FAQs: SMS long codes
How do I send an SMS message from an Architect call flow?
- You can send SMS messages through Architect. Use the Send Response action or bots. For more information, see Send Response action and About bots.
- You can use the Call Data action to send an agentless SMS notification within any Architect flow. If you send the message to and from a number that differs from the number that is currently connected to a conversation, it works as normal within the flow. However, if you attempt to send a message to and from a number that currently is connected to an existing flow or to an agent, the SMS message fails. However, the default behavior for a connected conversation is to fail when sending a message via the API. A connected SMS conversation is an active conversation between a customer and your organization, either in flow, in-queue, or connected to an agent or a bot. Using an optional attribute on the API call, you can change the default behavior to send an agentless message on a connected conversation. However, if the conversation is connected to a bot, the bot will interpret the message as received from the customer.
For example, if a customer initiates a message interaction and the conversation exists within the flow, you cannot use the Call Data action or an API to send the message back in that conversation. Instead, you must use the Send Response action or use bots within the flow.
To configure agentless SMS notifications from an Architect flow:
- Create a data action that calls the SMS notification API. For more information, see About the Genesys Cloud data actions integration.
- Use that data action within the flow. For more information, see Use data actions in Architect for integrations.
You can access agentless SMS notifications by a public API. For more information, see the Conversations page and the Agentless SMS notifications page in the Developer Center.
What are SMS pricing rate classes?
Rate classes are the way that Genesys Cloud categorizes SMS pricing. More specifically, instead of assigning each country a part for both inbound and outbound, we use rate classes. As such, countries that have the same pricing are grouped into the same rate classes.
For example, countries that have pricing of .02 for outbound messages all have rate class C and that part/rate class is used for billing on the invoice for those countries. Continuing with this example, Andorra, Belize, Faroe Islands, Gambia, Gibraltar, Luxembourg and Maldives all have a rate class C. So, if a customer sends outbound SMS messages to any of those countries, then it will show up as one line item on the invoice as Rate Class C and will include the count of all messages to any of those countries.
For SMS pricing details, see Messaging pricing.
Why do sender IDs change in international SMS messages?
When crossing an international border, the SMS message’s sender ID may change.
The Sender ID is controlled by the carrier, who’s priority is to ensure messages are delivered to their intended destination. Carriers may change the sender ID for outgoing SMS messages to improve deliverability. If the carrier changes the sender ID, any responses from the customer to the altered sender ID will not be received.
The best way to preserve the original sender ID is to provision numbers from the same country of the recipient for which you intend to send messages.
Is there a character limit for SMS messages?
Yes. Most SMS messages have a limit of 160 characters. If an agent types a message that is more than 160 characters, then Genesys Cloud automatically breaks it into multiple SMS messages.
In this situation, Genesys Cloud reduces the character limit per message to 153 characters to make room for a header to reassemble the messages at the receiving end. Unicode characters require more space, and therefore have a lower character limit. For more information, see How does Genesys Cloud handle messages with unicode characters?
The agent interface shows the remaining character count and how many messages will be sent. A single message entered by the agent can be split into a maximum of 10 messages for non-unicode characters, and 5 messages for unicode characters.
Examples:
- 160 characters = 1 message (160/160)
- 170 characters = 2 messages (170/153 – only 153 characters available per message to account for extra header information)
- 310 characters = 3 messages (310/153 – only 153 characters available per message to account for extra header information)
How does Genesys Cloud handle SMS messages with Unicode characters?
Some languages, like Arabic and Japanese, use unicode characters. Genesys Cloud can send and receive messages with these characters. However, unicode characters use more bytes per character than non-unicode characters. Therefore, if an agent enters a unicode character, Genesys Cloud cuts the remaining character count in half in the agent interface, regardless of the number of unicode characters used.
As with non-unicode messages, Genesys Cloud automatically breaks unicode messages that are more than 70 characters into multiple messages. In this situation, Genesys Cloud reduces the character limit per message to 67 characters to make room for a header to reassemble the messages at the receiving end. For more information about how Genesys Cloud splits up long messages, see Is there a character limit for SMS messages?
Does Genesys Cloud support group SMS?
Not at this time. If an end user sends a group SMS, then the agent only sees a message from the originator of the message. Genesys Cloud sends responses from the agent only to the message originator, not all participants in the group message. If a different user in the group message responds, then Genesys Cloud starts a new conversation.