Setting Up SMS / Text Message Replies

Question:

I sent an SMS message through my CERVIS console yesterday and I had a volunteer tell me today that they replied to the text with a question and never heard back. I never received the reply text from the volunteer. Why is that?

Answer:

Volunteers cannot reply to the SMS messages that are sent through your console unless you specifically configure your settings to allow them to do so.

First, you must configure your CERVIS console to send SMS messages through a second party provider (Twilio) by following the steps in the knowledge base article HERE.

Once you have SMS configured in your console, you can set up your system to receive a notification when someone replies to your SMS number. The system will then send an email with the SMS information to your primary organization email and primary contact email any time someone sends an SMS to your Twilio number.

To set up the reply functionality, login to your Twilio account and set the “A Message Comes In” field to:

https://www.cervistech.com/acts/sms_response.php?provider=twilio&org_id=xxxx

NOTE: You must replace the “xxxx” at the end of the URL with your Organization ID that can be found in your System Configuration under the “Organization Information” section.

The reply email that you receive will look similar to the example below: