Proactive SMS

Proactive SMS is the outbound messaging channelClosed A way for contacts to interact with agents or bots. A channel can be voice, email, chat, social media, and so on. in Personal Connection (PC). You can use it to send one-way SMS (text) messages to contacts in a calling list. Proactive SMS can be agentless—that is, set up to use a standalone agentlessClosed Contacts made without a live agent for tasks such as one-way delivery of information or messages.. skillClosed Used to automate delivery of interactions based on agent skills, abilities, and knowledge. Alternatively, you can add Proactive SMS as part of the contact strategy on an agent skill.

Several departments at Classics, Inc., use Proactive SMS as part of their communication strategy:

  • Dorothy Gale, the manager of the Oz contact center, uses Proactive SMS to send notices to all agents when a bonus shift becomes available due to an agent's PTO or illness. Her message is completely different every time and requires no agent involvement.
  • Hercule Poirot, who leads the Internal Affairs department, uses this feature to notify his field investigators that the department has received a new tip. His message is exactly the same every time, and requires no agent involvement.
  • Tom Sawyer runs one of the services contact centers at Classics. His agents make outbound voice calls to sell fence painting services to existing customers. When an agent reaches an answering machine, the next step in the cadence sends a text message to the customer's cell phone where available. Tom's message is largely the same each time, but uses variables from the calling list for personalization. Sending the message requires no agent involvement. However, customers can reply to the message and these replies are routed to agents for handling.

Key Facts About Proactive SMS

  • PC manages do not call (DNC) lists for SMS just like it does for voice. For instance, if a contact responds to a message with "STOP", the system adds the contact to the default business unitClosed High-level organizational grouping used to manage technical support, billing, and global settings for your CXone environment DNC list unless you have your CXone Account Representative select a specific DNC group in the SMS registration.
  • When you use Proactive SMS with agent skills, you can set SMS as a destination within the skill cadence. This is the approach used by Tom Sawyer in the preceding example. However, your agents won't be able to handle responses to your outbound SMS messages unless you purchase the SMS channel solution. Ask your CXone Account Representative for details.
  • When you use Proactive SMS with an agentless skill, you first create a template message. Then you merge each calling list record with the template. You can use variables mapped to the calling list fields so that each message is personalized. Once the skill is started, messages are delivered until each recipient on this list has received a message.
  • You can set up Proactive SMS to use either CXone SMS Messaging or one of our other SMS solutions. The advantage of CXone SMS Messaging is that it's a regular ACD channel (similar to chat).
  • Opt-out (stop) and opt-in (start) messages for toll-free numbers are subject to FCC regulation at the carrier level. They cannot be changed via CXone since they would be rewritten by the carrier providing the toll-free number.
  • You can create SMS templates in Arabic. Templates can support both right-to-left (RTL) and left-to-right (LTR) text.

SMS Registrations

To use a Proactive SMS or CXone SMS Messaging campaignClosed A grouping of skills used to run reports., you must first contact your CXone Account Representative to set up a transport code for you and to assign SMS registrations for the code. You can have either long or short transport codes. The type of code you need depends on your planned usage. Your CXone Account Representative can help you determine the type of transport code you need. Once your SMS registrations are set up, your account manager will give you specific information that you'll need to configure Proactive SMS skills. You can view the SMS registrations available for your business unit in CXone at ACD > Contact Settings  >  SMS Registrations.

A long transport code is a dedicated 10-digit telephone number that can carry limited traffic. In some cases, long codes carry a maximum of five messages per second. They cost less to provision than short codes and take approximately 5-7 days to set up.

A short transport code is a 5-digit premium dedicated number service that large-scale mobile messaging campaigns or brands often use. Short codes can take 12 or more weeks to provision.

Transport codes can be numeric or alphanumeric. Numeric transport codes only contain numbers. Alphanumeric transport codes contain a mix of letters and numbers.