What are SMS Flows?
Our SMS Chatbot feature enables businesses to easily structure and automate conversations using an SMS Shortcode. This feature would enable you to meet needs such as; conducting surveys, NPS, automating lead acquisition & onboarding processes, and facilitating support among other activities.
How to set up an SMS Chatbot?
a) Select Chatbots from the menu
b) Select the SMS Flows, click the Create new chatbot button, and option
c) Provide SMS flow details i.e. Name and Description
d) Click Next, to set configure the flow settings
i. Set up an opt-in keyword(s) - to enable a survey respondent to take part in the survey. This is optional.
ii. Set up the stop keyword(s) - to enable users to opt out of the questionnaire in the flow. This is optional.
iii. Set up a reset keyword(s) - to enable a survey respondent to be taken back to restart the survey, if they would like to start over. This is optional.
e) Click Next, to set configure the Notification Settings
i. Set up a callback URL that would allow you to automatically have the results of your survey questions received.
ii. Enter an email address(es) that responses can be sent to
iii. Set up the reset after completion, which allows a participant to take part in the survey more than once. This is optional and has been set to default to allow users to participate in the survey multiple times.
iv. Users can also select to receive the results of each question or waiting until the survey has been completed before the answers can be sent to the callback URL or the email address.
Click on the NEXT button to complete the set up the questionnaires.
f) Setting up the Questions: The flow builder shows the start button.
To set up the survey question, you will need to drag and drop the steps from the Steps menu on the left-hand side of the screen.
The following options are available:
Message Response: Shows an end message, such as when the customer has completed a survey.
When you drag and drop the Message response, a configuration box pops out from the right side of the page where you will type in the end message.
Fill in the end message to be sent once the survey is completed.
There are three types of questions and ten CRM Actions
Types of Questions:
Basic Question: This is a simple straightforward question requesting details that can be responded to with open-ended responses like 'What is your name?'; or utilise a Regular Expression (REGEX) to validate a response to ensure only a specific response is given for example only allowing a specific number of digits in an inbound response like for an ID number, or a Yes or No response
Add your Question text, and provide a field name
Scroll lower on the settings panel and you have the option to send Reminder messages to respondents, encouraging them to participate in and complete the survey. The reminder timeout is set in minutes. Simply add your reminder text, and if the participant hasn't responded within the specified time, they will receive the reminder message. Reminders can be added at any point in the journey to other question types.
If the question is based on a numerical response, you can toggle the Extract Numerical Value button to ensure the responses can be analysed further.
For questions that need exact answers like ID numbers, Yes or No questions, you can select the Regex validation option.
The Regex below is for requesting an 8-digit ID card, to ensure that all valid responses should only have 8 digits. You also input an invalid message to let the participant know if they input a number with less/more than 8 digits.
Multiple Choice Question: it presents users with a question and a set of predefined answers to choose from. Users select their responses by clicking or typing the corresponding option. The chatbot then processes the selected answer and provides immediate feedback or proceeds to the next step regardless of the user's choice.
On the right-hand panel, add in your question text and field name, then scroll lower to add the responses. Here you can choose the specific responses, for example, digits to represent a certain response, you can also choose to add what for example '1' will be stored as in the report.
Prompt Question: uses advanced skip logic for dynamic conversation branching. This feature creates interactive, personalised user experiences by directing respondents through different paths based on their answers.
Add a question text and the field name
Next, add your prompts, this is the point where branching based on the response starts to occur. Prompts will always ask for a numerical selection of the response, but you can choose to add what for example, '1' will be stored as in the report.
Customer Experience Tools:
AI Sentiment Question: Determines the respondent's emotional tone.
CSAT (Customer Satisfaction Score): These are preset CSAT questions that evaluate customer satisfaction and prompts for elaboration based on the score.
You can edit the questions to personalise them more. For example, if in a previous question you had asked the respondent for their name, you can use a dynamic variable {name} to insert the name the respondent gave to this question. The dynamic variable being used must be from a previously asked question.
Net Promoter Score: Assesses customer loyalty and prompts for elaboration based on the score.
Customer Effort Score: Measures the ease of using a product or service and prompts for elaboration based on the score.
CRM Tools:
Assign User: Assigns an agent to specific parts of the customer journey for follow-up.
Select the user you would like to assign the conversation to. If you would like to remove the currently assigned user, you can leave the user entry slot empty
Assign Conversation Status: Assigns statuses like Open, Closed, and Resolved based on message context.
Based on the direction or status of the conversation, assign it a Conversation status to allow you to keep track of them on Team Inbox.
Add to Contact Groups: Adds respondent contacts to specific categories or groups.
You can choose to add more than one contact group that the respondent should be in by taking part in the survey.
Remove from Contact Groups: Removes respondent contacts from specific categories or groups.
The contact will be removed from a contact group once they pass the action set in the chatbot journey.
The 'Add to Contact Groups' and 'Remove from Contact Groups' actions can be used one after to add and remove a contact from a group or vice versa.
Add Contact Fields: Adds details like location, age, and gender to respondent contacts.
Provide a field key (this is the general name of the field you are creating) add a field value (the specific details) e.g. Location: Nakuru, Education: high school etc
Remove Contact Fields: Removes details from respondent contacts.
This allows you to remove previously added fields, this utilises only the Field Key, allowing the contact to be updated based on business needs.
Reach us at support@mteja.io if you need further assistance on how to set up an SMS chatbot for your use-case.