Team SMS allows a team of Kixie users to all respond to SMS from the same non-agent number (e.g. IVRs, Ring Groups, Queues, unallocated numbers, etc).
Setup Team SMS
You can create your Team SMS rules by navigating to the Manage → Numbers → Team SMS section of the Kixie dashboard.
- Click on the + ADD button to create a Team SMS rule.
- Settings: Name your rule, and set your Agent Assignment Time Limit which controls the amount of time an agent has to reply to the Team SMS thread after initial reply. Upon expiration of the set time - the Team SMS thread will then be accessible by other agents assigned to the Team SMS rule. The default duration is set to 30 minutes.
- Team SMS Rule Hours: You can set the operating hours for the Team SMS rule here, outside of which you can configure an automatic response by selecting an SMS Template or writing your own message.
- Members: Select a team or multiple teams to associate with this Team SMS rule.
- Numbers: Select which number(s) you would like to be associated with this Team SMS rule. A number can only be associated with 1 Team SMS rule at a time, but you can have multiple numbers tied to the same Team SMS rule.
An alternative method of assigning a number to a Team SMS rule is from the Numbers page. Click on the phone number and you should see a drop down menu labeled "Select Team SMS Rule".
Using Team SMS
Once you've created your Team SMS rule with all of the steps outlined above you should be able to start utilizing the feature.
Agents can toggle between the "My SMS" and "Team SMS" tabs in the SMS History section of the Kixie PowerCall extension. By selecting "Team SMS" they'll see all of the message threads their team has access to. By default it's going to show all message threads associated with all Team SMS numbers, but you can also click on the filter dropdown to select a specific Team SMS Inbox.
If a Team SMS thread is locked by a team member there will be a lock icon next to the SMS thread in the Team SMS History. By hovering your mouse over this icon it will tell you who this chat is locked by. If a chat is locked, only that person will be able to respond for a set duration of time. This is to ensure that agents don't accidentally double text someone.
Along with group messaging, there's also an ability to leave internal notes for your teammates within a Team SMS thread. Any team member assigned to the Team SMS number can send an internal note at any time, even if the conversation is locked to another team member. This can be done by clicking on the "Internal" button rather than the "Send" button. These messages will be flagged as "Internal Only" so it's easy to distinguish them from incoming and outgoing SMS that are a part of the conversation.
SMS Templates are compatible with Team SMS. They can be selected and sent in the same way that you normally would use that feature.