Texting Your Way to Sales Efficiency

A new chat widget expands members’ SMS capabilities

By Alan Wolf, YSN

Since the advent of the mobile phone, text messaging (SMS) has surpassed email and voice as the preferred method of communication for today’s generation of home goods shoppers.

That’s why a recent “Tech Tuesday” update from AVB Marketing’s Kate Morris is particularly propitious for BrandSource members. According to the product GM’s animated avatar, a new chat widget, exclusive to AVB Marketing clients, connects the group’s proprietary Alta websites to the text functionality within HUB.

(As a reminder, HUB is the central digital interface that ties together a member’s POS system, website, LINQ merchandising platform, digital price tags and in-store KIOSQs, and provides text and email capabilities.)

“Customers can now come to your website and see a prompt to send an SMS to your store,” virtual Morris explains in the video. “This will open their text messages with your HUB phone number and a link to the page they were browsing on, so you have insight into their shopping journey.”

Upon logging into HUB, members will be notified that they received a customer text, which they can respond to from within HUB and share across their organization using a shared phone number. “Your teammates can see who replied to the customer, and this thread will also show on the customer profile,” she said, driving more efficient sales.

The chat widget video is among the latest in a bi-monthly series of YouTube updates by Morris, which have variously filled members in on:

You can view Morris’s chat widget installment below:

YSN publisher AVB BrandSource is the nation’s largest merchandising and marketing co-op for independent appliance, mattress, furniture and CE dealers.

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