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We’ve Launched Our Business SMS Texting Feature!

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We’ve Launched Our Business SMS Texting Feature!

Business SMS Texting - VirtualPBX Softphone ExampleBusiness SMS stands as the feature our customers have requested most in the past year. We know SMS texting is important to them and that it’s a key component of many businesses’ marketing plans, so we’re happy to announce that VirtualPBX now offers this capability on several of our plans.

Both our Advanced and Enterprise Plans now offer Business SMS for use in a variety of devices. We’ll cover those capabilities today and complete a quick overview of the other key features available in these plans that are geared toward midsize and larger companies.

Business SMS on a Range of Devices

A variety of phone types can be used with Business SMS. There are options for everyone, including the VirtualPBX Softphone for mobile and desktop and hardware phones of all levels. We want you to have SMS texting ability no matter which device you prefer and which location you do business.

VirtualPBX Softphones

This launch of our Business SMS feature is tied directly to improvements we’ve made in our Softphone Apps for both desktop and mobile devices.

The VirtualPBX Softphone is available on mobile for Android and iOS devices and on desktop for Mac and Windows. These two software applications let you send and receive texts no matter where you’re located. Send texts to your office computer, or take SMS texting with you on your personal mobile device.

For all our Unlimited Minutes Plans customers (which includes Advanced and Enterprise), the desktop version of our softphone is also now available with no additional license fee.

Hardware Phones

SMS Texting on Yealink T4 Series Hardware PhonesIt’s also possible that your hardware phones are able to accept SMS messages. This capability is specific to each device, but it’s fairly easy to check your make and model of phone.

Our pages for the Yealink T23G and Yealink T46S both show in their datasheets that SMS is supported. A quick web search, or a chat with our Support team are both simple ways to find your own datasheets or discover if your phone supports business texting.

Automated Team Management With Webhooks and API

One of the biggest advantages to using Business SMS through a VoIP system is that you can use Webhooks to capture text information for later processing.

Webhooks used in VirtualPBX are easily configured in your Dashboard. When using an automation service like Zapier, for instance, you can have Zapier create a webhook URL that you paste into the appropriate section in the Webhooks setup screen. The setup process is short:

  1. Create a webhook URL in Zapier
  2. Note the URL in your VirtualPBX Webhooks configuration
  3. Modify your Zapier workflow to react to inbound texts

Your Zapier workflow could be used to send a Slack message to a group channel every time a message is received. Or you could log all inbound texts in a Trello board.

VirtualPBX Business SMS Linked With Trello

These types of data transfer allow an entire team to respond to inbound texts. You can configure a single business phone number to receive text messages and then assign communications to an entire team. Your Sales team, for example, would have access to the Slack channel that notifies them of inbound messages that need to be addressed.

This type of connection building can be automated further with use of the VirtualPBX API, which has also been extended to our Advanced and Enterprise customers. The API lets you grab information about your account so you can, for instance, access your list of active devices or create a new webhook outside of our stock Dashboard. Then you can proceed to creating novel connections with your phone service, like posting your new webhook to a tool like Airtable that can track inbound Business SMS text messages that are visible to your team. We’re always here to help your build process as it moves along.

In Addition to Other New VirtualPBX Features

Business SMS has arrived alongside a number of other features we hope you will have the chance to use.

Multiple Auto Attendants Interface - VirtualPBXMultiple Auto Attendants gives your business the opportunity to establish more than one inbound call flow. Your company Main Number can have its own Automated Attendant with a custom greeting and contact options, and other phone numbers like personal DIDs or group numbers (Sales, Services, Marketing) can have custom routing options attached to them too.

Additionally, Dynamic Caller ID gives you the opportunity to display specific company phone numbers according to rules you set for outbound calls. You can match outbound dials by Area Code, for a VirtualPBX Feature Code used during the call, and by regular expression to match full or partial phone numbers. If there’s a match, your chosen phone number will be displayed to the person you have called.

Video Calling will also soon make its way out of our beta test – ready to be used by all Advanced and Enterprise Plan customers. You can complete one-to-one and conference calls between your staff and with customers. Combine video with audio-only calls to accommodate everyone.

Send Your First SMS Message

To begin using Business SMS, speak to our Sales team today to configure your account or start a Free Demo to see it in action. We’re ready to show you the ease of which SMS messages can be sent, received, and automated, in addition to the other new features available for our customers.

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