Creating new SMS

When in the Marketing module, from the main menu, slick on Campaigns and then select SMS Campaigns

Then click on the + ADD SMS button

Create your SMS content. The screen will show you how many characters are left. One SMS includes 160 characters, including spaces. If your text is longer, then it will count as multiple SMS, in multiples of 160 characters.

• To shorten the number of characters when using a web address, try using a URL shortener.
• If using the [FIRSTNAME] or [SURNAME] tags, please keep in mind that this will result in a different character count, based on the actual name, that is created at run-time.

Click on SAVE

Your SMS is now ready to be scheduled to be sent at the time and date of your choice…

Testing your SMS message

At any time, you can test what the message will look like when received, by clicking on the Send Test SMS button and sending it to yourself.

Segmenting SMS Recipients

When your SMS message is finalised, you can then schedule it to be send. As part of that process, you can select:

• The date and time when it will be sent;
• The segmentation of which guests the SMS message should be sent to;

To schedule your SMS message, click on Schedule Campaign.

The system allows you to segment your guests database to specify who should receive the SMS message, with the following options available:

• Site: For multiple site operators, select a particular location (if the SMS message applies to a particular restaurant only) or select All Sites. Your guests database will be filtered accordingly.
• Gender: You can send your SMS message to all guests, or select Male or Female only. An example might be if you want to send a ‘Girls Lunch Special’ offer that you only want to send to female guests only.
• Occasion: You can create an unlimited number of occasions in the system, which can then be used as flags for your guest cards. This includes things like birthdays or anniversaries. Occasions also have a Month filter attached to it.
• Internal Flags: You can created an unlimited number of specific flags in the system, which can then be allocated to your guest cards. You may want to send an SMS message promoting your new Vegan menu in which case only want to email guests that have a ‘Vegan’ flag attached to their record. You can select any number of flags to further segment the recipients for your SMS message.

The Filter Options includes the following:

• All guests
• New guests since:
• Guests who have visited during a particular date range:
• Guests who have not visited during date range
• Visit frequency: > = number of times in the last number of days

You also have the ability to exclude cancellations & no shows from that list.

In this example, I have created a flag for myself (ft Team). 

When you have stipulated your criteria, click on SEARCH

Scheduling SMS Date & Time

The next step allows you to specify when you want to send your SMS message. The screen also shows a summary of the criteria that were applied for segmentation of your guests database, the number of guests the SMS message will be sent to and the cost of your SMS campaign, based on number of SMS that will be sent.

Select the date (Send On:) and time (Time:) then click on SCHEDULE.

Your SMS campaign is now shown as Scheduled and will automatically be sent at the stipulated time / date.

Once it is sent, the status will change from Scheduled to Sent. The system will also display How many SMS were sent, how many were received and how many failed.

The SMS will show as a notification on the Home screen of the recipient's mobile phone when received:

And any link in the message will be displayed as a call for action when opening the text message.

Editing an SMS Message

You can Edit the SMS at any time before it is sent (Status must be Draft or Scheduled) by clicking on the Edit icon

Copying an SMS Message

You can copy an existing message to re-use (and edit) by clicking on the Copy icon.