Yes, you heard me! You can now sync your Microsoft Outlook contacts with Microsoft Teams through Falkon SMS.
Here is how you can start texting your Outlook contacts in three easy steps:
01. Get Falkon SMS for your Microsoft Teams
The first step to adding SMS to your Microsoft is getting your number registered on Falkon SMS. It is imperative to book a meeting with Falkon team to understand if you are eligible to start texting right away through Teams. Depending on where you buy calling plans to call from Teams, this process can vary. Most Microsoft Teams users tend to buy calling plans from Microsoft for external calling. However, the users that are aware about direct routing providers are known to opt for these third-party calling providers for calling – as they are much more affordable yet provide quality calling for Microsoft teams users.
If you are on Microsoft calling plans, the number can be text-enabled – only after porting it to direct routing provider for calling. This is due to restrictions from Microsoft to not allow third-party SMS solutions to enable texting for their numbers. Once these numbers are synced to any other provider than Microsoft for calling plans, enabling texting is the easy part.
If you are using any other VoIP provider (direct routing or operator connect), we skip the porting step. Hence, we can start text-enabling numbers straight away. That means you start sending SMS from Microsoft Teams in less than 10 minutes!
Once you are onboard Falkon SMS and you can install Falkon in your MS Teams by clicking on ‘Apps’ on the side navigation, followed by searching for ‘Falkon SMS’ in the app store and adding to Teams.
You are just a step away from texting your MS Outlook contacts.
02. Sync your Outlook contacts with Falkon SMS
Go to the web version of Falkon SMS, and click on ‘Contacts’ in the side navigation. Clicking on ‘Import Contacts’ next would open up a screen with an option to ‘Import from Outlook’.
Once you click on ‘Connect’, you will be prompted to sign in to your Microsoft account. After you sign in, you will have all your Outlook contacts successfully imported to start texting.
03. Start texting your Outlook contacts
Now that we have all your Outlook contacts imported in Falkon, you can go to the ‘Contacts’ section of the app from the side navigation. Find any of your Outlook contact you want to text by typing their name in the Search bar. You can sort and filter by ‘Source’ to find your Outlook contacts even faster. Click on any of the contacts and start texting.
Schedule, Broadcast and Automate your texts to Outlook contacts
I know, I know. You did not ask for anything fancy or advanced. You simply wanted an easy way to text your Outlook contacts. But while you are texting, it doesn't hurt to know what more you can do with your texting – or can you do it even better? Let’s find out.
Let’s explore how we can explore the full range of features to maximize your reach to your Outlook contacts through SMS.
Schedule texts to your Outlook contacts
Whether it’s for regular follow-ups with your leads (sales), nurturing potential clients with select texts every week (marketing) or some kind of monthly reminders (customer service), scheduling your text messages can save a lot of your time.
You can streamline a part of your work by scheduling these regular sends to your stakeholders. Coupling this with the templates and group broadcasts, it can be a gamechanger for your business.
Broadcast texts to your Outlook contacts
Sending a particular text to a list of Outlook contacts is a piece of cake. All you need to do is create a group of these Outlook contacts, save the SMS template (in case you need to use it again later), and simply broadcast it in a few clicks: “Broadcast message” > Choose the desired template> Click send.
Automate texts to your Outlook contacts
Out of office? Create an auto-reply from ‘Automation rules’ and send a pre-defined SMS whenever someone texts your number in the set duration. [Example: “Hey, I am out of office till Thursday. I will reach out to you on Friday at the earliest possible.”]
What’s more, you can even set up keyword replies – when someone sends you a text with a specific keyword in it, you can send them a desired pre-defined SMS. Suppose, you set a pre-defined SMS for a keyword ‘Special’. Any sender sending you a text with the keyword ‘special’ in it will be automatically sent that pre-defined SMS. [Example: “Hey there, use this special coupon “SAVE50” to get up to 50% discounts on spending over $200.”]
Why should you send texts to your Outlook contacts
We are aware of emails getting lost in the inbox. Despite emails being the official tool for communication, urgent situations demand for a better way. Texting has been a proven medium to get quick responses from your recipients. With around 98% open rates, you can be sure of your texts getting opened by your Outlook contacts.
In addition to being the fastest way to reach and get responses from your recipients, we can do much more with advanced features of Falkon SMS. Firms have started using Falkon SMS as a mini-CRM tool as it offers valuable use cases in every department including sales, marketing and customer service. Once efficiently set up for your own needs, it could save a lot of time and money for you.
Falkon SMS for texting your Outlook contacts
We have an exclusive team of marketing consultants who can help you craft a SMS strategy for your business. Some clients have benefitted from our teams helping them see the real-time implementations. We helped them setting up the infrastructure in such a way that they do not have to spend much time fiddling with the features but a few clicks could to the work for them.
Some of the most popular use cases for texting your Outlook contacts would be: using group broadcasts for special SMS campaigns, crafting pre-defined templates for regular use, setting up automated responses for campaign keywords, utilising shared inbox for effective customer service and much more.
Conclusion
Emails tend to get lost and missed very often. Texting has shown much better results in getting better open rates and quicker responses. The ease of use and convenience to respond are some of the reasons people prefer texting for urgent matters.
Utilising texting to reach your Outlook contacts could be a game changer as it could help you broadcast messages, schedule important reminders, automate your responses and much more. You can craft useful strategies according to your needs with Falkon marketing experts with the advanced features doing the work for you.
Firms have started using SMS as one of their marketing tools – even acting as a mini-CRM – to get even better results. If you are curious about how SMS can fit in your business setup, you can schedule a discussion with our experts. Happy texting!