Texting with VoiceFriend
Texting from VoiceFriend
Overview
Texts can be sent from VoiceFriend to Staff (offering a shift, scheduling meetings, etc.) to Seniors (announcing an event, reminding that it’s meal time) and to Families (inviting to a celebration, declaring a weather event.)
You can send text messages and have the recipient respond. Responses can be forwarded as an email to one or more e-mail addresses, as a text message to one or more mobile phone numbers, and to the VoiceFriend system for viewing after logging in through a computer.
Composing a text
A text can be a maximum of 600 characters, but most people will stop reading a text long before that, so it’s best to keep text length to a minimum.
If you are sending an email and a text from the same template, you will probably need to edit the email text if you just paste it into the text block, as it will probably be longer and wordier than a text should be. If the recipient of your text does not have a smart phone, the text will be broken up into multiple parts.
Everyone who receives the text will see that it is from the phone number that is associated with your facility in the Administration record inside VoiceFriend. They may not know who that number is associated with, so it may be a good idea to start your text with something like: “From Acme Assisted Living” so they won’t think it’s spam and delete it.
Replying to a text
If a reader of your text replies directly to the text, it can go to three places:
As a Text to one or more mobile-phone numbers that are set-up in the Administration area of your VoiceFriend. Please contact VoiceFriend Technical Support for help in setting this up.
As an email to one or more email addresses that are set-up in the Administration area of your VoiceFriend. Please contact VoiceFriend Technical Support for help in setting this up.
To a report that you can see by clicking on:
ADMINISTRATION
Usage Reports
Text Message Reply
Enter the Start and End dates of the period for which you want to see replies. Please note that if you had replies to more than one text in that period, you will see them all. Also, if someone received your text on an older not-smart phone, their name may appear multiple times in the Message Report because we had to break the message up in to multiple messages to fit on their screen.
If you are sending multiple messages to the same group (for example if you are trying to fill two different shifts), you may want to set up a code in your message so that you can match the response to the message. In your outgoing message, you can ask people to type AA or BB or CC (for example) at the beginning of their response so that you can the match the response to the message that was sent.
You can also specify in your text that you would like the recipient to call some specific phone number or text back to a different mobile phone number, but even if you do that, our experience is that most people who want to reply will just do it as reply to your text and will not do what you asked for!
Replying to a reply to a text
There is no facility in VoiceFriend to reply to a reply to a text. You can either text directly from your mobile phone, or you can create a template in VoiceFriend to send a text to one or more people.