Send texts and manage replies from a Call Center campaign

Want to text your contacts during or after a call, and keep the conversation going when they text back? This article shows you how to set up manual and automated texts in a Call Center campaign, and how agents manage replies from the Inbox.

Why Texting in a Call Center campaign

Texting extends your calling outreach. Agents can follow up a live call with details that are easier to read than to hear, or leave a message when a contact does not pick up. For example:

• If you are following up with donors for a fundraising event, agents can text the event location and timings, or send a donation link.
• If your agents are making cold calls, they can text website links or reading material, or explain the reason for the call when the contact did not answer.

A contact who receives a text explaining why you called is more likely to pick up on the next attempt. And with the Inbox, agents can answer questions, clarify information, and handle objections in real time, even after they have saved the contact's survey responses and moved on. That kind of repeated, personal follow-up matters most in fundraising and political outreach, where contacts often need multiple interactions before they decide.

Before you start

• You need a campaign manager (admin) account to create the campaign and configure texting. Agents only send texts and manage replies from the agent console.
• Because you make calls and send texts from the same number, your Caller ID must be a number capable of both voice and text. On the Caller ID step of campaign setup you can either:
  • Auto rent a number: choose the area code you want, and CallHub checks whether numbers from the selected country are available and displays a message.
  • Previously rented number: select a number already rented on your account.
• Setup takes about 5 minutes on top of your normal campaign creation.

ⓘ Automated texts are configured by the campaign manager only. Agents cannot add or edit text templates from the agent console.

Set up Manual text templates

Manual texts are predefined message templates that agents choose and send to a contact during or after a call.

1. While creating your Call Center campaign, go to the Text Follow-up section.
2. Enable the Manual Texts setting. 
3. Add one or more message templates for your agents to send.
4. To personalize a template, click Personalize and insert merge tags. See How to personalize conversations in CallHub for the full list of tags.
5. Continue to the next page of campaign setup and choose a voice-and-text-capable Caller ID (auto rent a number or pick a previously rented one)

To see how agents send these texts from their side, see How to send messages from the agent console in a Call Center campaign.

Set up Automated follow-up texts tied to dispositions

Automated texts go out to the contact automatically, based on the disposition the agent selects at the end of a call. A common use: link a message to the NO_ANSWER disposition so contacts who did not pick up get a text explaining why you called.

1. In the Text Follow-up section of campaign setup, enable the Automated Texts setting.
2. Add your message.
3. Link the message to a disposition from the Disposition dropdown (for example, NO_ANSWER). [Screenshot: Automated Texts setting with a message linked to the NO_ANSWER disposition, annotated on the Disposition dropdown | filename: call-center_automated-texts_disposition.png | alt: Automated Texts setting showing a message template linked to a disposition in the dropdown]
4. To personalize the message, click Personalize and insert merge tags. Merge tags (also called placeholders) pull values from the contact's profile, so a tag only fills in if that field has data for the contact. See How to personalize conversations in CallHub.

Manage Replies with the Agent Inbox (Agents only)

When a contact replies to a manual text, your agents continue the conversation from the Inbox in the agent console. This replaces the old workflow where only the manager could respond to incoming texts. Here is the flow your agents follow:

1. Log in to the agent console with the username and password allocated to you.
2. On the navigation bar at the top, click Inbox. [Screenshot: Agent console navigation bar with the Inbox button, annotated on the Inbox button | filename: call-center_agent-console_inbox-button.png | alt: Inbox button on the agent console navigation bar]
3. Browse the texts you have sent to contacts across your Call Center campaigns. As soon as you send a manual text, it appears here. If the same contact was reached from multiple campaigns, the campaign name shows in the chat box at the top right corner, so you always know which campaign a conversation belongs to. [Screenshot: Inbox conversation view with the campaign name in the top right corner of the chat box, annotated on the campaign name | filename: call-center_inbox_campaign-name.png | alt: Inbox chat showing the campaign name in the top right corner of the conversation]
4. Open a conversation and reply to keep the two-way exchange going. You can use merge tags in your replies to personalize them; a tag only works if the contact's profile has data in that field.
5. Watch for new replies: a conversation with a new message moves to the top of the list with a highlighted background. If you are not connected to any of your assigned campaigns, the Inbox button shows a small red dot when new messages are waiting. [Screenshot: Inbox list with a new reply highlighted at the top and a red dot on the Inbox button, annotated on the highlighted conversation | filename: call-center_inbox_unread-highlight.png | alt: Inbox showing a highlighted conversation at the top of the list and a red notification dot on the Inbox button]

Managers can still view all incoming messages for the campaign: on the campaign overview, under Text Statistics, click View Responses.

Notes & limits

ⓘ Only conversations started with manual texts appear in the Inbox. Automated follow-up texts do not show there, so use manual texts when you expect a two-way conversation.

ⓘ If an agent who received a reply is inactive for more than 24 hours, the conversation is automatically reassigned to an active agent in the campaign, so the contact never waits on an absent agent. The reassignment is indicated inside the conversation.

ⓘ Automated texts are configured by the campaign manager only. Agents choose which manual template to send, but cannot create or edit templates.

FAQs

Can agents reply to incoming texts, or only the manager? Agents reply directly from the Inbox in the agent console. (Older articles said incoming texts could only be answered from the manager account; that is outdated.) Managers can still view all responses under Text Statistics > View Responses on the campaign overview.

Why don't my automated follow-up texts show in the Inbox? The Inbox only tracks conversations started with manual texts. Automated texts are one-way, disposition-triggered messages.

What happens if a contact calls the campaign's number back? Inbound calls to your rented number are handled by Inbound Calling. See Set up inbound calls for a Call Center campaign.

Do merge tags always fill in? No. A merge tag only fills in if the contact's profile has data in that field. Check your contact list fields before relying on a tag.