The problem

Their sales process is highly personal, because people have a lot of questions before they sign up for the program. There is no self-signup, and all sales have to be made by going through their reps, who provide advice on how to make a major life change and what people need to prepare before moving abroad. The company had a high volume of leads coming in, but they were only able to reach out to a small portion of them. They were seeing minimal responses to email and phone calls. Their communication process was also complex because reps were using their personal phone numbers and messaging people using WhatsApp, which made conversations difficult to monitor.

The solution

They started using text as one of the first points of outreach with potential customers in coordination with email outreach software. After filling out a lead form, qualified customers can schedule a call, and those who don’t schedule one receive outbound communication by text. Their outbound efforts have been more successful because people are more likely to respond to a text at this stage. They connect with more leads and qualify them faster, and they are now reaching out to 50 percent of their leads. They still prefer that reps have initial consultations over the phone, but they use text to schedule calls or video chats. Afterwards, reps keep in contact with people primarily by text.