SMS

SMS is part of Cliedesk Pro. You bring your own Twilio, Vonage or Plivo account; they bill you directly and Cliedesk adds nothing. People with the Manage channels permission (Cliedesk Admins and Owners) set it up.

Text messages become normal conversations. Rules, SLAs, routing and the AI agent work on them as on email and chat. Each number gets a row in Settings → Channels → Channel matrix.

Connect a number

1. Go to Settings → Channels → Messaging and select Connect account.
2. Choose SMS (Twilio), SMS (Vonage) or SMS (Plivo).
3. Enter a Name, your account details (Twilio: Account SID and Auth Token; Vonage: API key, API secret and signature secret; Plivo: Auth ID and Auth Token) and the Sender: your number in international format, for example +15551234567.
4. For a US number, choose the US registration you have (A2P 10DLC, toll-free or short code).
5. Select Save, then Copy URL. Paste the URL at your provider:
   • Twilio: on the number (or Messaging Service), “A message comes in”, HTTP POST.
   • Vonage: the inbound and status URL of your Messages application, with signed webhooks on.
   • Plivo: the message URL of your Plivo application (POST).

Delivery statuses come back by themselves.

Replying

Reply in the conversation as usual. Next to the reply box you see how long the text is and how many SMS it costs, for example “SMS: 320 / 1,600 · 3 SMS”. The counter follows your draft after a short pause. Special characters and emoji make each SMS shorter (70 characters instead of 160). Only the first 1,600 characters go out.

Photos go as MMS to US and Canadian numbers. iPhone photos (HEIC) are changed to JPEG first. Other files go as a link in the text.

A phone number from a text message is not proof of who wrote. Cliedesk never joins an SMS to another customer only because the number matches, and never shows account data because of it.

STOP, START and HELP

Settings → Channels → SMS has the rules every SMS follows.

• A customer who answers STOP (or another opt-out word) gets no more SMS from you. The conversation gets a note, and the customer’s SMS consent is withdrawn. A message to this number fails and says why. The customer can answer START to get messages again. STOP, STOPALL, UNSUBSCRIBE, CANCEL, END, QUIT, REVOKE, OPTOUT and ARRÊT always count; you can add more words, not remove these. When the carrier says a number opted out, it counts too.
• A customer who answers HELP gets your Help text. Leave it empty for a short default with your company name.
• Confirmation after STOP is optional. Twilio, Vonage and Plivo can send their own.

You can change the words. Separate them with commas.

Messages you start

Notices, rules and replies to a customer who did not write in the last 24 hours are messages you start.

• Quiet hours: they wait during the night of the recipient (default 21:00 to 08:00), in the customer’s time zone. If Cliedesk does not know it, it uses every time zone of the number’s country.
• Company name: it starts the message, for example “Acme: Your order has shipped.”
• Opt-out hint: “Reply STOP to opt out.” is added at the end.

Answers to a customer who just wrote go at once.

Checklist

The checklist shows what is set and, for each SMS account, whether the sender is ready. US carriers block business texts from numbers that are not registered: register your brand and campaign (A2P 10DLC), verify your toll-free number or use a short code at your provider, then set US registration on the account.

Some countries, such as the US and Canada, do not accept a sender name instead of a number. Cliedesk does not send there with a name and says why.

Rules and notifications

Rules can text people on your team (“Notify people by SMS”) and send SMS templates. Templates for SMS are ready as soon as you save them. Customers who prefer SMS can get status notices by SMS. All of them follow the STOP list.