Send and receive text messages in Contact Center Pro

Coming ST-80

Overview

The Texts tab in your Contact Center Pro Inbox lets you read and answer customer text messages without leaving Contact Center Pro. Conversations open beside your calls, with the customer's account details already on screen. Use Texts to reply faster, book jobs from a conversation, and keep every text attached to the right customer record.

Things to know

• Visibility of the Texts tab is controlled by your existing ServiceTitan Chat and Messaging permission. There is no separate Contact Center Pro permission for texting, and permission changes in ServiceTitan carry across to Contact Center Pro automatically.

• When texting is first turned on for your account, your existing message history is imported in the background. You can start using the Texts tab straight away — a banner tells you the import is still running. Messages arrive newest first, the import usually takes a few hours, and read and unread marks settle once it finishes. Refresh to see messages as they come in.

• The tenant filter is limited to the accounts you are assigned to, so you work a single queue rather than signing in and out of each account.

• Read state is shared. When you open a conversation, it shows as read for everyone who can see it, so your team does not double reply.

• You become a participant on a conversation by replying to it. There is no way to add yourself without replying.

• Incoming picture messages display in the conversation. Sending picture messages is not supported yet.

• Picture message history is carried over for seven days after your account goes live. Older picture messages show a placeholder instead of the image. If you need the content of an older picture message, contact your CSM.

• Every conversation has its own stable link, so you can share a conversation with a colleague.

Best practices

• Attach a conversation to the right customer before you close it. Conversations from an unknown number, or from a number on more than one account, must be matched, created, or closed without matching first.

• Use the Unassigned filter to find conversations nobody has picked up yet.

• Check the customer panel before replying. Recent jobs, balance and equipment are already there, so your answer can be specific rather than generic.

Open the Texts tab

1. Go to Contact Center Pro.

2. In the side menu, click Inbox.

3. Click the Texts tab, next to Calls. 

The Texts tab has three panels:

• Conversation list on the left

• Conversation in the middle

• Customer details on the right

Note: A red badge on the Texts tab shows your total unread messages, regardless of the filters you have applied.

Find a conversation

The conversation list has two tabs, Open and Closed. It opens on Open, sorted with the newest message first. Each card shows the customer name, or the phone number if no customer is matched, along with a preview of the last message and when it arrived. Unread conversations show a blue dot and a bold name.

1. To search, enter a customer name, address, or phone number in the search bar at the top of the list.

2. To narrow by account, use the Tenants dropdown. It defaults to every account you are assigned to.

3. To narrow by who is handling the conversation, use the participants dropdown:

   • Mine: Open conversations where you are a participant

   • Unassigned: Open conversations nobody has replied to yet

   • All: Every open conversation you can see

4. To see conversations your team has closed, click the Closed tab. Closed conversations are sorted with the most recently closed first.

Read and answer a text

1. In the conversation list, click the conversation you want to open. Opening a conversation marks it as read for everyone who can see it.

2. Read the thread in the middle panel. Messages from the customer appear on the left, your team's replies on the right, each with a timestamp and date dividers between days.

3. Type your reply in the box at the bottom, then click Send.

   Note: Pressing Enter adds a new line rather than sending the message. Your reply goes out from the number the customer texted, which is shown above the message box with its marketing campaign. You cannot change it.

Replying makes you a participant on the conversation, so it appears under the Mine filter.

Mark a conversation as unread

If you open a conversation by accident, or want to flag it for another look, click the overflow menu (⋯) in the conversation header and select Mark as unread. Clicking back into the conversation returns it to read.

Review customer details

The Customer panel on the right shows who you are talking to. Scroll the panel to see, in order:

• Customer header: Name, or Unknown contact if no customer is matched, plus customer tags and a link to the full profile in ServiceTitan

• Stats: Tenant, Type, and Membership

• Filter by Service Location: Defaults to All Locations. Selecting a location scopes the rest of the panel to that location

• Contact Methods: Phone, mobile and email, with an Edit option. A click-to-chat icon appears next to any number that has not opted out of texting

• Recent Jobs: The three most recent jobs, with a View all link

• Billing and Invoices: Outstanding balance, open invoice count, and lifetime revenue

• Recent Equipment: The three most recent pieces of equipment, with a View all link

Caution: If the customer has 50 or more service locations, the equipment preview does not load. Use Filter by Service Location to choose a single location and see that site's equipment, or open the full list in ServiceTitan.

Book a job from a conversation

Click Book Job in the Customer panel. Job booking opens in ServiceTitan.

Attach a conversation to a customer

Contact Center Pro matches an incoming text to a customer using the same matching it runs on incoming calls. What you see depends on the result.

One customer matches

The conversation shows the customer's name and their record loads in the Customer panel. The conversation attaches to that customer automatically when you close it, and you do not need to do anything.

Note: If the person tells you their account is under a different name, edit the customer record in ServiceTitan, then return to the conversation and refresh.

More than one customer matches

The conversation shows the phone number only, and the Customer panel lists the possible matches with the name, account, address and phone number for each.

1. Click Select next to the correct customer.

2. If none of them is right, click Search for a different customer to look one up, or Create new customer to make a new record with the phone number already filled in.

No customer matches

The conversation shows the phone number, and the Customer panel has no customer detail.

1. Click Search for a customer and select the right record. Contact Center Pro asks whether to add the phone number as a contact on that customer. Click Yes to save it as a mobile number and attach the conversation.

2. Or click Create new customer to make a new record with the phone number already filled in.

Change the linked customer

For conversations that started with more than one match, or with no match, you can change the customer after linking. Click the overflow menu (⋯) in the conversation header and select Change linked customer.

Close and reopen a conversation

1. In the conversation header, click the overflow menu (⋯).

2. Select Close conversation. The conversation moves to the Closed tab straight away.

If the conversation is not attached to a customer, you are asked to choose before it closes:

• Create new customer or Select existing customer — use this when the person is going to book a job, since a customer record is needed to schedule service.

• Close without matching — use this only when there is not enough information to create a record. The conversation will not link to any account, and you are asked to confirm.

A conversation reopens in two ways:

• The customer texts back. The conversation reopens on its own and returns to the Open tab in date order.

• You reopen it. Find the conversation in the Closed tab and click Reopen.

Note: If a customer replies STOP, the conversation closes and their number is added to your opt-out list. They can opt back in by texting back.

Mark a conversation as spam

1. In the conversation header, click the overflow menu (⋯).

2. Select Block SPAM. The conversation moves to the Closed tab, and you can still open it there with the reply box turned off. You can unmark it as spam at any time.

Caution: Marking a conversation as spam closes it, but does not block the number. Ask your administrator to add the number to the block list in ServiceTitan. Until they do, a new text from that number reopens the conversation.

Start a text from the Calls tab

You can start a conversation with a customer you have looked up:

1. On the Calls tab, search for the customer by name, street, unit, ZIP code, or phone.

2. In the results, click the click-to-chat icon next to the phone number you want to text. The conversation opens in the Texts tab.

Note: The click-to-chat icon only appears next to numbers that have not opted out of texting.

Want to learn more?

• See Contact Center Pro Inbox overview

• See Manage Contact Center Pro permissions

• See Use your call bar in Contact Center Pro