Overview: Business Messaging

Conversations vs., Messages

A conversation is a series of messages about a topic.  There are two ways new conversations start: 1) those started by a customer (inbound), and 2) those started by a user (outbound).

A message is the individual back-and-forth TXT, files, etc. that are sent during a conversation.

If a customer that has never messaged your company were to send an SMS or WhatsApp, that would be a new inbound conversation.  That conversation can be routed to one or more people inside your company, depending on how you've setup your message routing, and, one or more people could reply to that message, again, depending on your rules.

If however, A Spoke Phone user were to send an outbound message to a new customer, that would start a new outbound conversation, and replies from that customer would only go to that one user, unless that user adds more people to the conversation.

By default, conversations close after a period of inactivity, a user can manually close a conversation. Unlike personal text messages on your phone, business messages will close after 30 days or inactivity. New messages form/to the customer will create a new conversation. The history of the conversations will be stored in your CRM via the Spoke Phone Integrations, and you are able to display the content of those past conversations during future phone calls with the customer, by using Spoke Phone Caller Insights.

Dedicated numbers v.s Shared Numbers

Spoke Phone supports both dedicated numbers ( a number assigned to a specific person that is their private number for calls and messages), and shared number or shared line appearance, a number that more than one person can use to send/recieve calls and messages.

• Dedicated Number: If you want a person to have a dedicated number for private inbound/outbound conversations, assign them a DID
• Shared Numbers:
  • If you want a team of people to be able to see and collaborate on inbound conversations that a customer starts with the company, then use a Team Inbox
  • If you want some or everyone to share one or more numbers to start outbound conversations with customers (send an SMS or WhatsApp)

Conversation Routing

1. Dedicated Numbers (DID):
   • If a customer sends an SMS to a number assigned as a DID to a specific user, those messages are automatically routed to that one user and no one else sees or can collaborate on that message.
   • A DID that is assigned to a specific user can be used by other user's to send messages by adding that number to an Allowable CallerID (ANI) List
   • Administrators can intercept messages sent to a DID and change the routing and perform other actions, using Spoke Phone Inbound Conversation Data Actions. Outbound Conversation Data Actions are coming in October 2024.
2. Shared Numbers:
   • Team Inbox: Today you can assign a number to a Team Inbox
     • By default, whatever users you add to that team see and can respond to inbound customers conversations (started by a customer).
     • You can change what users get added to a specific conversation (altering the default Team Inbox behavior), by using Spoke Phone Inbound Conversation Data Actions.
     • As users reply to customers from the Team Inbox, all replies go out from the phone number assigned to the Team Inbox.
     • Team Inboxes cannot be used to start outbound conversations with customers, they are for Inbound Conversations only.
   • Shared Numbers: You can share an SMS or WhatsApp number so that multiple users can start new outbound conversations with customers using the same number.
     • Replies from a customer to conversations started by a user using a shared number are routed back to that single user by default
     • If the user chooses to send from a shared number that is also assigned to a Team Inbox, then replies to that conversation go back to the Team Inbox
     • If a customer was to start a new inbound conversation to a shared number that is not assigned as a DID or not assigned to Team Inbox, by default the messages would not be routed to anyone. Our recommended setup is to always assign shared numbers to a Team Inbox, so that new inbound conversations always go somewhere.  Customers could also use the Spoke Phone Inbound Conversation Data Actions to determine where to route conversations on a case-by-case basis.

Spoke Phone internal messaging and file share for employees to chat with each other, including: