SMS as a Communication Channel

Summary

SMS is one of Torqueflow’s communication channels alongside WhatsApp, the customer portal, and voice. When a customer texts your garage’s dedicated phone number, the system stores the message, classifies its intent using AI, and sends an AI-generated response. All SMS conversations appear in the unified Messages inbox alongside other channels. SMS uses credits from your AI credit balance.

Prerequisites

• Your organisation must have a UK phone number provisioned with SMS status set to active.
• AI credits must be available for AI-powered responses. If credits are exhausted, the system sends a static fallback message instead.

Steps

How inbound SMS works

1. A customer sends a text to your garage’s dedicated phone number.
2. The system receives the message and stores it with the channel set to sms.
3. The customer is matched by phone number. If the number matches a customer record, the message is linked to that customer.
4. A conversation is created or updated in the unified inbox. The conversation’s last_channel field updates to sms.
5. Staff receive a real-time notification that a new message has arrived.

AI classification and response

1. The AI classifies the message intent (for example, service inquiry, booking request, status check, spam, or unknown).
2. If the message is classified as spam with high confidence (90% or above), no response is sent. The message is still stored for review.
3. If the customer has opted out of SMS (sms_opt_out flag), no response is sent.
4. For all other messages, the AI generates a contextual response. The response considers your garage name, services offered, business hours, portal URL, and any cross-channel message history with that customer.
5. The response is sent from your garage’s dedicated number and stored as an outbound message in the conversation.

SMS bridge mode

1. When replying to a customer in the inbox, staff can select from available channels using the channel picker at the bottom of the composer.
2. If WhatsApp is selected but the 24-hour messaging window has expired, the system automatically switches to SMS bridge mode.
3. An amber banner appears reading “WhatsApp window expired - your message will be sent via SMS”. A Learn more link explains the bridge.
4. In SMS bridge mode, the customer receives two texts: your reply and a follow-up inviting them to respond on WhatsApp, which reopens the 24-hour window.

Replying via SMS manually

1. In the reply composer, select SMS from the channel picker (if available).
2. The placeholder text changes to “Reply via SMS…”.
3. A character counter appears as you type, showing your position against 160-character SMS segment boundaries (for example, “120/160”).
4. Going over 160 characters splits the message into multiple segments. The counter turns red to warn you, showing the next boundary (for example, “180/320”).
5. Press Enter to send, or Shift+Enter for a new line.

How SMS appears in the inbox

1. SMS conversations appear in the Messages inbox list alongside WhatsApp, portal, and voice conversations.
2. Each conversation row shows a channel badge - a blue phone icon for SMS.
3. The conversation list item shows the customer name, channel badge, vehicle registration (if linked), work order reference (if linked), last message preview, and relative timestamp.
4. Context type badges may appear: General, Booking, or Unknown for conversations not tied to a work order.
5. Messages within a conversation display the SMS channel badge next to the sender name.

SMS costs and credits

1. Each AI-powered SMS response uses credits from your AI credit balance. The credit cost covers both the AI token usage (classification and response generation) and the cost of sending the SMS.
2. You can see SMS usage in the Usage This Cycle panel on the billing page. SMS shows as a separate channel card with an interaction count (messages) and credit total.
3. If your credit balance reaches zero, the system sends a static fallback message instead of an AI-generated response. The fallback directs the customer to call you or visit the portal.
4. Trial organisations have a separate cost cap. When the trial cap is exceeded, the same static fallback behaviour applies.

Configuring SMS settings

1. Go to Settings > Communication > Messaging to configure SMS-related settings.
2. The Default outbound channel dropdown lets you choose between WhatsApp, SMS, or Email as the default for proactive notifications. The fallback chain is: WhatsApp, then SMS, then Email, then Portal.
3. The Auto-reply outside business hours toggle sends an automatic reply when customers message outside your opening times. This works across all channels including SMS. The message is sent at most once per closed period.
4. The Auto-acknowledge toggle sends an instant acknowledgement for new messages or messages after a gap of more than four hours.

Expected Outcome

Customers can text your garage and receive an intelligent, contextual AI response within seconds. All SMS conversations are visible in the same inbox as WhatsApp and portal messages. Staff can reply via SMS from the inbox when needed. Credit usage is tracked per channel so you can monitor costs.

Troubleshooting

Problem	Cause	Fix
Customer texts but no response is sent	SMS status is not active on your phone number mapping	Contact support to check your number provisioning status
AI response is generic (“please call us”) instead of contextual	Credit balance is zero or trial cap exceeded	Top up your AI credits on the Billing page
Customer does not appear linked to the message	Phone number does not match any customer record	Add or correct the customer’s mobile number in their customer record
SMS reply from inbox fails	Sending error (for example, invalid destination number)	Check the customer’s phone number is a valid UK mobile
Character counter shows red	Message exceeds 160 characters and will split into multiple SMS segments	Shorten your message to stay within one segment, or accept the multi-segment cost
”WhatsApp window expired” banner appears	The 24-hour WhatsApp messaging window has closed	Send via SMS bridge, use a WhatsApp template, or wait for the customer to message on WhatsApp
Duplicate AI responses sent	Rare race condition on retries	The system has idempotency guards. If it happens, check the conversation for duplicates and contact support

Notes

• Outbound MMS (picture messages) is not supported for UK numbers. Only text-based SMS is available.
• Inbound media attachments (MMS) from customers are stored as attachments on the message record and visible in the conversation.
• The system detects “wrong number” patterns (for example, “Is this John?”) and handles them gracefully without wasting AI tokens on a full response.
• SMS opt-out is respected per customer. If a customer’s sms_opt_out flag is set, no AI response is generated for their messages.
• Cross-channel context continuity means the AI considers recent WhatsApp and portal messages when generating an SMS response. This prevents the AI from asking questions the customer already answered on another channel.