Plan requirement
| Subscription | Any plan |
| Access | Admin |
Text messages run alongside voice on a Talk number, with rules about consent that differ by country.
Set it up
- Open Admin Center, then Channels, then Talk and email, then Talk.
- On the Lines tab, edit a number that supports SMS and choose Configure this number for Text at the bottom of its settings.
- On the Text page under Channels, set what happens to incoming messages: which group, which greeting.
- Send a test message and confirm a ticket appears.
Zendesk calls the SMS channel Text, and it sits under Messaging and social in the navigation rather than next to Talk.
It also works the other way round. Under Channels, then Messaging and social, then Text, the Numbers tab has Add number, where icons show which numbers can do calls, SMS and MMS. A number bought there is enabled for voice with Enable for Talk. Same number either way; start from whichever channel you already have.
You cannot try it first
Text is not available on a trial account or in a sandbox. So this is one of the few things you cannot rehearse before it is live, and the first real test is a real message on a real number.
If you send to consumers in the United States there is a second gate: the business has to be registered for A2P 10DLC first, and until it is, every text is blocked rather than merely delayed. Tell us before you plan a campaign that way, because the registration takes time.
Not every number can
Text support depends on the number type and the country. A voice number that cannot receive text is common, and it is a property of the number rather than a setting you can enable.
Consent and opting out
Sending texts to customers is regulated, and the rules differ by country. Two things hold nearly everywhere: people have to have agreed, and there has to be a way to stop.
Opt-out keywords are recognised automatically, and you do not configure them. STOP, STOPALL, UNSUBSCRIBE, CANCEL, END and QUIT all unsubscribe the sender, who gets a confirmation saying they will receive no further messages from that number. They come back with START, YES or UNSTOP.
Before you write a message: a customer who replies "stop" to a delivery notice has opted out of everything from that number, not just that notice.
Where it is genuinely useful
- Short confirmations where the customer is not at a computer.
- Time-sensitive notices, such as an engineer arriving.
- A verification code.
For conversations, WhatsApp or messaging is generally better and cheaper. Text is for short, one-way, immediate.
Each message costs
Charging is per segment, not per message. A segment is 160 characters, or 70 as soon as the message contains an emoji or any other non-standard character. So one emoji in a template can more than double what a campaign costs. Check that before automating anything at volume.
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