HubSpot + Salesmsg for Customer Success

In 2024, your customers want you to text them.

At least, that’s what the data says.

According to SMS Comparison, 90% of customers would rather text than get on the phone.

SMS Comparison also says 75% of consumers prefer to text with customer support instead of calling or messaging through social media.

Or if you ask G2, a “surprising 91% of customers” actually said they want to receive text messages from businesses.

Really, that’s not surprising to me. (Or any of us at Salesmsg.)

After all, text messages have an average response rate of 45%. That’s about 8x higher than your average email response rate of 6%.

That means customers are 8x more likely to connect with your business if you’re texting instead of emailing.

When you’re talking about Customer Success, that makes a big difference.

That could mean the difference between your customers loving your products and services—or refunding because they don’t understand how to use what you sell.

In this post, I’ll show you four simple ways to use texting (or SMS) to set your customers up for success, using Salesmsg and HubSpot. Be sure to watch my video above for all my tips.

But first, let’s start at the beginning.

What does Customer Success do?

I realize not every business has a Customer Success Team.

Just in case this is new for you, a Customer Success Team is in charge of the customers’ overall satisfaction after they buy.

With personalized support, Customer Success (or “CS”) Managers help customers get the best possible value out of their product or service.

With this VIP-level service, Customer Success Managers are responsible for:

1. Onboarding customers: Introducing new customers to the product or service sets customers up for success. That’s goal #1 for CS Teams.
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2. ‍Activating the product or service: Often more complicated products or services involve activation to get started. CS Teams oversee this.
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3. ‍Reducing refunds (or churn): Keeping customers happy and engaged helps cut down on refunds and encourages long-term retention.
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4. ‍Encouraging renewals: CS Teams handle renewals for subscription products or services. That’s another reason to keep customers happy.
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5. ‍Creating a fantastic brand experience: CS Teams manage the overall relationship to provide the best brand experience for the customer. 

Whether you have a dedicated Customer Success Team or not, I’m willing to bet you have these same goals for your own customers.

You want to give your customers everything they need to get started with your product or service, reduce refunds, encourage renewals (or repeat purchases), and provide the best brand experience.

Texting is the fastest, easiest way we have found to accomplish all this.

You (or your Customer Success Team) can set up these texts to go out automatically to create this personalized, VIP experience for your customers.

Texts = 1-on-1 Communication at Scale

Customer Success is all about one-on-one communication.

As a CS Manager, you’re speaking with all your customers directly as often as possible to guide them through every step of using your product or service.

It can be a lot. According to Vitally, 63% of Customer Success Managers wish they had more time to engage with customers directly.

Texting solves this problem.

As a CS Manager, you can replace some of this one-on-one communication with automated text messages.

Instead of jumping on a call or sending an email, you can send text messages when customers take specific actions. This way, each text feels unique to that customer, even if it’s automated to send when everyone takes that action.

Texting is also a personalized, one-one-one form of communication, so customers still feel like they’re getting an elevated VIP level of service. Yet, you don’t have to spend every minute on the phone with customers to provide this support.

In fact, texting frees you up to jump on the phone if your customers really need you for other, unforeseen reasons.

The best part? It's easy to set up these automated texts if you’re using HubSpot and Salesmsg.

HubSpot + Salesmsg=Automated Texts

Salesmsg has a two-way, native integration with HubSpot. Our “two-way native integration” means you can use Salesmsg to text and call your HubSpot contacts.

It only takes a few clicks to connect your HubSpot account to Salesmsg.

Once you’re set up, you can automatically sync your HubSpot contacts between both platforms, so you can keep track of your lists.

You can use our two-way texting platform to text back and forth with your HubSpot contacts. That’s very important for your Customer Success Team, because it means you can engage directly with your customers via text.

With Salesmsg, you also get a history of every single text your team has sent back and forth to that customer, so you have 100% transparency on what’s been shared.

You can even use our Salesmsg platform to text and call your HubSpot contacts from inside HubSpot if you like. Our two-way native integration allows you to use Salesmsg inside HubSpot—so it feels like you’re using one platform, not two.

And my personal favorite…

You can use Salesmsg to add texts to any automated HubSpot workflow.

This means your Customer Success Team can send out automated text messages from directly inside your HubSpot account.

Specifically, I have four automated texting workflows that I suggest you test out for your Customer Success Team. Let me show you how.

Text #1: The Hand-off to CS Text

Customer Success Teams often pick up where the Sales Team leaves off.

Sales Teams sell a customer on all the benefits of your product or service. Then the CS team steps in to deliver on all those promises, by showing the customers how to use the product or service.

To make this transition as smooth as possible, I suggest your Customer Success Team send an automated text to welcome that customer as soon as the sales team closes the deal.

I call it the “handoff text,” because it officially passes that customer from the Sales Team onto the Customer Success Team.

This automated text makes the new customer feel valued and confident in their decision to go with your business.

To test this out, set up a HubSpot workflow to trigger an automated text message 10 minutes after your Sales Team closes a deal.

This text message should be a personal, friendly message directly from your CS Manager. You might add a photo of your CS Manager to that text, or even a GIF of your CS Manager waving.

Example text:
“Welcome aboard, [Customer Name]! I’m [Name], your Customer Success Manager. We’re excited to have you with us! Here’s what you can expect next…”

Text #2: The Onboarding Welcome Text

Your Customer Success Team’s job begins the moment a new customer purchases your product or service. So why not start the onboarding process right away?

A strong onboarding process helps your customers get up to speed quickly, so they can start getting value from your product or service as fast as possible.

That helps cut down on refunds and improve retention in the long-run.

With this automated text, you can start onboarding your customers immediately after they buy. This simple onboarding text accomplishes a few goals:

1. Welcomes the new customer.
2. Introduces the new CS Manager.
3. Makes the new customer feel supported, by offering assistance.

If you already have an onboarding workflow inside HubSpot, just add this text message to your existing workflow. Or you can build this workflow from scratch in a few minutes.

Either way, it only takes seconds to use Salesmsg’s platform to add this automated text message to the workflow.

Example text:
“Hi [Customer Name], welcome to [Company]! I’m [Your Name], your point of contact. Feel free to text me back at this number if you have any questions.

Text #3: The Activation Reminder Text

Even new, excited customers won’t always take the necessary steps to get started.

That’s why Customer Success Teams focus on onboarding and activating a new customer’s product or service.

Sometimes that might mean going through a special training, kick-off call, or other educational resource. Sometimes that may mean actually setting up the account or tailor-fitting your product to match that particular customers’ needs.

In any case, your customers will need reminders to meet with your team to take care of these essential tasks.

With this activation text, your customers will get the reminder to stay on track to complete overdue tasks to start using your product or service.

To set this up inside HubSpot, you can create a workflow with an if/then branch to check if the customer has completed that key task. If they have, they won’t receive the text. If they haven’t—they automatically will get a short text reminder like this:

Example text:
“Hi [Customer Name], just a quick reminder to book your kickoff call. Click here to find a time: [Link]. Looking forward to getting started!”

Text #4: The Reduce Refunds Text

Your CS team can actively stop customers from refunding, with just a text message.

Here’s how: First, your team needs to recognize which customers are at risk of refunding (or churning).

I suggest using either HubSpot or a tool like Arrows to track your customers’ overall health score. Then you’ll be able to see inside HubSpot if your customers’ are trending towards refunding.

When a certain customer gets into the “red,” it means they are likely to refund.

Inside HubSpot, you can set up a workflow to automatically fire off a text message from your Customer Success Team when a customer dips into the red.

From a customer’s perspective, it will appear as if your CS team reached out one-on-one to see if they’re having any problems—just at the time when they’re not using the product.

This kind of next-level service alone can save a customer from refunding. This one text also opens up a dialogue and gives your customer time to voice any concerns.

By sending a text message (instead of an email or phone call), you’re likely to actually reach that customer before they refund.

To set this up, create a workflow inside HubSpot that monitors your customers' health scores. Use Salesmsg to trigger an automated text message when a customer's health turns red.

By automating this text, your team will never forget to reach out—and accidentally lose a customer that way.

Want your CS team to try this?

If you’re already a Salesmsg and HubSpot user, I encourage you to set up these four automated workflows right now.

It may be as simple as adding one text message to the workflows you already have set up. Just test them and see how they work for your Customer Success Team.

Not a Salesmsg customer yet? Sign up for a 14-day free trial right here.

Or ask our sales team to give you a guided tour of Salesmsg.