Question
How can I send a text to customers on a ticket from a non-SMS channel?
Answer
On tickets where the origin channel is not a Text message, for example, a voicemail or a phone call, Zendesk defaults to sending out public comments via email instead of a text message.
To change this behavior, you can create a workflow with a custom ticket field and a Text trigger. This way your agents can easily automate an SMS reply to their customers instead of sending an email notification.
To create this workflow
- Create a checkbox ticket field and name it Send text and under the Permissions section select Agent Only.
- Add the created checkbox to all the ticket forms your agents use to talk to customers.
-
Create a new trigger that sends text messages if the Send text field is checked.
- Under Meet ALL of the following conditions, add:
- Current user | Is | (agent)
- Send text | Is | Checked
- Comment | Is | Public
- Under Meet ANY of the following conditions, add:
- Ticket | Is | Created
-
Ticket | Is | Updated
Important: If you already have a trigger that allows you to start a conversation with proactive outbound texts, don't use the condition Ticket | Is | Created as this causes a duplicate SMS notification.
- Under Actions, add:
-
Text user | (requester)
From | Your phone number
Body:{{ticket.latest_comment}} - Send text | Is | Unhecked
-
Text user | (requester)
- Under Meet ALL of the following conditions, add:
Now your agents will be able to send SMS by checking the Send text field in the ticketing interface.
For this workflow to function as expected, the customer's profile has to be set up with a Direct line that is SMS-compatible. For more information, see the article: Understanding how Talk calls become tickets.
28 Comments
Don Moser - Does this still work? I've followed the steps you outlined but
{{ticket.latest_comment}}is not listed as an available placeholder.
Hey Ryan! When creating triggers, the options for available placeholders does not contain a full list of placeholders that can be used in that context. For a list of all our placeholders, and where they can be used, you can check out this article: Zendesk Support placeholders reference
While ticket.latest_comment is not listed as an available placeholder, you can still use it!
Got it, thanks Sabra
My organization just set this up and it looks like its working great however I did notice one oddity. It doesn't look like the Events tab on tickets indicates that this trigger is running to send the text. The text is coming through with no issues, but the Events history only shows the email notification being sent and not the SMS trigger I created that I know is working.
Is this expected behavior? Just thinking ahead to future troubleshooting scenarios where it would be handy to know that this SMS trigger ran successfully.
As of the moment, SMS Trigger is not included on ticket events. I definitely understand that this is an essential part when it comes to troubleshooting. Would you mind posting your use case to our Feedback on Support topic? We have a template you can copy and use in your post. Thanks!
Unable to select from any of my 350 phone numbers as the "from" number. only 99 numbers available. I want a toll free number not one of my stores to get back a response from the customer.
I followed the directions here and was able to send an outbound text message. (Yay!) But when the receiver of the message responded, I did not get the response. I was assuming the response would update the ticket. Is there something more I need to do to accomplish that?
To select your Talk number in the "From" action of the trigger, the number has to be SMS capable and the Text feature is enabled on it. Check out this article to enable Text for a Talk number: Managing Talk line settings
@Angie
When you create an outbound text ticket and the customer responds to it, the response will create a new ticket. You can also check this article for more information: Start a text conversation with proactive outbound texts
@Joyce I understand how to set it up. There is a limit apparently in the pull down menu as I can't choose any of my numbers, but only what shows in the pull-down. I don't want customers calling back to the number if it reaches a store, only a toll free that goes to Customer Service. They aren't all available.
I'm going to create a ticket on your behalf so our team can get this resolved for you.
You'll receive an email shortly stating your ticket has been created so feel free to reply back to that with any other information you think may help.
Doing some more setups yesterday and this appears to be remedied. Please solve the ticket. Thanks for your assistance.
Joyce or anyone at the Zendesk team, when I create the Action I cannot add any phone numbers. The drop down just shows a " - " and nothing pops up. How do I resolve this? I completed all steps in this guide, but cannot save it due to the "From" not allowing me to choose or enter anything.
Thanks!
Hi Stark, the phone number on that field needs to be registered as a Text number in your account. You may find this setting at Admin Center > Channels > Text
https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408885904922-Adding-and-managing-Text-numbers
If indeed you have phone numbers registered in Text and still no option to choose from for Trigger action, let me know and I'll raise a ticket on your behalf so we can investigate on your account. Thank you :)
Hi Joyce and team, I'm having a similar issue to Angie above. However, when I send an outbound text in response to a ticket generated by a phone call, no new ticket is being created. That is preventing me from receiving customer texts in response. Can you help me understand why no new tickets are being generated by my SMS trigger?
Your question require some troubleshooting. I have created a ticket where we can continue investigating your request.
Hello I've added this filed and trigger and still have no option to text back even though they call, and I did check the box for that form not sure what i am doing wrong.
Dante
When I use this trigger, users get two responses an SMS message and an email. Is there a way to ensure users only receive text messages?
I have created a Support ticket on your behalf, expect a reply shortly!
Keisha- Yes! Any trigger that notifies the requester of comment update will need the ALL condition added: Send Text | is not | checked. Hope that helps!
Hey Guys, was able to send sms to customers but how do you change the sender name for SMS?
It's currently not possible to change the sender name for SMS. We do not have the control on this.
This question was actually answered by Shannon in this article - following your post for a similar question.
As mentioned, as workaround your customers may register and save your business name and number for any future communication.
I hope this clarifies!
I am really disappointed that this isn't built in native functionality. It's a bit tedious to train agents to go click something special like this to send a text.
I've set this up but doesn't seem like texting via Zendesk platform is working.
It worked once, but then getting "we couldn't deliver this message to XXXXXX" error.
Trigger created
Send text is checked
Again, it worked one time but not subsequent times.
Ideas?
Is there a limit on SMS texts to a single phone number per hour? day?
I agree that it isn't working -- got this error
We couldn't send the message: <message content>
International texting is disabled by default. Contact Zendesk Customer Support if you would like international texting to be enabled.
I am wondering if its possible to configure Zendesk to:
1. Have a tick box for sending as text, and sending via email. Then allow the agent/system to send either email or text, depending on the selection, or sending both email and text at the same time in the same ticket? If not able to send both email/text at same time, if sending a communication via text using the tickbox solution presented in this article, is that text sent in the same ticket even if the ticket had been used for email communication in the past?
2. Having the option to send as a text or email when choosing the communication method in the ticket.
Yes, you can trigger both email and text to be sent in the ticket at the same time. This action depends on how you build your trigger. Usually, for email tickets, the trigger Notify requester and CCs of comment update is the one responsible for sending email notification on ticket updates. To send it via SMS, you will need to create a trigger as described in this article with the
Send Textcustom field added as a condition. When this field is checked, the trigger action to send a text message will fire.In regard to the channel switcher in the composer, the send as Text option will only appear on tickets created via the SMS channel. This channel is not available on tickets created from other channels and the suggested trigger in this article would be the workaround. For the Email channel, this is available in the channel switcher when the end user's profile has an associated email address on it.
I can't believe we have to do all this to reply via text, it seems so intuitive to reply to the number. I've had several tickets were agents just replied to the phone number (without checking the text box) and come to find out the customer newer got the text (without a way for us to really know ie no error massage). This is really a bad solution to what seems to be basic / needed functionality.
Is there a way to just make all customers get the "send text" check automatically, any reason we can't/shouldn't do that?
Anyway I set it up and it seems to be working, but when the user gets the text before the message is a long line of "---------" - what's that about / can I came it go away?
Here's an image of what it looks like for the user.
Appreciate any help making this better for agents and customers, thanks.
As a follow up, I've sometimes, very rarely, seen SMS as an option in the support view, how / why did this happen? (and how can I make it always happen)
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