Sending SMS to remind customers of upcoming meetings

[tchalklen]

Hi - I have found what looks like a good SMS app from the marketplace, since HubSpot don't seem to be minded to build this in natively -(:0)

The requirement is to send an SMS via this app to the contact to remind them of an upcoming meeting. 

To be clear, I am NOT talking about the Meetings function within Sales, I am referring to when a Meeting is booked with a Contact in the CRM. Using the "Meet" icon and which then appears in the Activity Timeline. 

I have searched around and cannot find any property that I could use to then create a List which would then trigger a workflow - e.g. "All Contacts that have an Upcoming Meeting within the next 48 hours". 

Anyone help resolve this?

Thanks in advance

Tim

[mikevark]

We had a very similar frustration and issue with needing to send SMS reminders and not being able to do it effectively.

We found that the best cadence for an SMS reminder workflow to reduce no-shows was:

• 5 minutes after the meeting is booked - send an SMS introducing the rep to the prospect.
• 24 hours before the meeting
  • If the attendee has confirmed - send an SMS reminder.
  • If the attendee has NOT confirmed - let them know you noticed they haven't confirmed the calendar invite and ask if you're still on for tomorrow.
• 1 minute before meeting - tell them you're jumping on and looking forward to chatting and include a link with meeting details.

The above sequence dramatically reduced our no-show rate and we found we had much higher-quality meetings.

Hubspot is great but doesn't have that functionality so we built the app that we wished existed. My team and I come from a marketing and sales background so we had a lot of fun building it from the ground up to reduce no-shows.

Here's a video if you want an overview of the platform. This is for the new version that we're about to release. I'd definitely love any feedback from the community!

https://vark.io/video

[kvlschaefer]

Thank you for sharing, @mikevark!

[John260]

This app does exactly this.    It pulls phone numbers from your Hubspot contacts, syncs w/ your Google/Outlook calendar and sends out sms/text reminders prior to your meetings.

https://ecosystem.hubspot.com/marketplace/apps/sales/scheduling/greminders-918950

[kvlschaefer]

Thanks for sharing, @John260! 

[JDundas]

Hi, @tchalklen!

Have you considered using a contact center solution that integrations with HubSpot for SMS? Aloware is a great piece of software for this. It has a two way sync with HS and allows you to do basic business SMS, bulk SMS and SMS sequences which will help you with your use case. Please get back to me if you would like to know more or want to setup a meeting so I can demo our software.

Best Regards,
Jeff 

[PamCotton]

Hello @tchalklen,

Thank you for posting your question in the Community, based in your goal, I would recommend that you can create an automation with a workflow based on (centered the "Date of last meeting booked" ) property, you will be able to configure the workflow to execute actions before the scheduled meeting time. ( More information here ) * For access to Workflows is required a Pro or Enterprise paid subscription.

I will also be tagging some of our subject matter experts, @darynsmith, @StefaniUAT, @himanshurauthan would you like to add your thoughts in @tchalklen  question?

Thank you,

Pam

[tchalklen]

Thanks Pam

I can see the logic of this, but my problem is that we are not using the "Meetings Tool" to allow customers to book a time with our sales team. 

We are setting up a Meeting in the Contact Record using the "Meet" function as this puts an entry into our sales rep calendar as well as sending a calendar invite to the prospect. 

I cannot see where to access the date of this meeting so it can be used in lists, or workflows, etc. 

[StefaniUAT · Accepted solution]

Hello @tchalklen ,

I did a little research and tried a few options and could not find a solution. However, I just read that the HubSpot's Meeting Tool is free?! @PamCotton Is this true?

If so, the HubSpot meetings tool is a much better option for booking meetings and allows you to trigger texts. Once integrated with your calendar, the Meetings tool will indeed create an entry into your sales representative's calendar, send the attendee an invite, and can trigger automatic reminders. We used to use the log meetings tool in conjunction with calendar integration. However, once the meetings tool came out, we immediately switched to using it. The Book Meetings option can be included in email signatures, CTAs, and more. We saw a HUGE uptick in scheduled meetings because it allows the potential customer to schedule meetings right then and there without the sales representative having to book it. I believe the tool will not show availability if it is marked busy on the sale's representatives calendar and your representatives can set their business hours, availability, preferred meeting lengths, etc. 

We also use a Teams Meeting Link. This way, if we have not spoken to a potential customer before and they book an appointment through the Book Meetings option for Saturdays and we only have 2 representatives working Saturdays, they are given the option of booking a meeting with a representative who has Saturday Availability. If the potential customer already has a representative and you want the default calendar to be their contact owner's, you can do that as well. 

[mooney]

Hi @StefaniUAT 

In response to your statement "the HubSpot meetings tool is a much better option for booking meetings and allows you to trigger texts" how did you setup to send a text reminder? I see you posted this over 1 year ago and was thinking maybe HubSpot removed this feature since then bc I only see where we are able to send email reminders.

[PamCotton]

Hi @StefaniUAT,

Thank you for helping @tchalklen.

Confirming your question, and yes the meetings tool is available for all products and plans.

Kindly,

Pam

[tchalklen]

Thanks both for replying

This doesn't work for our use case. Ours is not a business where we would get customers to book via the meetings tool.

I don't understand why there is no way to access the date of a meet set up against the contact record. I am beginning to realise that HubSpot is quite immature as a CRM

[PamCotton]

Hi @tchalklen,

If meetings are being logged manually rather than via a user's meeting link, you could choose a different enrollment trigger for a workflow.

In this case, there is an option for "At least one associated activity has Activity type that is any of Meeting" enrollment trigger.

This way, contacts/companies/deals are enrolled when a Meeting activity is logged on a contact, company, or deal record. 

I would highly recommend you to please post this idea at our ideas forum (here).

Our product team, who monitors the forum regularly, can read your specific use case and understand why this would be a useful functionality or change. It also helps other customers facing the same issue to advocate for its implementation on your behalf by upvoting on the thread as well.

Kindly,

Pam

[tchalklen]

@PamCotton - thans very much. That almost gets me there, as I didn't know about the Activity Type parameter.  However, I can't see how to set the logic to determine if the meeting is, for example, 2 days from today as the only options seem to be setting a fixed date which would need manually adjusting every day. 

I got contacts enrolled though and did another If/Then to check the date of the meeting and success thus far. I will post the suggestion into the ideas forum, thanks

Tim

[StefaniUAT]

@tchalklen 

Based on what Pam had mentioned, I thought of a possible workaround. I have never tried this before and there are many variables that can affect the Next Activity Date, but it worth a try.

Possible Solution:

Create a date property centered workflow with the date property being "Next Activity Date". Set the enrollment triggers to Activity Type is any of Meeting and Meeting Outcome is unknown. You can set adjust the delay to send a text 2 days (or however long) before the next activity date, which should be the meeting. 

Example:

[tchalklen]

Thanks @StefaniUAT - I have set this workflow up with a small change to check that the Meeting Outcome is "Scheduled" and it has tested OK in test mode.

I've set a couple of meetings up with test contacts for this Friday and next Monday and made the workflow live so fingers crossed it will provide the solution that the sales manager is looking for!

I'll update in a couple of days

Tim

[StefaniUAT]

@tchalklen,

Fingers crossed! The only thing I am apprehensive about is the fact that there are many factors that could affect the Next Activity Date. HubSpot's wording:

Next activity date: the date of the next upcoming activity for a contact. This is set automatically by HubSpot based on user actions in the contact record. This includes logging a future call, sales email, meeting, scheduling a future meeting, or scheduling a task to be done in the future.

Hopefully, the meeting will enroll them into the workflow immediately and keep them in the workflow for the specified date, even if a new task or activity is set.