Text Messaging
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      Fuse Business Texting

      Fuse Texting is available as an add-on for Fuse and Forge Essential subscriptions and is included in Forge Premium subscriptions. It includes a two-way texting platform and text messages in campaigns. 

      Click the links below to navigate to a section in this article:

      Two-Way Communication

      Your Business Text Inbox allows all of your users to receive and respond to text messages in one place.

      How to Enable Browser Notifications for Business Text

      Browser notifications provide an alert on your desktop when a new text message is received. Instead of constantly checking your Business Text Inbox to see if text messages have come in, you can instead turn on your browser notifications and be notified of new text messages.

      To enable browser notifications for Business Text:

      1. Click on the Settings gear icon, and select “All Settings”

      2. Click “My Profile” in the left menu

      3. Under User Details, click the “Notification” tab.

      4.  In the Texting Notifications drop-down menu, select which notifications you'd like to receive. This drop-down menu controls both Browser and Email notifications:
      • You can choose to receive notifications for all conversations or just the ones that you're associated with.

        • If you choose "Only My Conversations" and are receiving notifications for conversations you'd like to unsubscribe to -- easy! Click here to learn more about how to view and remove users who are "assigned" to conversations.

      Email Notifications for Unread Texts and Internal Notes

      To help you follow up with your contacts and colleagues in a timely manner, we'll send an email notification whenever a new text message or internal note goes unread for 5 minutes.

      All Users associated with a conversation can expect to receive an email notification for unread text messages. These are Users who have either taken part in the text conversation previously or are listed as the "Account Rep" or "Producer" on the associated account.

      If there are not yet any Users associated with a conversation -- perhaps a new text came in from a number not yet connected to a contact -- users with the "Manager" role will receive an email notification about the unread text(s).

      These emails will be sent from the following address and will have the following subject line:

      Users will also receive an email if they have been mentioned in an internal note and have not read that message within 5 minutes. Those emails will be sent directly to the user who was pinged in the note with the following subject line:

      • Fuse Texting | You’ve been mentioned in a note

      Filtering to view your conversations

      In our shared Inbox, you may want to see only the conversations that you're associated with. Easy!

      1. In your Inbox, click the filter icon:

      2. Here you can filter your text messages. To filter so that you're only seeing your conversations, click "Only mine" under "Conversations" and apply your changes:

      Seeing a conversation that you don't want to be associated with?

      You can easily un-assign yourself from a conversation so that you no longer see it when you apply this filter, or receive notifications for new messages.

      1. In the conversation, navigate to the "Conversation Info" panel.

      2. Click on the "Assignees" tab and deselect your name.

        • If you are assigned as the Account Rep or Produce on the account, removing yourself from the conversation will not remove yourself from the account! This change only applies to the current conversation in the Texting Inbox.

      Filtering by Unread Messages

      You can now easily filter your Inbox to show just your unread messages, so you never have to worry about missing a response from a client in your Inbox. To filter your messages:

      1. In your Inbox, click the filter icon.

      2. To filter by unread messages, click "Unread" under "Message Status" and apply your changes:

        filter-unread-canny

      In your Inbox, click the filter icon.

      To filter by unread messages, click "Unread" under "Message Status" and apply your changes:

      Archiving Text Messages

      We know how important it is to log all client communications. We’ve made this easy to do with our Archiving feature with auto-archiving so that a complete conversation is saved back to your Fuse account. Conversations will be automatically archived after 14 days of no activity (no new messages or notes). You can also choose to manually archive a conversation at any time.

      These archives also get sent back to supported Agency Management Systems as logs. The Archiving feature is currently supported by these systems:

      • AMS 360

      • HawkSoft

      • QQ Catalyst

      When APIs are available, we will add support for other systems. Stay tuned!

      Summaries of Archived Text Messages

      Summaries of archived messages can be included in writebacks to your AMS. To enable this feature, you must use an AMS that supports writebacks, such as AMS360, Hawksoft, and QQ Catalyst, then complete the following:

      Enable Activity Data Sync:

      • Verify that the Activity Data Sync feature is enabled in your system settings.

      Configure Activity Sync Settings:

      • Navigate to the "Choose types of activity to sync to your Management System" section.
      • Ensure the options for "Messaging—Conversation" and "Messaging—Conversation Archived" are both turned on:

      Please note that past conversations made before we added summaries in writebacks to the platform will not receive a summary.

      "Text Conversation Archived" Activity

      A summary of the archived messages will be displayed in the "Text Conversation Archived" Account Activity in Fuse. Example:

      Screenshot 2024-07-26 at 12.36.21 PM

      Changing the Contact Associated with a Conversation

      Need to update the contact that a conversation is associated with so that archives sync to the expected contact record? Easy!

      1. Open the appropriate conversation in your Texting Inbox.

      2. Navigate to the "Conversation Info" panel.

      3. At the bottom of the "Contact Details" tab, click the "Change Associated Contact" link.

      4. Fuse will automatically display any existing contacts that have the phone number in the conversation in their contact record.

      5. If your preferred contact is not listed here, you can search all contacts


      Please note:       if a conversation has already been archived, those archives will not be transferred to the new contact you select. Once a conversation is archived, that archive cannot be moved to another contact. Future archives of the conversation will be associated with the new contact.

      Connecting a Text Conversation to a Contact

      We’ve made it easy to associate a text conversation with an existing contact. If you send or receive a text message from an existing contact with a Cell Phone Number in their contact record, we’ll automatically label that conversation with the contact name.

      If the contact record is missing a Cell Phone Number, you can use the Connect to Contact feature to connect phone numbers to existing contacts in Fuse.

      1. Open the text conversation, and click the “Connect to Contact” button.

      2. Search for the contact by typing in their name:

      3. Select the contact, and click the “Connect” button to connect the conversation to that specific contact.

      Open the text conversation, and click the “Connect to Contact” button.

      Search for the contact by typing in their name:

      Select the contact, and click the “Connect” button to connect the conversation to that specific contact.

      It is important to have text conversations connected to contacts in Fuse so that the conversations are archived to the correct contacts.

      Note: This “connection” only exists within the Business Texting product. When you connect a text conversation to a contact, we do not update that contact’s cell phone record.

      Mark a Text Message as Spam

      You can easily mark inbound text messages as spam. This allows you to remove unwanted text conversations from your Inbox without the need to archive them. To mark a text message as spam:

      1. Open the text conversation, and click the Mark as Spam button.

         

      2. In the Mark as Spam modal, confirm that you would like to mark the text conversation as spam:

      Open the text conversation, and click the Mark as Spam button.

      In the Mark as Spam modal, confirm that you would like to mark the text conversation as spam:

      When you mark a conversation as spam, we will:

      • Respond with "STOP" to try to prevent future messages from landing in your Inbox.

      • Remove the conversation from your Inbox so these junk messages are not getting in the way of your client conversations.

      Call Forwarding

      To help make sure that you don't miss a chance to connect with a contact, we've made it easy to forward calls to another number in case someone tries to call your texting number.

      Follow the steps below to setup call forwarding:

      1. Log into your Fuse account

      2. Click on the Settings gear icon, and select “All Settings”

      3. Click “Texting” in the left menu

      4. *Click "Call Forwarding:"

      5. On the following screen, simply toggle call forwarding on and enter the phone number to which you would like incoming calls forwarded to:


      *Only available to users who either created a brand new phone number for texting or transferred (AKA ported) an existing number to Fuse. If you don't see this option available, it's because you text-enabled (AKA hosted) an existing number for texting.

      Add Text Messaging to Your Campaigns

      The Fuse Campaign Builder supports adding text messages to any campaign. We’ve automatically included a text message step to the Quick Start Campaigns, but you can also add a text message step to any campaign.

      To add a text message step to a campaign:

      1. Open the campaign and click “Add sms step”:

      2. Text message step overview:

        1. Gear Icon: Click on the gear icon to enable the text message.

        2. Chart Icon: Click on the chart icon to view the statistics for the text message.

        3. Eye Icon: Click on the eye icon to preview the text message.

        4. Pencil Icon: Click on the pencil icon to edit the text message content.

      Text-Enabled Campaigns Included

      The following campaigns now include a text message step.*

      • Personal Welcome Kit

      • Commercial Welcome Kit

      • Account Review - Personal

      • Account Review - Commercial

      • Birthday Greetings (Primary and Secondary)

      *Note: Text message steps are disabled by default. You must turn them on to use them.

      Statistics and Logging

      Statistics

      To view SMS statistics for a campaign:

      1. Open the campaign you’d like to view the statistics for.

      2. On the SMS step, click on the chart icon to view the statistics for the text message:

        1. Targeted: This is the number of sent text messages.

        2. Failed: This shows the percentage of text messages that failed to send. Failure to send could be due to the cell phone number not being active.

      Logging

      After a text message is sent, the text message will be logged in the Activities section of the client account:

      Automatic Opt-Out Support

      No one likes to get spammed, and if someone complains, the last thing you want to do is to continue to send text messages.

      If anyone sends “STOP” to a text message, we will prevent the user from sending a text message.

      Add Web Chat to Your Website

      Web Chat combines the power of our shared Texting Inbox with our new Web Chat feature, giving users an easy way to start and continue conversations with new leads and existing clients. Simply customize the chat widget and add the embed code to your website to get started!

      To set up Web Chat:

      1. Log into your Fuse account

      2. Click on the Settings gear icon, and select “All Settings”

      3. Click “Textung” in the left menu

      4. Click the “Chat Widget” button:

      5. Here you will be able to customize your chat widget:

        1. Your website homepage: Add your website homepage URL here. This is required as an important security precaution to ensure that only authorized domains have the ability to initiate a chat with you

        2. Auto response: As soon as a website visitor submits the form, they will immediately receive the auto-response entered here via text message

        3. Content

          • Header Title: Customize the title that appears in the header of your chat widget

          • Header Subtitle: Personalize the subtitle displayed below the header in the chat widget

          • Confirm Message: Define the message that confirms successful form submission

        4. Color palette

          • Primary Color: Choose the primary color for the chat widget

          • Icon and Header/Button Copy: Customize the icons and text displayed in the header and buttons of the chat widget.

          • Form Labels: Modify the labels associated with different form fields in the chat widget

          • Form Inputs: Customize the appearance and behavior of the input fields in the chat widget

          • Disclaimer: Tailor the disclaimer text that appears within the chat widget

         

      6. Once you’ve customized your chat widget, click the “Generate Embed Code” on the bottom left of your screen.

      7. An Embed Code modal will appear. Click the copy icon to copy the embed code:

      8. Now that you have the embed code, you can add it to your website!

      Note, if you have a website through Forge3 or Agency Revolution Attract, our Support team can help you place this embed code on your site!

      Business Text FAQs

      Can I use an existing number of mine for Business Texting?

      Yes! If you have an office number that you'd like to use for texting, you should be able to either text-enable (AKA host) or transfer (AKA port) that number to Fuse.

      Your setup options will depend on a number of factors, such as your current carrier and whether or not you're using your number for outbound calls. Our setup process will guide you through the different options available to you.

      One important requirement: texting is not like email. Only one provider can send text messages from your number. Should someone want to send text messages from Agency Revolution, they will not be able to use another texting provider for that same number, whether that’s RingCentral, HawkSoft, AMS360, or Agency Zoom.

      Can I have a number for every employee in my agency?

      No, and we don’t recommend this approach.

      Text messaging differs from email, and using text messages the same way you use email will yield poor results. With text messaging, people expect a fast response. If you aren’t able to respond quickly, then maybe your agency isn’t prepared to be successful with text messaging.

      That’s why we designed Fuse Texting with a Team Inbox approach: a team of people can work together to reply quickly as questions come in.

      If you want your users just to see messages from their clients, they can apply the “My Messages” filter to see conversations they are part of and conversations with their clients. We link to your AMS, so we know your client’s phone numbers and who their account managers are.

      Can I separate texting numbers by office location? (Can I have different texting numbers for multiple locations?)

      No, users cannot have multiple texting numbers by office location. Fuse Business Texting does not currently support different numbers for multiple locations. 

      If someone unsubscribes from email, will we stop sending text messages, too?

      Texting opt-outs are separate from email opt-outs. If someone replies "STOP" to a text message, that will only stop Fuse from sending future text messages, but it will not stop any other marketing.

      The reverse is also true: if someone hits the unsubscribe link at the bottom of an email, that will not prevent additional text messages, whether automated or manual, from being sent.

      Do you register my business and number with The Campaign Registry?

      Yes! As of January 1, 2023, all businesses that send text messages to consumers must register their number with The Campaign Registry. Part of this process includes validating that the business is registered with appropriate government agencies and declaring its use case. We handle all of this automatically, including paying the monthly fees to The Campaign Registry.

      I currently use Twilio for text messaging. Will this replace Twilio?

      Twilio will continue to work for users who have it today.

      To learn about text messaging legal requirements and best practices, click here.