Setting up text messaging

Torqix texts your customers through your own Twilio or Telnyx account, from your own number. Open Settings › Text messaging and work down the page: five numbered steps, one line under each, and the reasons behind a Why? fold. You need the provider account and a number bought in it first — Torqix cannot buy or port a number.

1. 1

   Step 1: Provider

   Choose Twilio or Telnyx. The boxes below change to that provider's. Switching later never changes any customer's permission to be texted.

2. 2

   Step 2: Keys

   For Twilio, paste the Account SID and Auth token from the Twilio Console home page. For Telnyx, the API key and the Webhook public key. Keys are sealed for your shop alone and never shown again — once saved, the screen says Saved, sealed and offers Replace, which opens two empty boxes. Empty boxes keep what is saved.

3. 3

   Step 3: Your number

   Type the number in Sending number with its +1, like +15035550123, and press Save SMS settings. Under it is the address to paste into your provider so replies come back to Torqix — for Twilio, the number's “A message comes in” webhook. Delivery receipts need nothing pasted.

4. 4

   Step 4: Test text

   Type your own mobile in Your mobile and press Send a test text to my phone. It goes through your saved keys and number, exactly the way a customer text reaches the carrier, and the screen shows your provider's answer with the same marks a conversation uses. Check again asks your provider whether the phone's carrier confirmed it.

5. 5

   Step 5: Registration

   Open Before customers can get your texts for the carrier steps, do them in your provider's console, then tick Registration done.

US carrier registration (A2P 10DLC)

US carriers block or filter business texts from ordinary 10-digit numbers that are not registered — on Twilio the failed text says error 30034. Registration happens in your provider's console, in four steps: register a Brand (your legal business name exactly as on the IRS letter, your EIN, address and website); register a Campaign for customer notifications such as repair updates, estimates and appointment reminders, with two sample texts and how customers agree to texts; wait for approval, which for the campaign often takes one to three weeks; then attach your number to the approved campaign. Your provider bills the brand once and the campaign monthly.

When it is approved and your number is attached, tick Registration done. That box is the one thing every texting notice reads: until it is ticked, each conversation shows a one-line Texting isn't registered yet. with the reasons behind Why?, and campaigns show the same warning. Tick it and the notice leaves every conversation of this shop; untick it and it comes back. It is per shop — a second location answers for itself. If you want a record of each step, Log each step (optional) keeps who did what, where and when; logging the last step ticks the box too.

What the test text is, and is not

• It is one fixed sentence. Nothing on the screen changes its words, so it cannot be used to message anybody about anything.
• It is not a customer message: it does not appear in the send log, it does not create a customer, and it reads and writes nobody's permission to be texted.
• Only the last four digits of the number you typed are kept, so you can recognise your own phone.
• Accepted by the provider means your provider took it; Delivered means the phone's carrier confirmed it. A refusal is shown in plain words with the carrier's code — for example a Twilio trial account that can only text verified numbers.
• One test text per shop every thirty seconds. Your provider bills it like any other text.