Zendesk Talk allows you to respond to inbound text messages, automate alerts, or send proactive messages. For example, you can send an automated text response when a customer submits a request or alert an agent via text when a ticket needs attention (for example, see Text recipes).
Texts automatically create tickets in Zendesk Support so you can apply all the advantages of automated workflows, centralized reporting, and full customer history to text support. There’s no coding or additional software required, so you and your team can get started in minutes.
Text message support includes:
- You can send text messages of up to 160 characters in length.
- If you type a longer message, it will be split into multiple messages, each 153 characters in length. For example, if you type a message of 161 characters, it will be split into two messages; one of 153 characters, and one of 8 characters.
- You can send up to 250 simultaneous text messages from the same number. If you exceed this amount, messages will no longer be sent, and you'll see a warning that the message was rejected by the provider.
- Text does not support shortcodes or alphanumeric sender IDs.
- You can receive inbound MMS messages on US local numbers, but Text does not currently support outbound MMS messages.
To learn about the supported countries, and prices for Text, see Zendesk Text number availability and pricing.
This article covers the following topics to help you set up Text:
Choosing a text number
You set up a new Text number in Admin Center.
To choose a text number
- In Admin Center, click Channels > Messaging and social .
- Click Text, then follow the instructions in Adding and managing Text numbers.
If your team uses another SMS provider and you want to use that number for Text, you can port over your existing phone number from the other provider. For more information see, Porting numbers for Zendesk Talk or contact the Zendesk Customer Service team.
Sending an inbound text
Now that you’ve started with Text, send a test text from a mobile to your new Text number. You’ll see that your text automatically creates a ticket in your Zendesk Support account. Public replies in the ticket will send a text back to you.
The following example shows the texts the customer sees on their phone.
Automating an outbound text
When you’ve received and responded to an inbound text, you can set up an automated outbound text using a trigger.
The following example shows a trigger that responds to text messages with a standard message.
The standard message that customer then sees as a personalized text on their phone. For more help creating Text triggers, see Automating SMS support with Text triggers.
27 comments
Jen K.
What condition/action needs to be added to the trigger, so that the end-user doesn't repeatedly receive the auto-reply message in a text conversation?
https://share.getcloudapp.com/E0uKAo58
1
Matt
If multiple replies are going out on the same ticket, I would advise adding a "Status is New" condition to the trigger to allow it to only send messages on newly received tickets. You could then include an action that sets the ticket status to Open on that trigger, nullifying the conditions.
If you are still having issues, please let me know and we can look to open up a ticket and look more closely at your account.
Best,
1
Alexia Petrakos
What are the rules regarding SMS? If a customer gives us their phone number or calls in, are we allowed to text them back or do we need express permission? How is permission received with ZD?
0
Neil
Specifically for the SMS channel there is no general rule in place.
The way you will handle your end-user data would be in-line to what are is required by the governing body of the area where business operates.
You can check on this article to know more on Complying with Privacy and Data Protection Law in Zendesk Support.
0
Andrew
Hi I'm trying to find the instructions for sending a single outbound SMS text message and just can't seem to find it anywhere? It's possible to do isn't it?
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Brett Bowser
You may need to create a trigger that sends out these proactive text messages. I would recommend taking a look at the following article for more information: Text Notifications with triggers
I hope this helps point you in the right direction!
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Andrew
thanks Brett I was able to find it myself after some digging earlier but your response is much appreciated!
Actually I have a different question regarding CSAT ratings specifically with regards to our in App messaging system, we already have CSAT enabled for other messaging channels via facebook etc. emails/webform/chats and those are working fine - but tickets created from our App are not included in ratings because there is no prompt to rate the ticket afterwards so I'm not sure where to find out how to configure/enable this in zendesk or if it requires help from our app developer somehow? I was guessing zendesk should be able to do this on it's own after tickets are solved to send a prompt for a rating, but for some reason only our App tickets don't get rating requests - can you point me in the right direction? Thanks
0
Brett Bowser
If it's not working on some of your tickets then I would recommend taking a look at your CSAT trigger or automation to see if there's any conditions that are preventing it from sending.
Keep in mind that these triggers will only send the survey via email to the user so if there's no email channel associated with your app then you may want to get your developers involved so they can set up another way for users to submit their feedback within the App.
I hope this helps!
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Allen
Does this feature create one ticket for each phone number? If a contact has regular inquiries that span over a long time, does it stay within the same ticket number? If so, how would we separate the communications and different tickets?
2
Hiedi Kysther
Hi Allen,
There is no way to thread an SMS message to a ticket, it's not like email where there is extra information so you can thread it to the right ticket.
The way the message is sent in the above is to fire a trigger that sends the SMS message. So to handle SMS messages their response will find the existing open SMS ticket or it will make a new SMS ticket. But each user should have only 1 open SMS ticket.
0
Anais
Hi, Is this still true?
I just did a few tests:
I would love to know the exact limits so I can advise our agents. Thanks
0
Christine
The SMS limitation is still the same as outlined in this documentation.
I created a ticket on your behalf so I can investigate the issue more. Kindly check your email for updates. Thanks!
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Nádia H.
Hey there Zendesk team!
I have 2 questions:
1) Let's say we have a ticket with an email thread, is it possible to send a SMS on that same ticket thread? As we do phone calls, for instance? Or does a new ticket need to be opened?
2) Additionally, once we get a reply, would that be integrated on the same ticket?
Thanks in advance!
0
Shannon Kertis
Yes, it is possible to reply via SMS on an email ticket! It will require a trigger recipe and a custom checkbox field setup. Please see this article for full details: How can I send a text to customers on a ticket that originated in a non-SMS channel?
If you do receive an SMS reply to the trigger notification, it will create a separate SMS channel ticket. This is because you are not switching the original channel of the ticket, rather the SMS was sent via business rule. Since SMS traffic is meant to be inbound, you can merge the two tickets together when this scenario occurs. Hope that helps!
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Bryan Haeussler
Is it possible to determine which phone number was sent an SMS message within Support or through the API?
1
Beto
Hello Bryan, thank you for your question!
Unfortunately, this is not an information that you could easily find on the ticket, or the ticket events, but! In the Admin Centre, you can head over to Channels > Text and go to the History tab, where you should be able to find the SMS history for your account. In there, you can see to which of your Lines the Texts were sent to.
For more information on this, you can review this article: Reviewing Text history.
I hope this was helpful!
0
Philani Hlatshwayo
Hello Zendesk
Do you have a solution for outbound bulk SMSs as a system?
0
Destiny
Could you provide a bit more clarity on what you mean by "outbound bulk SMS as a system"? If you're referring to the capability to send mass outbound text messages, I must inform you that Zendesk currently does not support this feature. For further information, you can check out this support article: Can I use Zendesk to send mass text messages?.
However, if you meant something else, please don't hesitate to elaborate further so we can provide the most relevant recommendations. Thank you!
0
Philani Hlatshwayo
The link provided in your response was more than useful. Thanks, Destiny!
0
Danielle
Are there better visuals of the agent experience using Text in Agent Workspace? To my understanding we cannot test Text with a Talk Trial. In that case, it would be really helpful to have a video walkthrough of the workflow of an agent using Text in Zendesk. Can you please help to point me in the right direction? My searches have not been successful. Thank you
0
Shannon Kertis
I do see you submitted a Support request regarding this issue so please be on the lookout for my reply so we can work more closely together getting this set up for you. Talk to you soon!
0
Brian Chapman
Why doesnt the sms screen have a send button like the chat screen does?
0
Chris Smith
Is there a trick to making the SMS number clickable on mobile devices?
0
Destiny
Thank you for reaching out with your question about making SMS numbers clickable on mobile devices relating to the Zendesk platform.
Currently, Zendesk does not offer a built-in feature specifically for making SMS numbers clickable in the same way that telephone links work. However, there might be some creative workarounds that could be implemented depending on the context in which you want the SMS number to be clickable.
One common method is to use standard HTML anchor tags with the
href
attribute set tosms:
followed by the phone number. This would look something like<a href="sms:+1234567890">Send a Message</a>
. This can create a clickable link that, when tapped on a mobile device, would open the default messaging app with the number pre-filled.Please note that this approach's effectiveness can vary based on the device, browser, or email client being used, and it may not always function as intended within all aspects of the Zendesk interface.
I encourage you to share this question with the Zendesk community or other support forums, as other users may have found innovative solutions and could offer alternative suggestions. In the meantime, if the clickable SMS functionality is critical for your operations, you might need to explore external tools or integrations that provide this feature more robustly.
If you find a solution that works well for you, or if you have further questions, please feel free to share your findings or reach out again.
0
Chris Smith
Trying to find instruction on including a pdf file in an SMS response to an end user (customer). Anyone have any information on this?
0
Arianne Batiles
Hi Chris Smith
Based on this article, you can receive inbound MMS messages on US and CA numbers. Zendesk Text doesn't support outbound MMS messages. For more information, see the article: Getting started with Text.
As a workaround, you can send outbound SMS messages that contain a URL guiding recipients to an internet-hosted image.
0
Ronit Gieske
Two questions regarding SMS Texts:
1. We noticed that there is no option to reply back via email if customer initiates query via SMS Text channel. Is there a workaround? Or does it require that we create a new email ticket if we want to email customer instead
2. We have agent signature and universal signature enabled and these show up in our text replies when we reply back via text on an existing email ticket. This behavior is not the case when responding to a SMS ticket that was initiated/originated from the customer only if we reply back using a “Proactive Text” trigger which includes a Notify by text Action. Is there a way to have signatures removed so texts actually look like texts and not emails that have been texted?
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