Thryv gives you the ability to communicate with your customers in a way that is convenient for them! This article will show you how simple it is to communicate with your Thryv customers through SMS (short message service) messages. If you haven't already, the first thing you need to do is register your landline to send SMS messages, or use Thryv to acquire a number used for SMS. Read this article to learn how.
Article Contents:
Starting The Conversation
There are several ways to start a conversation with your clients in Thryv. First, there is a quick action for sending a message by default on your Thryv Dashboard. First, click on Send Message, then select your client. After clicking Continue, click on Text Message (SMS) at the top. (Note: If the button does not turn green and allow you to click, it means there is not a mobile number saved for this client and you will not be able to send them SMS messages).
Alternatively, you can navigate to Clients>Select your client and you can send a message from Conversation in their client card.
SMS is also great for responding to incoming leads or other incoming messages from your website or client portal. Navigate to your Inbox and click on the new conversation to respond to it.
Switching to SMS
By default, a new conversation will be set to email your messages to your clients (the only exception is if the client was created by a text to your registered landline). At the bottom of the conversation, click on the envelope icon. A menu will pop up allowing you to switch seamlessly between SMS and email messages. SMS Messages are limited to 550 characters. When you switch to SMS, a character counter will appear next to the SMS icon advising you of how many characters have been used.
Note: If you have not registered your landline to send SMS messages to customers, at this point you will be prompted to do so.
To more easily send a long message, you are able to bring up a larger window by clicking the Expand icon
A larger window will appear to send your message. Once you've finished typing, you can collapse or send your message.
As long as you remain on the same client card, their incoming messages will appear automatically, with no need to refresh your screen! (The inbox still needs to be refreshed to see incoming messages). Switching to SMS from email will not start a new conversation. All conversations with that client will appear in one thread, preventing you from having to do the tedious work of remembering which clients contacted you by which method!
Best Practices:
- Pay attention to the icons under your clients' messages. An envelope indicates they are contacting you via email, while a speech bubble means text. This is a good indicator of the way your clients prefer to be contacted.
- Sending SMS messages from the Conversation in the Client Card should not be used for promotional messages, in order to comply with the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), which requires all clients to double opt-in for promotional messages. Read this article for more details.
- SMS can be a useful tool for sending announcements and offers to your clients. This is best done on the Marketing tab. Read this article to learn more!
- You can add a field to your contact form for clients to indicate the method they prefer to be contacted. Read this article for details.
