Using SMS
Prerequisites - SMS-enabled phone number
Before you can send SMS in Close, you need to have an internal (Close-issued) SMS-enabled phone number that matches the country you're trying to send SMS to. That means in order to send SMS to the US or Canadian numbers, you need to have +1 number in your Settings > Phone & Voicemail.
If you'd like to send SMS to e.g. the UK or Australian leads you'll need to get the UK and AU SMS-enabled number. See more at Adding a Phone Number.
At this time Close doesn't support international SMS.
Sending an SMS
To send an SMS, simply click the SMS button on a Lead or Contact.
Sending an SMS
Craft your message and click send. Similar to emailing, you have the option to delay the sending of your message. The character limit on SMS is 1000 so you’ll see that indication as well.
Receiving an SMS
If your lead replies or sends you an SMS directly, it will appear on the Lead itself and in your Inbox.
Receiving an SMS
SMS confirmation codes
Services like Google Voice, Facebook, and Skype, which use short codes (e.g. 55555) to send SMS will not be able to send messages to Close phone numbers. See more on this with our provider here.
Supported countries & rates
SMS is supported on all SMS-enabled phone numbers that you are renting via Close, including group phone numbers. You cannot send or receive SMS on any external numbers you have added to Close.
SMS is supported in the following countries:
- United States
- Canada
- United Kingdom
- Australia
- Belgium
- Denmark
- France
- Israel
- Puerto Rico
- South Africa
To learn more about usage rates for SMS, see Calling & SMS Usage.
Close Pro Tip: When to Use SMS
If you are deciding how to implement SMS into your sales process, check out this helpful article from the Close blog:
→ Six ways to use SMS when texting leads
SMS deliverability
There are a few reasons why an SMS delivery may fail:
- The recipient’s phone number does not support SMS (example: landlines).
- Your message was identified as spam. You can read more about it in our SMS Deliverability FAQ.
- Various unknown errors that our carriers cannot detect, therefore Close cannot detect.
To see if an SMS failed to send, hover over an “error” label on the SMS activity on a lead page:
An SMS that failed to send
Close’s search can help you find messages that failed to send. Here are some search queries that will find leads with failed SMS messages:
- Leads with more than 1 failed SMS: failed_sms > 1
- Leads that have a failed SMS: has:error_sms_messages
- Leads that were sent an SMS today that failed: sms(created:today direction:outgoing status:error)
- Leads where the last sent SMS failed: latest_sms_status:error
If you feel that an SMS is not delivered for another reason, please contact Support.