Previewing Apple Messages for Business, RCS and SMS

Updated

Plan requirement

App pluscloud AI Agent Preview
Subscription Suite Team or higher, Support Team or higher
Access Client admin, Client editor, Client user

Apple Messages for Business and SMS appear on an iPhone, RCS in Google Messages on a Pixel. Each turns your AI agent's buttons into what the channel supports.

Open one of these channels

In the toolbar, open Preview channel and choose Apple Messages for Business, RCS Business Messaging or SMS under Text, workplace & other channels. Slack is in the same group and has its own article: Previewing Slack direct messages.

The same conversation of a fictional bike shop on two phones. In the SMS preview on an iPhone, the three options are added to the message as lines of text. In the RCS preview on a Pixel, they appear as suggestion chips under the message.

Apple Messages for Business

  • Quick replies appear as options to tap. Zendesk recommends them for two to five options.
  • Links appear as rich link cards, with what the linked page publishes about itself, such as its title and image. Zendesk notes that this needs Open Graph tags on that page.
  • Postback buttons become text.
  • Carousels and lists become numbered text.

RCS Business Messaging

  • Quick replies appear as suggestion chips under the message. RCS allows up to 11 suggestions of up to 25 characters each.
  • Carousels appear as cards.
  • The text is plain, without bold or headings.

Sunshine Conversations publishes no guide for RCS. The preview follows the message model of Google's RCS Business Messaging, so treat this preview as an indication and check it on a phone before you rely on it.

SMS

  • Quick replies and postback buttons are added to the message as lines of text, with the label of each option.
  • Link buttons and webviews become a label followed by the web address.
  • Carousels and lists become numbered text.
  • Everything added counts towards the length of the message. The preview marks an SMS longer than 1,600 characters, options included, as not delivered.

What these channels share

The customer sends the first message on all three, so the welcome reply is hidden behind a one-line note; click Show to see it dimmed. On-screen keyboard and Dark mode in the preview settings work as on the other phone previews. For every message, the inspector lists what the channel changes under On followed by the channel name. Limits per channel are in Channel limits the preview checks.

See also

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