Providing support to your customers in their preferred channel not only provides the customer the best experience, but also provides your team a channel to communicate where the customer is most likely to respond.

Listrak's Two-Way SMS Conversations system unlocks a new method to support your customers via text message, all configured within the Listrak platform. Within the Listrak Platform, you can view all non-recognized responses contacts have sent to your sender code that are not associated with any keyword or list subscription campaign, broadcast campaign or automated journey messages; the exception is requested information from a data acquisition campaign will not appear in the console. This allows you to gain a better understanding of potential site issues (e.g. if a coupon code is not valid) or identify opportunities to improve experience for customers (e.g. track complaints about the checkout process).

In addition, you can integrate with your customer service platform to allow your customer service representatives to communicate via text message directly from their existing platform. These contacts do not have to be members of your SMS program or have an existing open support ticket. If an open ticket is identified, the information will be attributed to the open case.

Not sure where to start? Check out these helpful topics:

A contact does not have to be subscribed to your Listrak SMS program to exchange messages with your customer service team, if integrating your platform. When a contact sends a response that is not expected by another SMS program (such as Inbound Keyword, Acquisition Keyword, or collecting data for a profile field) you or your customer service representatives have the ability to respond to these contacts.

All responses from a contact opted into your SMS program that are not expected will be viewable within the Listrak Platform under Two-Way SMS. This can be a helpful way to identify potential issues reported from contacts opted into your SMS marketing program.

In addition, when integrating with Listrak's Two-Way API integration, this allows Listrak's transactional API service to send customer service responses to a contact. The two-way communication enables Listrak to pass information between a contact and your customer service platform. Listrak is also able to call back previous messages (if existing) with a contact's phone number to provide additional context.

Messages sent and received within the last 30 days will also appear in the Listrak platform. While the majority of messages will be handled by your team, you will have the ability to respond to messages from within the Listrak Two-Way SMS interface directly in the Listrak platform.

After completing the API setup, your customer service representatives will be able to respond to messages directly in your customer service platform. Your integration will specify where messages from contacts should be sent and the API will be used to transit responses back to the contact.

Listrak's Two-Way SMS functionality uses Natural Language Processing services to determine which messages should automatically be sent to your customer service representatives and which messages should have a contact confirm they wish to speak to a representative. For example, texting something such as order status may automatically route a contact to your customer service representative.

The Natural Language Processing functionality allows your customer service representatives to focus on tickets that are most likely to be important by breaking down responses into different categories.

A contact may have three different experiences, depending on how critical the Natural Language Processing determines their specific response.

For issues the process understands (e.g. clearly worded issues) contacts are automatically sent to a customer service representative to help resolve the issue.

For issues the process cannot easily understand (e.g. not asking a direct question or unclearly worded questions) a contact will be sent the Two Way Invalid Reply response. This response prompts the user to text the keyword AGENT if they would like to speak to a customer service representative. If a contact texts the keyword, their information will automatically be sent to your customer service representatives to aid with a resolution or gather more information, if necessary.

If a contact texts the AGENT keyword in directly (does not ask a question, just texts AGENT) they will automatically be routed to a customer service representative.

The SMS area of the Listrak Platform allows you to view conversations that have been received to your SMS sender code.

To view conversations, navigate to Messages > SMS SMS Conversations.

💡 If you have multiple sender codes, you will need to select the correct sender code from list navigation dropdown menu.

You will see conversation messages sent to the sender code you have selected in the SMS interface.

💡 All time listed in the SMS platform is in Eastern Time.

Clicking into a specific phone conversation will display past communication with the same phone number, if available.

💡 Conversations from the last 30 days will appear in the Listrak Interface.

If desired, you can respond to messages directly within the Listrak Platform. Using Listrak's Two-Way API, your customer service team can also respond directly in your CSR software by completing an integration with Listrak.

When responding to messages in Listrak's Two-Way SMS platform you should still follow general SMS compliance guidelines. Quiet Hour guidelines still apply to all message responses. In addition, if your brand has special opt-in considerations, such as an age gate, these should be considered as contacts do not have to be opted-in to your SMS program to appear in the conversation tab.

You will also need to include your Program (Brand) name in the messages. For Canadian sender codes, all messages must contain language to indicate that there may be additional costs, such as "Standard message & data rates may apply."

The last compliance consideration is the option to turn off the automated responses configured in your sender code. These messages (HELP, STOP, Failure, and Invalid Reply) are sent when a contact texts your sender code with an unexpected response.

If you remove this automated response, your team will be responsible for replying to all messages received within 24 hours. These messages will automatically be disabled when integrating with a CSR platform. You can turn these automated messages on or off at any time by visiting Settings > SMS Settings Sender Code.

💡 Your HELP and STOP messages will still send if a contact texts these words into your sender code.

If you would like to integrate your customer service platform with Listrak's SMS service, the first step is to set up the Listrak Two-Way Conversations integration with partner integration or Listrak's API. The API Integration allows the responses from the Customer Service team and customer to be passed to each other and retrieve ticket information, such as previous communication, status, or case number.

The information sent and received from by your Customer Service team will also be visible in the Listrak SMS Conversations interface.

⚠️ When you complete your integration the automated help messages for unexpected responses will be disabled unless a contact texts help. This means that your CSR representatives will be responsible for responding to messages within 24 hours as soon as integration is complete.

Gorgias's e-commerce help provides a place to centralize all of your help tickets in one place. Integrating with Listrak's Two-Way SMS service allows you to send SMS help responses through Listrak, all managed in the Gorgias Help Platform.

First, you will need to gather details in the Gorgias platform.

In the Listrak Platform, navigate to Integrations > Integrations Integrations Management.

If using a custom integration, you will first create the integration in the Listrak platform and then you can create an integration with your Customer Service platform. You can use third-party or custom-created integrations based on the capabilities of your customer service platform.

With this integration, your customer support representative is able to include links in their response. These links will automatically be shortened when sending through the Listrak Public API.

If you have multiple sender codes you will need to create an integration for each sender code. This allows your customer service team to manage support tickets for multiple Listrak merchants.

⚠️ When you complete your integration the automated help messages for unexpected responses will be disabled unless a contact texts help. This means that your CSR representatives will be responsible for responding to messages within 24 hours as soon as integration is complete.

Read more below on creating a custom integration in Listrak.

Navigate to Integrations > Integrations Integrations Management.

Once your API Integration is configured, you will want to authenticate your API using OAuth 2.0. Learn more about Listrak's API Authentication in the REST API Documentation.
Check back often for more information as Listrak builds integrations with additional Customer Service Platforms.

Once your API has been set up in Listrak and integrated with your customer service platform, you can begin responding to tickets that can be sent to a contact via SMS. These messages will also appear in the Listrak Two-Way SMS Conversations interface discussed above.

You can also use Listrak's Two-Way API to open and close tickets, if necessary. Learn more about this function.