Utilise SMS text messages to communicate with your customers. SMS has a great open rate to ensure your messages are delivered all the time
SMS is limited by region, so if you try to add credits/send an SMS you should receive a warning if it is not available in your country. If this occurs, please reach out to the team as we may be able to add in your location quickly.
SMS is charged at an additional rate which varies by location. At Class Manager, we have tried our hardest to ensure we work with the best providers and bring you the lowest SMS prices in comparison with our competitors.
Why SMS?
SMS is a great option to get your customer's attention. While we typically send emails, how many unread emails have you got? Then ask yourself how many unread texts (SMS) have you got?
People don't ignore SMS messages so they are a great way to reach your customers in certain circumstances. This could include class cancellations or finally chasing up those last few unpaid invoices.
Replies? Please note, these SMS cannot be replied to.
Customer Sender Name? Depending on your region, we can set you up with a custom "SEND FROM" name up to 11 characters. For example, the text will show from "YOURSCHOOL" on your customers' phones.
How to Get Started
Getting started with SMS messages consist of a few main sections:
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Purchasing SMS credits.
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Enable SMS for customer phone numbers
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Sending an SMS
Purchasing SMS credits.
Enable SMS for customer phone numbers
Sending an SMS
Get started by heading to Settings > Account > SMS Credits from the navigation on the left:
You'll be greeted with your remaining credits as well as the button to purchase more, like below:
When you select Buy Credits, you'll be taken to the page with your local price list for credits. Credits are cheaper the more you purchase. You can use an existing card to make a purchase:
Once you have purchased credits, you can see your purchase (and usage) history by pressing the history tab like below:
Enable SMS for Phone Numbers
In Class Manager, you can keep a record of a lot of phone numbers. This can be on Staff, Customers and Customer contacts. You may not want all of these to be enabled for SMS text messages; for example, extended family/emergency numbers or landline phone numbers.
By default, all phone numbers are not enabled for "Receives SMS". However, you can change it so all phone numbers are enabled to receive SMS by default.
Navigate to Settings > Company > Information and don't forget to 'Save'.
To switch it on for a single customer, we are going to head to a Customer page on the basic information tab. Under the phone numbers widget, you'll see a Receives Text field.
To enable/disable this for any phone number, go ahead and press the edit button on the customer:
Then you can just tick/untick the box.
Once you've made the change, don't forget to hit the Save button.
This tick box can also be found under Customer > Contacts and Staff.
Number Formatting
You'll notice in the example above the phone number has the country prefix prepended to it. For example (UK) +447812345678 rather than 07812345678. Class Manager will try to automatically adjust this for you if you put it in with the non-country code format. It must be in this format to successfully send a message.
Your specific country code should be added and adjusted based on your location. If something doesn't look right or the incorrect country code is being added, please reach out to the team.
Sending SMS Messages
We have multiple ways to send SMS text messages, some of which are outside of the scope of this tutorial. However, if you are familiar with our normal messaging system (email), you will find that it is extremely similar.
In this example, we aren't going to use any shortcuts and directly head to send an SMS message from the menu. Head to Messages > Create SMS:
You'll then be greeted with the message creation window. This works in the same way as our messaging system. Start by using Group Search to search for groups by class or season, or send it to an individual.
Once selected, you can begin to compose your message:
Before you send your message, you can check how many credits this will cost you. Each SMS text message can contain up to 140 characters - you can override this, but it will cost you additional credit. The cost is as follows:
(Length of Message/140) X Quantity of Recipients = Required Credits
A few examples would be :
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30 Recipients, 102 Characters = 30 X 1, 30 Credits
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10 Recipients, 202 Characters = 10 X 2, 20 Credits
30 Recipients, 102 Characters = 30 X 1, 30 Credits
10 Recipients, 202 Characters = 10 X 2, 20 Credits
You can quickly see how many credits your current message will require at the bottom left, under where you type your message. It will look like the image below:
Once you are happy to proceed, go ahead and click the send button or if you wish to save the draft and come back later use the save button:
How much does it cost?
UK: £0,05 - 0,07 ea
Ireland: €0,10 - 0,15 ea
France: €0,07 - 0,10 ea
Germany: €0,16 - 0,20 ea
Switzerland: €0.10-0,14 ea
USA: $0,02- 0,25 ea
Australia: $AUD 0,08 - 0,12 ea
Canada: C$0,08 - 0,12 ea
New Zealand: NZD$0,27-0,34 ea
South Africa: $0,04-0,08 ea
Senegal: $0,14 -0,28 ea
* All costs are dependent on the countries' network providers.