Sending text messages to clients and agents can enhance communication and provide timely updates about inspections. Spectora allows you to send these messages from a custom phone number, giving your business a more professional and consistent image. Here’s how you can set up and use a custom phone number for sending text messages.
Benefits of Using a Custom Phone Number
Professional Branding: Clients and agents recognize a consistent number, reinforcing trust and branding.
Direct Communication: Responses from clients come directly to your Spectora account, streamlining communication and ensuring nothing gets missed.
Improved Reliability: A dedicated phone number reduces confusion for clients and agents who might receive messages from varying numbers.
Setting Up a Custom Phone Number
Sign Up for a Custom Phone Number: First, you need to request a custom number through Spectora. This option is available in your settings under Settings > Business Tools > Text/SMS. After requesting the number, it may take a few days to approve and activate it.
For inspectors in the United States, our third-party messaging service requires additional information to register a number. This is to comply with mobile carrier and industry standards.
Before selecting a number you will be directed to this form to provide the required information. This information will not be visible to your clients!
If you are outside of the United States, check the country drop-down menu to search for numbers from other nations.
Set Up Message Forwarding
Never miss a response from a client or agent! You can enter your personal or business number for forwarding and have the texts routed to your cell phone if someone responds to these texts. You can also enter your email address to have responses forwarded to your email.
Once you have your number set up, under "My Numbers" you can add a forwarding email and/or phone number:
When we receive a text message to your custom phone number, we will send an email to the forwarding email address and shoot a text message to the forwarding phone number. You can leave either blank but we recommend doing one or the other.
The email and text will include the "likely sender" if we can find a buyer or an agent you've recently worked with having the same phone number. We'll also include a link to the Inspection Details page of the most recent inspection you've done for them:
Removing Your Custom Number
If you no longer wish to use a number, simply delete it here:
We'll cancel the associated monthly subscription and revert back to sending your text messages from our main Spectora number.
Frequently Asked Questions
What happens if someone tries to call my custom phone number?
If someone tries to call your custom phone number, the call will not complete or go through. Calling that number will route the client to their wireless carrier, and let them know that the call cannot be completed.
If you have any questions or feedback, write into our chat bubble or email support@spectora.com!
