Text Messaging: How Salesforce Is Leading Ultra-Connected Sales Conversations and Chats with LiveMessage

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By Sudipto Ghosh On Aug 13, 2018

Text Messaging: How Salesforce Is Leading Ultra-Connected Sales Conversations and Chats with LiveMessage

Salesforce LiveMessage Expands Global Reach, Now in 24 Countries

Text messaging has come a long way at Salesforce since the company bought Heywire on 7 September 2016. A very significant addition in its aggressive acquisition spree, Heywire has realized its potential at Salesforce by bringing intelligent conversational text messaging within mobile app and contact center platform within Salesforce Service Cloud. Within two years, Salesforce LiveMessage (the reincarnation of Heywire at #1 CRM company) has grown its market to 24 countries.

By 2022, 20% of all customer service interactions will be completely handled by AI, an increase of 400% from 2018, says Gartner.

A leader in AI-driven sales technology, Salesforce is comfortably perched on the highest branches of customer service interactions in 2018. That’s why we decided to explore further into Text Messaging platforms, competitors to Salesforce in Text Messaging, and how they all could further disrupt intelligent sales automation and engagement processes.

What is Salesforce LiveMessage?

Salesforce LiveMessage is powered by the Service Cloud.

Salesforce LiveMessage is a two-way mobile text messaging product that allows consumers and brands to connect via 1:1 messaging channels like SMS and Facebook Messenger. It’s an enriched mobile app that consolidates brand communication to deliver a highly personalized level of customer engagement within the Salesforce Service Cloud.

Customers can connect to the brand via two channels:

Converse with a chatbot on a mobile messaging app of their choice
Directly connect to a support agent

Service agents can reply to customer queries on the Salesforce Service Cloud Lightning Console where they have additional information linked to CRM data and conversational history. With Einstein AI in the play, text messaging has grown beyond the transactional mode delivering instant, personalized live messages backed by accurate data.

live-message-service-cloud-einstein-alt — Salesforce LiveMessage, via Salesforce

Why Salesforce LiveMessage for Text Messaging?

According to Gartner, 70 percent of the customer interactions would be initiated or completed using automation involving AI and machine learning algorithms, chatbots or real-time mobile messaging, by 2020. Currently, only 15% of the conversations use these technologies in 2018.

Salesforce LiveMessage is popular among customers. The reasons include —

Availability of Local support on a global scale
Routing through a single, global Contact Center which reduces overhead costs for the brand
Turnkey solution that works out-of-the-box: Customers can use local numbers, reducing or eliminating international fees
Content- and language-agnostic to ensure clear and natural communication

Other key features that make Salesforce LiveMessage a ready-to-go option for cross-channel text messaging include —

Built-in CRM conversation capture, customer segmentation, and conversation personalization
Give personal attention to every customer anytime from anywhere
Cut sales costs by letting one customer service agent manage hundreds of text conversations at the same time
Empower sales teams to build their stack on mobile messaging linked to Salesforce CRM
Speed and scale text messaging on-demand with accurate reporting capabilities

At the time of LiveMessage’s official launch, Rebecca Wettemann, Vice President of Research, Nucleus Research, had said, “Customers increasingly demand that service be on their terms, and messaging will be a critical differentiator. Salesforce LiveMessage is the first solution that makes messaging a viable and scalable channel for service contact centers of all sizes.”

Rebecca added, “As bots get smarter and can do more, we will see more companies deploy messaging and provide better, faster and more personalized customer service while driving down service costs.”

When Salesforce announced the global reach of its LiveMessage, it was clear that traditional companies and start-ups have a larger playground to amplify their product.

“Align Technology is a company with a truly global presence, and as such, we need to make sure that any digital engagement technologies we use are able to handle customer interactions across the world,” said Srini Pendala, Director of Salesforce Platforms at Align Technology.

Srini added, “It’s good to see Salesforce LiveMessage expanding to include new countries across APAC, EMEA and Latin America, and with this bigger scope we expect the product will drive even more engagement.”

Competitors in the Text Messaging Ecosystem

Nexmo, Msg.ai, and MEi messaging are other interesting text messaging platforms that we would keep a close eye on. They are using advanced machine learning AI and smart messaging automation to completely disrupt the Text Messaging ecosystem. MEi, in particular, as it has recently announced that is has started offering texting advice to users. Now, that’s something we would love to see sales teams fully utilizing to make their conversations powerful and accurate, without letting the other party drop the chat hanging.

AI Chatbots crm Einstein Gartner LiveMessage Mobile Customers Rebecca Wettemann