Your CRM provides the option of forwarding your incoming SMS messages to your mobile phone automatically.
When you receive a forwarded SMS message you may reply to it from your mobile phone in the same way as you would to a direct SMS message.
With the SMS forwarding feature enabled, you do not have to be logged into the CRM in order to view and respond to SMS messages.
Instead, you may exchange SMS messages with your leads on the go and your entire SMS conversation will be automatically saved in the lead notes.
Enabling SMS Forwarding
To enable SMS forwarding, open your user settings page by clicking on the Settings option under your username in the top-right corner:
On the Account Details tab, select the Enable SMS Forwarding option:
Optionally, you may also use the scheduler icon in order to specify the specific times when the SMS messages will be forwarded to you:
After you click on the icon, the Forwarding Schedule window will open up which you can use for selecting a custom daily forwarding period or an ongoing forwarding schedule (which is set for each weekday individually):
If you are setting up an ongoing forwarding schedule, you can use the two buttons next to the time picker buttons in order to copy a specific time period to all of the other remaining days, or just to the next day:
After you finish configuring your forwarding settings, save the changes and the SMS messages will start to forward to your mobile automatically in accordance with your preferences.
Mapping Contacts To Phone Numbers
By default, the SMS messages sent by your leads will be forwarded in the following format:
<dba_name> @ <phone_number>: <message_text>
For example, a forwarded SMS may look something like this:
Tom’s Auto Parts @ 6461234567: Please send me the paperwork
If you prefer to have your SMS messages show the contact name and not the DBA name, then you may map the contact name field to the phone field on your lead.
Go to Manage > Administration > Leads > Manage Lead Field, locate the phone field, open it for editing, and select the appropriate contact field from the Contact Field drop-down:
After you save the changes, your forwarded SMS messages will now look something like this:
Tom @ 6461234567: Please send me the paperwork
Responding to a Forwarded SMS
When you receive a text message that was forwarded from the CRM, it will be from your CRM's phone number. To get the reply to go to the contact and not just back to the CRM, type your message like below, with a plus sign in front of the full phone number and a colon at the end of it before your response:
+5551235555: Hello
The contact will receive a message with only the text of: Hello