Hey Mike Callahan here, I wanna make a quick video losing my voice here last day- day three of GIE Plus Expo. As we checked out of the hotel it got me thinking on the Air-bnb we’ve been staying at has been really good about communicating via text message or MS SMS messaging and it got me thinking and we take it for granted a lot in our service business and how we utilize it in our CRM our customer relationship management software. Utilizing text messages for your leads and clients can change the client experience and ultimately cause you to be different than everyone else in your market. What I’m recommending is when you’re looking at a CRM or customer relationship management software system is finding something that has two-way texting natively inside the platform there’s several advantages to this A. you can automate it so you don’t have to actually go out and do it yourself so when it should happen it happens just like it did at the Air-bnb or hotel that we’re staying at this morning the customer experience was significantly different they communicated when we checked in when they added extra security down the hall and when we were checking out and they even pushed us to a social review at the end of the experience but that communication even though it was automated felt personal. One of the things that we looked for and I’d also recommend looking for when you’re looking at a software or a customer relationship management software is two-way texting, SMS messaging inside the actual platform itself other benefit this is you’re going to have an audit trail of all these messages inside your platforms so not only can you send messages but you can receive messages. All the messages are now on that leader client tech record so no matter who’s in the clients instance they can see what’s going on what the communication is and they can pick up where the conversation left off. One of the things that you want to do in my opinion to accelerate your customer experience and buy some time back with predictable communication and follow-up result in your sales process is creating or going out and buying a software that has native two way texting in it and the product that we’re using right now is Service Autopilot to do that but no matter the software platform there is many benefits right now let’s face it people don’t want to talk to people live on the phone anymore and email is great but it is not converting as well as text message it’s a combination of text and email multiple communication channels has been the key to our success. One tip that we’ve had in the lawn care company who uses it creating an automated text as soon as we submit an estimate out to a potential client this text message fires off about five minutes after the estimates submitted and it notifies the client saying hey just want to let you know that we’ve emailed out your new estimate please confirm that you got it and if you don’t see your email box check your promotions folder or spam. Text communication is definitely a hot topic and when you’re looking to communicate and text with your clients we recommend putting it inside your CRM your customer relationship management software so it can be automated and you have an audit audit trail. Originally we were doing this over our voice over IP program which was RingCentral nothing wrong with that but the audit trail in the communication was in a separate platform and what that caused was multiple system chaos and the system to be reliant on a physical person. We can automate these text message so when they should happen they always happen without any human interaction those automated text messages inside the platform never call in sick and they’re always there. I want to say what’s up – Robert. Hanging out GIE booth 4010 last day up to 2 p.m. today come down hang out say what’s up. Any comments or questions on the video happy to answer them live or in person here at GIE but either way swing down booth 4010 we’re hanging out to 2 p.m. today last day voice is shot just having a great time hanging out with customers and future customers here and talking lawn and landscape and snow removal the last two and a half days. Just an amazing event if you haven’t been down GIE- highly recommend checking it out it is, as you can see around me here, a phenomenal event 22 23 acres I believe of just equipment in green industry of snow removal products and equipment so the main topic today is if you’re still looking at it purchasing a CRM or a customer relationship management software or adding some functionality highly recommend SMS text messaging natively inside the platform it’s all in one place you know exactly what the communications are and in addition you could potentially automate it so your example of basically as soon as you send out an estimate you can notify them to let them know that they’ve got it. Comments or questions drop below happy to answer them as well as come down to do 4010 here GIE Plus Expo 2019 Mike Callahan hanging out at booth 4010 see you then if not moving back online next week after we recover from one heck of a week at GIE