Phone Numbers, Calls and Text Messages

Overview

Rolling out. Phone numbers, text messages, the dialer and the call assistant become available once BestWebby's phone service is connected. Until then each of these screens says so, and nothing is queued.

One phone number powers three things in BestWebby:

• SMS marketing — text customers who agreed to receive texts, with STOP handled for you.
• The tele-sales dialer — click Dial and your own phone rings; answer it and you are connected to the lead.
• The call assistant — answers calls to your number, checks orders, takes messages and puts callers through to you. Every call lands in your inbox.

Until your store has a number, each of these says "Connect a phone number to use this". Nothing is queued or pretends to be sent in the meantime.

Who can use it. Phone numbers and SMS marketing are available from the Growth plan up. The dialer and the call assistant are Scale features. Only the account owner or an admin can buy or release a number and change call settings.

Step 1: Get a number

Go to Settings → Phone numbers.

1. Choose the country (United States or Canada) and Local or Toll-free. For a local number, type the area code you want.
2. Click Search. Each number shows its monthly list price.
3. Click Choose on the one you like. You see the price again, and nothing is bought until you click Add number.

The number works for calls and texts straight away. Callers and customers see it as your store's number.

Keep a number you already have. A number you own can be moved ("ported") to your store instead of buying a new one. Porting is done by the carriers and usually takes one to four weeks. Contact support (Help → Support, "Guidance") with the number, the account holder's name and service address exactly as on your current bill, your account number and port-out PIN, and a recent bill. Do not cancel your current service before the move is finished.

Pricing and usage

Pricing for numbers, calls and texts is published in Settings → Phone numbers when the phone service is connected, and that screen shows what your store has used. Minutes count every leg of a call, each rounded up to the whole minute, as carriers bill them: a dialer call uses two legs (your phone and the lead's). A text of up to 160 plain characters is one segment; longer texts, or texts with emoji or some accented letters, use more.

Text messages (SMS)

Go to Marketing → SMS. The banner shows the number texts are sent from and how many segments you have used.

• Who receives them. Campaigns go only to customers who agreed to receive texts from your store. Agreeing to marketing email does not count.
• STOP, START and HELP. Marketing texts end with "Reply STOP to opt out". A customer who replies STOP (or UNSUBSCRIBE, CANCEL, END, QUIT) gets one confirmation and then nothing further from your number — not even order updates — until they text START. You cannot opt them back in from the dashboard; only they can. HELP replies with your store name and number.
• Replies. Any other text a customer sends appears in your Inbox, one conversation per phone number.
• Where texts can go. US and Canadian numbers only.

The dialer

In Dialer, pick a campaign and load the next lead. Calling hours in the lead's time zone, consent and do-not-call lists are checked before the lead is shown and again when you click Dial.

1. Make sure your rep profile has your phone number — that is the phone that rings. A sales admin sets it in Sales console → Reps (the phone column when importing reps). It must be a US or Canadian number.
2. Confirm the recording notice and click Dial. Your phone rings within a few seconds, showing your store's number.
3. Answer it. The lead is called and you are connected when they pick up. Use Hang up in the dialer, or hang up your phone.
4. Choose the outcome (Interested, Callback, Do not call and so on) to move to the next lead.

If the call cannot be placed (no number yet, no phone on your profile, calling not available on your account right now, another call still live) the dialer says why. The call is still logged, so you can record the outcome of a call you made another way.

Recording. Turn on Record tele-sales calls in Settings → Phone numbers. A call is recorded only when the rep confirmed the recording notice, and the person called hears the notice before they are connected. Recordings are kept in your store's private storage, included when you download your media archive, and deleted with your account.

The call assistant

Turn the assistant on in Insights, then set it up in Channels → Call assistant.

• Greeting. What callers hear first. The assistant then tells them it is an automated assistant and that the call is transcribed.
• Questions. It answers general questions in short spoken replies and never makes up prices, stock, hours or policies it was not given — it says it will pass the question on.
• Orders. A caller can ask about an order by reading out the order number from their confirmation email. The status is read out only if they are calling from the phone number on that order, and only the status and carrier — never the address or total.
• A person. A caller who asks for someone is put through to the phone you set in Settings → Phone numbers → Put callers through to. If nobody answers, or no phone is set, they can leave a voicemail.
• Afterwards. Each call becomes a ticket in your Inbox with what was said and a short summary. Voicemails can be played from Call assistant → Recent calls.
• Try it first. "Test the assistant" shows exactly what a caller would hear, without placing a call.

With the assistant off, calls go straight to your forwarding phone, or to voicemail.

Good to know

• Card numbers read out on a call are removed from the stored transcript.
• A single call is limited to one hour.
• Releasing a number stops calls and texts to it reaching your store. You may not be able to get the same number back.