing of relevant content by including links to resources on related subjects. Verification The process of verifying a user's identity or actions by text message delivery of a one-time password (OTP) or code to their mobile device is known as SMS verification. After that, the recipient logs into a website or application or authorizes a transaction using that code. This technique, which is often referred to as two-factor authentication (TFA), helps companies in preventing account manipulation by scammers and cybercriminals. Customer engagement Improved customer connections through personalized business messaging results in greater engagement and improved response rates. Your interactions can be more personalized when you have more information on your audience. Sending personalized texts on their birthday or offering them exclusive deals based on their previous purchases is possible with SMS. For instance, perhaps you would like to provide a unique discount to residents of a specific city. This demonstrates that you are aware of their needs and value their business. The messages can be made much more personalized when you integrate your CRM with your messaging app like what you can do with the GirikSMS Salesforce sms app, which can take personalization up a few notches.  This personalization strategy also works very well for marketing. You may grab customers' attention and keep them interested in your offerings by sending out highly effective messages, such as birthday offers that expire soon. Opt-in campaigns Through opt-in campaigns, businesses regardless of size can use SMS for lead nurturing or generation. By allowing potential customers to interact with your business on their terms and requesting their consent to receive SMS notifications, you can be sure that they are interested in what you have to offer. After that, you can nurture them with a consistent flow of new, valuable, informational, and helpful content, which will produce higher-quality leads. 2-way messaging Research indicates that 9 out of 10 consumers want to be able to ask questions in response to texts received from businesses. Having said that, many businesses rarely use two-way interaction capabilities. You can now instantly and individually serve each of your customers thanks to two-way messaging. This enables customers to get their questions answered quickly. And you're communicating with this person directly instead of having to call them personally. Transactional notifications One of the best applications of business SMS messaging is transactional notifications; they are quick and easy to use. Notifications via transactional SMS may include the following: Notifications of delivery and shipping updates Confirmations of purchases Confirmations of opt-in Verification of passwords Reminders for appointments Notifications for receipt of payments Notifications of modifications to account information or transaction data, such as an upgrade on a hotel room Get started with SMS for business communication As you can see, there are tons of methods for using SMS for business communication that will connect and engage more of your customers in ways that suit your specific needs as well as theirs. It's a genuine benefit that can make your business stand out from the competition. Selecting a text message service provider is the first step to launching SMS business messaging. With so many options available, it's critical to consider eight essential factors to ensure you're making the best choice: Ease of integration. To facilitate seamless integration with your other apps and systems, you should have access to a wide range of APIs. Security and compliance. In addition to having cyberattack defense and response strategies and backup systems, your provider should also be accountable for keeping you secure and in compliance with local regulations. Delivery performance. It's critical to locate an SMS provider with a track record of excellence and an engine that is tuned for minimal latency and high delivery rates.    Power to scale. Look for a supplier who can adapt and grow with you. Two-way messaging. When you want it, your messaging platform should deliver it for you. Sender ID availability. You want to be able to use this feature since it helps the recipient identify you and increases your credibility as a sender and brand. Reporting and analytics. For consistent and effective SMS marketing, real-time, comprehensive, and easily accessible KPIs are a must. Global expertise and customer support. Look for a provider with worldwide connectivity. Although SMS business messaging works well, you'll be most successful if you combine it with a more holistic omnichannel strategy for customer engagement. Have questions about conversational messaging for business? Contact us today for a free 30-day trial of GirikSMS, the 100% native Salesforce Texting App for business.

Businesses across industries are leveraging emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence and machine learning to power sales, marketing, customer service, HR, and operations. In fact, banking is one of the top industries to embrace Chatbots in recent years to streamline operations and enhance the customer experience. Banking chatbots are AI-powered virtual assistants that can understand customer requests, resolve their queries, and execute transactions. Chatbots are software programs that have in-built machine learning algorithms and can process natural language prompts to automate the relationship between a customer and a bank. GirikSMS Salesforce Chatbot developed by Girikon Inc, a Salesforce Development Partner, help banking institutions streamline operations, scale customer service, reduce costs, and improve customer satisfaction. In this article, we will explain what GirikSMS can do for banks and their customers and how bot-driven automation can benefit banking institutions in several ways. Chatbots are cost-efficient. Bots allow you to scale operations quickly without the associated costs of additional manpower. The era of mobile banking. Customers today prefer digital first and the need for on-demand mobile banking is increasing across all age groups. GirikSMS Salesforce Chatbots are available 24/7 and can be easily integrated into mobile banking apps to offer immediate resolution of customer queries. Customers prefer text. Most smartphone users are well versed with popular messaging apps such as WhatsApp, Slack, and SMS, using these channels for daily interaction with friends, family, and even businesses. Text conversations over these apps are now the preferred choice for most users. GirikSMS ChatGpt Empowered Salesforce Chatbot uses the power of conversational AI to interact with customers over these popular messaging apps and channels ushering in a new era of digital services. Here’s a look at some of the use cases where GirikSMS APP can help banking institutions automate their day-to-day operations to enhance the customer experience. 1. Onboarding new customers New customers can rely on GirikSMSChatbot for onboarding activities such as: Uploading all required documents and validating them. Sending agreements for review and sending reminders to complete the documentation. Setting up a new account and providing a guided tour of available products and services Downloading and exploring the banking app on users’ mobile phones. GirikSMS ChatGPT Empowered Chatbot can also be used to collect feedback from new customers about the onboarding process for detailed analysis and ongoing improvement. 2. Provide 24/7 customer service GirikSMS Chatbot can be extremely useful in customer service operations. They can resolve routine customer queries quickly and enable banks to scale 24/7 support to customers. They can answer commonly asked questions and provide accurate answers to customer queries quickly without any wait times. Not just that, customers can also modify account information such as an address, all within the chat conversation. 3. Transactions GirikSMS Salesforce Chatbots can help customers perform banking transactions such as fund transfers or opening a deposit account. GirikSMS is native to Salesforce. So, if a user types the name of a beneficiary to do a fund transfer, the bot can look up the receiver’s account in the CRM and execute the transaction. Some of the other transactions that GirikSMS Salesforce SMS App can help customers with are: Report a missing/damaged card. Report an unauthorized transaction. Change account passwords. Modify account limits or apply for higher limits. Apply for account upgrades like more privileges. Apply for a loan. 4. Providing financial advice GirikSMS  Chatbot can be virtual financial assistants. Based on the customers’ income and spending habits they can recommend saving plans, tax tips, and recommend best-fit banking products. 5. Cross-selling Banks offer a range of products and services such as insurance, loans, mortgages, wealth management, etc. GirikSMS Salesforce Chatbots leverage CRM data and analyze past customer interactions across multiple channels to make intelligent recommendations about new products that may be relevant to them. 6. Preventing fraud GirikSMS Salesforce Chatbots record all interactions with users in the CRM and can use natural language understanding capabilities to detect suspicious behavior to alert agents to take prompt and appropriate action. Data from chatbot conversations can be used to identify patterns and train the chatbot. 7. Onboarding new recruits GirikSMS Salesforce Chatbots can be used to assist new employees by: Answering their queries about the company’s policies. Providing access via interactive menus to onboarding material such as documents, presentations, charts, photos, or videos. Setting up IT accounts and assisting them with system walkthroughs and privileges. GirikSMS Salesforce Chatbots can also train employees on several aspects of customer communication and engagement. 8. Assisting in internal operations GirikSMS Salesforce Chatbots can also act as virtual assistants for banking personnel by providing them with quick answers when dealing with customers. They can answer questions related to Policies and regulations. Products and services offered. Intelligent forecasts on customers based on their account status. GirikSMS Chatbots for Salesforce can also help streamline internal operations by sharing documents across team members and facilitating reporting and evaluation processes. 9. Omnichannel availability Customers today prefer digital first. And they engage with brands on multiple channels such as websites, mobile apps, social media, and messenger apps. GirikSMS Chatbot for Salesforce can be easily integrated across all popular channels ensuring that you are available to them 24/7 regardless of where they are. While the above use cases can be a game-changer for banks, it is also important to follow certain best practices to make the most of this disruptive technology offering. Here is our list of 5 best practices for implementing Chatbots. 1. Understand the limitations and challenges of Chatbots Work with your Salesforce partner to have a thorough assessment of the capabilities and limitations of AI Chatbots to set the right expectations. 2. Protect user data Banking institutions must secure and protect the data and information gathered by Chatbots.  Giving confidence to customers that their data is secure with you builds trust and loyalty. 3. Secure transactions Chatbots, especially customer support ones open up opportunities for hackers and fraudsters. You must ensure that all transactions and interactions over bot conversations are encrypted and secure. 4. Create specialized chatbots Banking offers many use cases for deploying Chatbots such as lead generation, sales, and customer service. Start with a simple use case and deploy chatbots in phases. 5. Test extensively An erroneous chatbot can lead to frustrated customers. Test and train your chatbot extensively before going live. As Salesforce expands its boundaries to integrate the disruptive technology of conversational AI and adds more functionality into its platform, you need the support of a Gold Salesforce Consulting Partner like Girikon to unlock its true power. Connect with one of our experts today to learn more about how you can harness the power of GirikSMS Chatbots for Salesforce.

All businesses without exception, strive to achieve high levels of customer loyalty. And it’s not a surprising fact. Industry data reveals that the cost of retaining existing customers is a mere 20% of acquiring new ones. Businesses recognize that even a 5% improvement in customer retention rates has a significant impact on the top line. With so many options available to customers, going the extra mile to earn their loyalty is a no-brainer in today's fiercely competitive business ecosystem. SMS marketing is perhaps the most underrated yet key driver of customer loyalty. Many businesses today are leveraging SMS marketing to retain customers. The popularity of SMS marketing is increasing at breakneck speed. It provides that elusive silver lining to improve customer engagement and build trust and loyalty. What is Customer Loyalty? The word loyalty is typically associated with an allegiance or bond between two entities. In the business context, customer loyalty characterizes a consistent emotional bond between the business and the customer. Customer loyalty indicates the willingness of customers to engage with the business for its products or services. Achieving customer loyalty can be complex and relies on the synergy of several factors: Emotional connection Quality and consistency of brand engagement Exceptional customer service Customer satisfaction levels Product or service customization Personalized interaction Customer loyalty is a direct result of consistent efforts undertaken by a brand and is usually measured across multiple market metrics such as customer lifetime value, repeat purchases, customer satisfaction score, upsell rates, engagement levels, and more. Loyal customers hold the key to a business's longevity and growth. Industry data indicates that loyal customers are willing to spend 65% more on a brand’s products and services compared to new customers. As the saying goes – 20% of your customers contribute to 80% of your sales. So, the message to marketers is loud and clear: drive customer loyalty to increase profitability. The Role of SMS in Improving Customer Loyalty and Enhancing Retention SMS marketing is a discreet way of engaging customers and establishes an invisible yet strong connect between them and your brand. Industry reports indicate that bulk SMS messaging has a read rate of 98%, as compared to email marketing which hovers around 20% at best. In fact, what’s even more interesting is that SMS messages have a read rate of 97% within the first 15 minutes of receipt, and that's primarily because people check their phones at least a hundred times a day. It should come as no surprise, therefore, that there is solid ground to consider bulk SMS messaging as a powerful driver of customer loyalty. How To Build Customer Loyalty with Bulk SMS Messaging The question still remains how bulk SMS messaging drives customer loyalty? With the right bulk SMS marketing strategy with personalized and relevant messaging content, you can facilitate faster response times.  We recommend these 5 simple steps to improve customer loyalty via bulk SMS messaging. Understand your target audience. Segment your subscribers based on age, gender, demographics, interests, and preferences to set up the foundation to send consistent, relevant, and concise content. Align goals. Establish a clear vision of your SMS marketing goals such as conversion rates, app, website, or social media page traffic, feedback scores, and more. Create strategy-based content. SMS messages have a limitation of 160 characters.  So, every word is worth its weight in gold. Keep your messaging concise and precise. Avoid spamming. Don’t overwhelm your customers with unnecessary or repeat messages. And depending on the time zone you operate in for your SMS messaging, ensure your messages are delivered at a time when customers are most likely to see it. Analyze and improve. Marketing is all about indicators, so make sure you are always on top of key metrics like open rate, click-throughs, conversions, sign-ups, unsubscribes, and ROI. Innovate: Last but not least, bulk SMS marketing allows you to experiment and improve your SMS marketing strategy and adjust it as you go. So be sure to collect feedback from your customers at regular intervals. This not only helps you to improve but also tells your customers you value how they feel about you. Strategies to Increase Customer Retention with SMS While we have talked about some key aspects of improving customer loyalty via bulk SMS messaging, it is equally important to understand some tried and tested implementation strategies that drive customer loyalty: New Customer and Post-Purchase Offers. Offering deals and discounts to new customers is an effective strategy for acquiring them. And once they are on board, new deals and offers based on their initial purchase can be a powerful incentive for them to return to your brand. When offering deals, make sure they are time-bound and send them reminder texts with clickable links to your e-store to nudge them to make a purchase. New Product Announcement. Concise, attention-grabbing SMS texts have proven to be very effective. And if your products or services are hyper-personalized for a particular customer segment, SMS marketing could be very effective in igniting interest. GirikSMS comes with seamless integration with Salesforce, which means you can leverage your CRM data for deep insights into customer behavior and target your SMS marketing perfectly with precise and relevant messaging. Trigger Messaging. This is a very effective way to capture your audience’s attention. Automated SMS messages can be triggered for a range of scenarios such as abandoned cart reminders, the latest personalized discounts, and offers, new product launches or back-in-stock items. Conclusion There is no doubt that SMS texting is a powerful tool for driving customer loyalty and retention. With a market-leading automated SMS platform in place and a sound use-case-based marketing strategy, brands can unlock the power of SMS marketing to improve customer loyalty enhance retention, and pave the way for the long-term success of their business. Try GirikSMS for Improved Customer Loyalty and Retention With GirikSMS, you can implement automated, intelligent marketing strategies at scale with personalized engagement across every interaction. With GirikSMS’s automation capabilities and its intelligent Chatbots, you can be up and running in no time. With GirikSMS you can: Send tailored product alerts Cross-sell and upsell Send reminders Send order updates Resolve customer issues Engage in 2-way conversational messaging Collect customer feedback Start your Free 3 Month Trial today. Still have questions? Connect with one of our SMS experts.

According to Salesforce research, close to 90% of customers say that a business's overall experience is as important as its products or services. In today’s competitive landscape where companies are juggling between staffing shortages and overwhelmed resources, they need to be able to do more with less.  Customer expectations are at an all-time high, and given the plethora of options available to them, anything less than an exceptional experience will lead to customer churn. Automation and self-service technologies have given many businesses across industries a significant improvement in productivity, cost savings, and customer satisfaction. In 2021, Salesforce reported that customers using its Cloud products and self-service tools such as AI chatbots witnessed a 30% increase in customer satisfaction along with a 27% improvement in agent productivity. To meet this ever-growing demand, Salesforce launched Virtual Assistant – an Einstein-powered chatbot solution built specifically for financial services businesses to automate routine customer requests faster across popular digital channels like SMS or messaging platforms. This enables agents to focus on complex cases while chatbots can promptly resolve routine service requests, such as updating credit card information, renewing subscriptions, making payments, modifying subscription plans, and more. Virtual Assistant offers multilingual support, allowing businesses to use a single chatbot across multiple geographic regions regardless of their native language. And in the future, Einstein-powered Virtual Assistants will automatically create support articles based on customer conversations. Salesforce Chatbots for financial services come with pre-built bot templates, leading to faster setup and deployment. They can streamline support and assist agents with routine questions such as “How do I calculate my tax?” or “How do I upgrade my insurance plan?” With Virtual Assistant, financial services companies can re-direct thousands of customer calls to the Salesforce Chatbot leading to significant cost savings. Salesforce Chatbots can handle thousands of concurrent conversations for queries such as loan application status, product information, insurance premium renewal, claim filing, technical support, and more, freeing up dozens of front-line agents. Salesforce Chatbots improve the customer experience by enabling seamless self-service for simple tasks, thereby significantly reducing wait times to speak with an agent. The rewards of embracing self-service technology can be substantial, and businesses need to leverage technology to scale quickly and deliver efficient customer service. Features of Salesforce ChatBots Salesforce Chatbots powered by Einstein are equipped with advanced features to solve customer issues by replying to their questions and understanding their behavior to evolve continuously. Here are some stand-out features of Salesforce Chatbots that you should be aware of before you hire a Salesforce Development Partner for its implementation. Natural Language Processing (NLP) Salesforce Chatbots use NLP to understand customer intent and provide relevant answers. This makes bot interactions more natural for customers. Multi-Channel Support Salesforce Chatbots can be deployed on multiple channels such as mobile apps, websites, online stores, social media pages, and on popular messaging platforms like WhatsApp and SMS. This allows customers the convenience and flexibility to interact with businesses on their preferred channels whenever they want. Personalization Salesforce Chatbots can personalize responses based on customer data, their preferences, past purchases, and browsing behavior, making every interaction more relevant and meaningful. Contextual Conversations Salesforce Chatbots can understand and maintain context across multiple conversations regardless of the channel, thereby providing more accurate and relevant responses to customer queries. Integration with Salesforce Salesforce Chatbots are built on the world’s leading CRM platform, allowing for seamless integration with other Salesforce cloud products. With Salesforce Chatbots, managing customer data has never been easier. Analytics and Insights With Salesforce Chatbots, businesses can get valuable insights into customer behavior. By analyzing customer interactions, Salesforce Chatbots can help businesses identify areas for improvement to enhance the customer experience. Continuous Learning Salesforce Chatbots leverage machine learning algorithms to learn continuously from every interaction and better their responses over time, improving the accuracy and relevance of responses as they gain more experience. Here are some generic features of Salesforce Chatbots. Re-direct bot conversations to human agents for complex customer queries. Understand the intent of customer queries. Rapid response times. Understand customer input and recognize errors. Available 24/7. Lead generation – collect customer data and qualify leads for sales teams. Scale customer service with personalized automation and connected customer data According to Salesforce, new features in Financial Services Cloud such as proactive service and call deflection will enable financial services firms to reduce operating expenses while delivering exceptional customer service experiences: In 2021, Salesforce customers reported a 27% increase in case resolution with self-service automation and AI-powered Chatbots (Virtual Assistant). Salesforce Chatbots automate routine request resolution across popular messaging channels such as SMS and WhatsApp, so agents can spend more time on cases that necessitate human intervention. With Customer Service Coordination, agents can collaborate in Slack to fast-track case resolution. With automated workflows and custom Chatbots, Customer Service Coordination gathers customer data and generates alerts in a central Slack channel allowing teams to respond to critical incidents faster like fraud incidents, executing time-sensitive trades, and claims processing. With the Customer Data Platform, financial services marketing teams can unify customer data from multiple sources with a point-and-click interface. This enables marketing teams to engage with customers across multiple channels such as web, email, mobile, and social media in a far more personalized way.  With Salesforce Chatbots, enhanced Insights, and Data Actions, one-on-one advisor interactions and transactions can be triggered in real time. A unified console with actionable insights and workflows for faster service New features in Salesforce Financial Services Cloud include AI-powered dashboards and Chatbots to deliver key insights: With Intelligent Agent Desktop, agents can get access to deeper customer insights from right within the console page. With Customer Identity Verification, agents can reduce the risk of fraud, and with Customer Record Alerts, Chatbots can serve up issues that customers may not be aware of when they initiate a conversation. With Analytics for Financial Services, financial services businesses can interpret customer data with insights for faster and better decision-making, eventually delivering more revenue, and strengthening customer engagement. Girikon has been a Salesforce Consulting Partner for over a decade providing unique and scalable solutions for the financial services industry. We have the necessary expertise in-house to deliver tailored experiences to every customer through self-service, automation, and AI to improve efficiency across your business. Contact us today to learn more about how Salesforce Chatbots can transform your financial services business.

Chatbots are making their way into almost every industry known to man. With businesses recognizing the value of automating repetitive tasks, it is only a matter of time before we witness a large-scale adoption of Chatbots across industries and businesses. One of the interesting things about Chatbots is that they can be programmed to accomplish different tasks for different industries. GirikSMS Salesforce Chatbot, developed by Girikon, a Salesforce Implementation Partner for over a decade, helps businesses across industries automate tasks, streamline operations, scale quickly, and reduce overall costs while improving efficiency. GirikSMS Salesforce Chatbots are powered by AI and machine learning and leverage Salesforce CRM data to deliver personalized best-in-class customer experiences at scale. While it is impossible to detail each and every scenario where GirikSMS Salesforce Chatbots can come in handy, this blog gives an overview of how you can leverage GirikSMS Salesforce Chatbots for your business success. And our chatbots are self-learning, which means they get better with every interaction. Here are some use cases for GirikSMS Salesforce Chatbots. CONSUMER GOODS AND RETAIL Customers spend a lot of time navigating through menus and category pages to find the one product they want to buy. And if this discovery process is too long or something else grabs their attention, many of them abandon their carts. GirikSMS Salesforce Chatbots can help compress this product discovery journey for customers. GirikSMS Chatbots give customers easy access to product information and give smart product recommendations based on their past purchases. Not only that, GirikSMS Salesforce Chatbots can also generate discount coupons and offers on the fly for customers who have abandoned their carts, to nudge them to complete the purchase. GirikSMS Salesforce Chatbots are a great tool for sales and marketing teams.  Chatbots assist sales and marketing reps by leveraging CRM data and providing real-time reports and alerts. GirikSMS Salesforce Chatbots can help teams with personalized customer information and serve up highly accurate, timely, and relevant data to help them move leads faster through the sales funnel. FINANCIAL SERVICES You have likely interacted with a chatbot while dealing with your bank for routine queries or operations such as fund transfers, balance inquiries, approvals, and more. The financial services industry is one of the early adopters of Chatbots. GirikSMS Salesforce Chatbots can be used by financial services businesses to improve customer satisfaction and engagement. For instance, banks can use GirikSMS Chatbots to interact with customers for routine queries such as account balance, bank statements, fund transfers, starting an investment plan, investment advice, and much more. Insurance companies can use GirikSMS Salesforce Chatbots for offering automated services such as premium renewal, plan upgrades, claims processing, educating customers on technical terms, sending alerts and reminders, and more. And this is on the customer interface. Financial services businesses can also use GirikSMS Salesforce Chatbots to perform several routine and repetitive internal operational tasks such as contract review and analysis, sorting, segmenting and qualifying applications, employee engagement, IT ticket management, and more. HEALTHCARE GirikSMS Salesforce Chatbots can be very useful for healthcare businesses.  They can perform routine tasks for receptionists and nursing staff such as checking supplies inventory, posting requests for supplies and medicines, managing appointments and home visits, assisting doctors with patient reports, track post-op recovery, managing appointment calendars, and much more. MANUFACTURING The manufacturing sector has always struggled with communication gaps in day-to-day operations. Manufacturing companies have to deal with a dynamic supply chain of wholesalers and distributors and need them to be in sync with their assembly line. GirikSMS Salesforce Chatbots can help manufacturing companies connect all constituents and facilitate seamless interaction. Vendor management, shift management, and product-related assistance are some of the areas where GirikSMS Salesforce Chatbots can be useful in the manufacturing industry. HOSPITALITY GirikSMS Salesforce Chatbots can used to provide better guest experiences, acting as a virtual concierge and assistant for hospitality businesses. GirikSMS Salesforce Chatbots are available 24/7 to provide best-in-class service that improves customer loyalty and satisfaction. AVIATION GirikSMS Salesforce Chatbots bots can be used by the aviation industry to book, re-schedule, or cancel tickets, plan travel, send reminders, notifications, and announcements, assist with web check-ins, provide flight options based on customer preferences, and assist with other travel arrangements. EDUCATION GirikSMS Salesforce Chatbots work seamlessly with Education Cloud to deliver exceptional experiences to students, faculty, and staff. For students, GirikSMS Salesforce Chatbots can automate many tasks within the recruitment and admissions process, providing assistance to students, conducting surveys and polls, engaging with parents and building trust and confidence, managing advisor appointments, updating students on campus happenings, assisting in course enrolment, submission of assignments and more. For faculty, GirikSMS Salesforce Chatbots can assist with scheduling special classes, setting up virtual advisory sessions, managing assignments, tracking student progress, and much more. OIL AND GAS GirikSMS Salesforce Chatbots can be used by oil and gas companies to improve productivity and reduce worker risk. They can provide real-time customer support by providing information about the company's products.           UTILITIES GirikSMS Salesforce Chatbots are powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and leverage CRM data to interact with customers via chat. They can help utility customers with assisted meter readings, and payment issues, provide real-time customer service, and escalate urgent and complex issues to relevant personnel. Customers can easily report outages by sending a word like “outage” to a pre-defined number and receive regular updates about case resolution. GirikSMS Salesforce Chatbots can track and monitor KPIs to ensure customer service excellence. REAL ESTATE GirikSMS Salesforce Chatbots can engage in a conversation with home buyers the moment they click on an ad on land on the company's web page. They can help home buyers with more details about available properties, provide guided virtual walk-throughs, schedule site visits, check for mortgage options, analyze market trends, and collect feedback and preferences. GirikSMS Salesforce Chatbots can be deployed on all popular channels such as mobile apps, social media, websites, or messengers such as SMS and WhatsApp, ensuring 24/7 availability to customers. While sales, marketing, and customer service are some of the common areas that Chatbots are being used today, GirikSMS Salesforce Chatbots can be used in any scenario regardless of the industry, not just for the use cases listed above.  If you are a business owner or represent senior management, it is important for you to identify a use case that can deliver great ROI. Have more questions on how GirikSMS Salesforce Chatbots can transform your day-to-day operations and take you on the path to success? Get in touch with our expert today to know more about the use of GirikSMS Salesforce Chatbots in your industry.

When today's digital-first customers shop online for products or services, they expect 360-degree service that guides them to the right offering. Product descriptions and reviews are good, but they don’t provide the insight that customers seek to make their purchase decisions. They need unbiased, expert advice from someone who understands their needs and preferences. This is where Salesforce Chatbots play a vital role in sales and marketing. Salesforce Chatbots are AI-powered tools with the Salesforce platform that allows sales and marketing teams to engage with customers in a personalized and effective way, on the channel of their preference. Salesforce Chatbots can be integrated with any website, app, or social media, allowing you to connect with your prospects and customers 24/7. Salesforce Chatbots ensure that your business is always available to your customers, so they can engage with you at the time and place of their convenience. Here are some of the key benefits of Salesforce Chatbots: Personalized experience. Customers and prospects can engage with Salesforce Chatbots to get support on specific issues that are unique to them. Generic responses often lead to customer frustration and a higher bounce rate. Personalized Chatbot interactions build brand loyalty and improve customer retention. Prompt service. When customers are looking for answers to common questions such as “Where is my order” or “When will the product be back in stock”, Salesforce Chatbots can give answers in real time, and send timely reminders to compel customers to come back again. Saves costs and improves productivity. With Salesforce Chatbots, you can automate routine customer interactions and your human agents can focus on more complex customer issues. In a nutshell, you can do more with less. Chatbots allow you to scale your sales and marketing initiatives quickly without making a dent in your budgets. Brand loyalty. No waiting for responses means customers will notice your innovation and prefer your brand viz-a-viz your competitors. Trust and loyalty translate to repeat business from customers. How can Sales teams benefit from Salesforce Chatbots? Salesforce Chatbots enable businesses to streamline many of their sales processes. They leverage customer data to engage with customers in a personalized way, making every interaction more meaningful and effective. With Salesforce Chatbots you can easily trigger automations that are aligned with your business goals by utilizing your CRM and product data, so sales teams can focus on what matters most – nurturing customer relationships. Here’s a look at how Salesforce Chatbots can assist sales teams in their day-to-day activities. Identifying Qualified Leads Salesforce Chatbots can ask relevant questions to potential customers and help qualify leads based on responses.  Not just that, Salesforce will also recommend to your sales teams which are the most promising leads that they should focus on. Prompt responses to customer queries Salesforce Chatbots help you to provide quick and intelligent responses to customer queries 24/7, Which means your business is always available to them. So you can ensure that you don’t miss a single lead and can keep pace with customer demands even outside of usual business times.  By handling common, routine customer queries, Salesforce Chatbots free up a significant amount of time for sales teams to focus on more complex leads. Personalizing the sales experience Salesforce Chatbots can leverage customer data and past interactions to personalize the entire sales journey. With tailored messaging and recommendations unique to each customer, brands can significantly improve conversions. Close deals faster Salesforce Chatbots can guide customers throughout the sales journey and nudge them at the right time. For instance, Salesforce Chatbots can provide intelligent product recommendations, offers, or deals to customers who have added items to their cart but have not completed their purchase. Salesforce Chatbots to Automate Marketing Identify, segment, and market to your customers with personalized messaging across every step of the sales journey.  Here’s how Salesforce Chatbots can help your marketing teams get more out of less. Improve engagement. With Salesforce Chatbots, you can focus on prospects and customers that are most likely to engage and transact. Convert clicks into conversations and boost ad budget RoI Generate and qualify leads and improve engagement over text conversations across popular texting channels such as SMS, WhatsApp, or Web chat. Engage better with targeted campaigns Engage with customers at scale with one-click or automated campaigns to a huge audience across popular messaging channels. Trigger engagement with journey builder flows based on events such as cart abandonment, past purchases, past interactions, and more. Launch tailored, outbound marketing campaigns and monitor their performance with actionable insights on key metrics such as click-throughs, sign-ups, and conversions. Refine your marketing strategy with predictive insights Segment your audience based on past purchases, demographics, and more, and automate campaigns. Identify high-value customers, customers likely to churn, predict behavior based on buying patterns and preferences, and deliver intelligent product recommendations and offers. Seamlessly integrate with third-party eCommerce platforms and other systems to personalize messaging. Transform conversations into purchases. Share the latest, tailored product catalogs with your customers on their preferred channels. Automate updates for key activities such as order confirmation, shipment tracking, and new tailored offers. Alert customers when their “notify me” products are back in stock. With Salesforce Chatbots you can unify the customer experience, nurture relationships, and optimize better. Unified conversational profiles Get a single, unified view of all your customer interactions with easy, one-click access to engagement data. Optimize performance Get actionable insights on engagement, campaign performance, and conversions. Cross-channel integration Scale interaction across WhatsApp, SMS, online store, mobile app and website. Leverage journey builder Build flows and deliver conversational journeys easily across multiple channels without writing any code. Scalability Send campaigns to hundreds of thousands of customers instantly and handle millions of interactions per day, without hiring additional resources. Change the playing field with Salesforce Chatbots Salesforce Chatbots allow sales and marketing teams to quickly resolve customer queries in real-time, thereby significantly improving conversion ratios. Sales and marketing teams can engage with their audiences 24/7, collect data across channels, and refine their sales and marketing strategy to engage better with their audience. Salesforce Chatbots empower sales and marketing teams to transcend the boundaries of geography and language, reach out to newer markets, and engage conversationally without any additional staff. Looking to invest in Salesforce Chatbots? Trust Girikon, a Gold Salesforce Implementation Partner for over a decade to deliver for you. Contact one of our Chatbot experts today.