If you wish to send notifications to customers and receive a response, you can use a “Send SMS Notification with Reply” component in an API-triggered Studio flow.
When a pre-specified condition is met, events from an external system such as an Electronic Health Record (EHR), or a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system are triggered, and an automatic outbound notification is initiated.
For example, send an SMS to remind patients about an upcoming appointment and ask them to confirm their availability. Events such as all the upcoming appointments are retrieved from the EHR or CRM systems, the flow is triggered based on the date of the event, and while being executed, the outbound SMS is sent to the customer.
Preferences
Outbound SMS Number: Select a source phone number from the list, from which the trigger will be executed. The available phone numbers correspond to those that have been specifically provisioned by Talkdesk for this purpose and added to your Talkdesk account under Admin > Numbers.
Destination Number: Select the destination number variable, which, in our example, corresponds to the variable we have configured in the API Request step - destination_number. This variable will retrieve the phone number information within the body of the API request.
SMS content: Type the text to be sent to the patient in the SMS which can include variables to capture the data contained in your CRM or EHR. In our example above, the SMS notification sent to the patient provides information about the date and time of the appointment. It is also requested that the patient confirms the availability by replying with “Yes”, “No” or “Reschedule” the appointment.
Variables: The variables you configure here will store the information contained in the reply sent by the patient, and will populate the “reply sms” field. You can select an existing variable from the list or create a new one.
Exits
The Exits tab enables you to route the call to new or pre-configured components, depending on the following scenarios:
Reply command exits: Different reply commands can be set up to contemplate the many ways in which the patient may reply. Following our example above: The “Exit name” defined is "confirm" (“Reply Command #1”). So, in case the answer is affirmative, an SMS notification is sent to the patient confirming the appointment.
No Match: In this section, you must select where to send the call if the SMS command does not match any keyword.
Timeout: In the “Timeout” section, add the maximum number of hours the system will wait for the patient to reply. Note: The minimum value for the timeout is one hour and the maximum is 24 hours. In case the user inserts a number outside this range, the system will trigger an error.
SMS Error: Select a component that will be executed in case there’s an error, such as a network issue.
Invalid Number: Choose where to route the call if the destination number is invalid. This will happen if the external device is switched off, has no reception, if the number is deactivated, or in the wrong format. In our example, we’ve decided to use the “End flow” component, which will terminate the flow if the notification sent through our API request cannot reach the destination phone number.
Error handling: This section is available in most Studio components. You can use it to define the behavior for unexpected failure during the execution of a component. For more information on this section, please refer to the "Error handling" documentation.