Customer Engagement & Dynamics CRM Forum

We are looking into ways to incorporate texting our customer base. We'd primarily be interested in service updates for our flooring installation projects but perhaps also offering as a method of communication to those that prefer text messages over email. I'm looking for suggestions on programs/APIs that have been successful and perhaps what impact it has had on your business model once implemented. Thanks in advance for sharing.

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Diane Conti
Business Development Director
Continental Flooring Company
Scottsdale AZ
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Hello Diane,

Microsoft have launched the channel integration framework which enables you to communicate from within d365 (including but not limited to sms :-))

Happy to provide more details if of interest.

Tamara

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Tamara Phelan
Solgari
Dublin
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Original Message:
Sent: Aug 08, 2019 07:50 PM
From: Diane Conti
Subject: D365 Texting

We are looking into ways to incorporate texting our customer base. We'd primarily be interested in service updates for our flooring installation projects but perhaps also offering as a method of communication to those that prefer text messages over email. I'm looking for suggestions on programs/APIs that have been successful and perhaps what impact it has had on your business model once implemented. Thanks in advance for sharing.

------------------------------
Diane Conti
Business Development Director
Continental Flooring Company
Scottsdale AZ
------------------------------

Original Message------

We are looking into ways to incorporate texting our customer base. We'd primarily be interested in service updates for our flooring installation projects but perhaps also offering as a method of communication to those that prefer text messages over email. I'm looking for suggestions on programs/APIs that have been successful and perhaps what impact it has had on your business model once implemented. Thanks in advance for sharing.

------------------------------
Diane Conti
Business Development Director
Continental Flooring Company
Scottsdale AZ
------------------------------

Hi Diane,

This question comes up quite often, I'm sure you'll find other threads that may give more information and options.

If you wanted to integrate directly with Dynamics you could look at Click Dimensions (which is for marketing but uses SMS as one of its channels) or a dedicated SMS solution like TxtSync.

Alternatively, as you want to send messages as a result of events happening in Dynamics, like the status change of a project, you could use Microsoft Flow and an SMS connector.  This is a no-code solution and low cost.  You just need to sign up for an SMS provider that supports Flow, such as Twilio, TeleSign or actually TxtSync above and use Flow to send the messages.  Bonus tip: use the Common Data Service connector to connect to Dynamics, not the Dynamics 365 one, as this will be deprecated at some point.

Hope this is helpful.  Have a great end of the week!

Cheers,
Andrew.

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Andrew Bibby
Dynamics 365 Consultant & Project Advisor
Evesham, United Kingdom
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Original Message:
Sent: Aug 08, 2019 07:50 PM
From: Diane Conti
Subject: D365 Texting

We are looking into ways to incorporate texting our customer base. We'd primarily be interested in service updates for our flooring installation projects but perhaps also offering as a method of communication to those that prefer text messages over email. I'm looking for suggestions on programs/APIs that have been successful and perhaps what impact it has had on your business model once implemented. Thanks in advance for sharing.

------------------------------
Diane Conti
Business Development Director
Continental Flooring Company
Scottsdale AZ
------------------------------

Diane,

I walk you through how to do it with Microsoft Flow and Twilio here https://www.crminnovation.com/blog/running-microsoft-flow-from-within-dynamics-365-ce/


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Jerry Weinstock
Business Technology Strategist, MVP
CRM Innovation
Lenexa KS
https://mvp.microsoft.com/en-us/PublicProfile/4029113?fullName=Jerry%20%20Weinstock
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Original Message:
Sent: Aug 08, 2019 07:50 PM
From: Diane Conti
Subject: D365 Texting

We are looking into ways to incorporate texting our customer base. We'd primarily be interested in service updates for our flooring installation projects but perhaps also offering as a method of communication to those that prefer text messages over email. I'm looking for suggestions on programs/APIs that have been successful and perhaps what impact it has had on your business model once implemented. Thanks in advance for sharing.

------------------------------
Diane Conti
Business Development Director
Continental Flooring Company
Scottsdale AZ
------------------------------

We use Click Dimensions/Twilio as well.  But if you're on the newest version of Dynamics, you could use what we use for Chat (Website Alive) https://www.websitealive.com/ - but you could integrate with Dynamics, we cannot (too old of a version of Dynamics) :(

They also have a product called Alive5, which allows your CRM users to text their leads/customers, and/or allow the customer to use the texting feature on their phones to talk to your CRM users who are on the chat module.  It's an all-in-one module where they can respond to chats/texts/facebook messenger, chatbots, etc.

https://www.alive5.com/

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Tim Dailey
Sr Marketing CRM Administrator
Starkey Hearing Technologies
The CRM Dude (freelance consultant)
Eden Prairie MN
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Original Message:
Sent: Aug 08, 2019 07:50 PM
From: Diane Conti
Subject: D365 Texting

We are looking into ways to incorporate texting our customer base. We'd primarily be interested in service updates for our flooring installation projects but perhaps also offering as a method of communication to those that prefer text messages over email. I'm looking for suggestions on programs/APIs that have been successful and perhaps what impact it has had on your business model once implemented. Thanks in advance for sharing.

------------------------------
Diane Conti
Business Development Director
Continental Flooring Company
Scottsdale AZ
------------------------------

Hi @Diane Conti we are just in the middle of our implementation on leveraging a Flow + Twilio setup​ that @Jerry Weinstock referred too.  Has been working pretty good so far in our Sandbox instances and is a very low code solution.

Cheers
Todd

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Todd Mercer
Dynamics CRM Technical Lead
MD Financial Management
Ottawa ON
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Original Message:
Sent: Aug 08, 2019 07:50 PM
From: Diane Conti
Subject: D365 Texting

We are looking into ways to incorporate texting our customer base. We'd primarily be interested in service updates for our flooring installation projects but perhaps also offering as a method of communication to those that prefer text messages over email. I'm looking for suggestions on programs/APIs that have been successful and perhaps what impact it has had on your business model once implemented. Thanks in advance for sharing.

------------------------------
Diane Conti
Business Development Director
Continental Flooring Company
Scottsdale AZ
------------------------------

Hi Diane,
If the Flow-based solution doesn't work as you expect or your volume expands beyond the free Flow limits, you might also consider one of our add-ons which covers this exact use case, PowerSMS: https://www.powerobjects.com/powerpacks/powersms/.  You can try it at no cost for 30 days (still requires Twilio or CallFire to send the SMS messages).

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Merlin Schwaiger
Director of Solution Design
PowerObjects, an HCL Company
Minneapolis MN
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Original Message:
Sent: Aug 08, 2019 07:50 PM
From: Diane Conti
Subject: D365 Texting

We are looking into ways to incorporate texting our customer base. We'd primarily be interested in service updates for our flooring installation projects but perhaps also offering as a method of communication to those that prefer text messages over email. I'm looking for suggestions on programs/APIs that have been successful and perhaps what impact it has had on your business model once implemented. Thanks in advance for sharing.

------------------------------
Diane Conti
Business Development Director
Continental Flooring Company
Scottsdale AZ
------------------------------

Diane,

CallFire is another option (https://www.callfire.com/).  Their API is pretty easy to use and develop using a custom plugin/Flow/whatever...  I wrote a simple plugin I'd be happy to share if you're interested.  Trial accounts with CallFire offer 30 free SMS messages.

Bob


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Robert Chang
CRM Application Developer
Cystic Fibrosis Foundation
Bethesda MD
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Original Message:
Sent: Aug 08, 2019 07:50 PM
From: Diane Conti
Subject: D365 Texting

We are looking into ways to incorporate texting our customer base. We'd primarily be interested in service updates for our flooring installation projects but perhaps also offering as a method of communication to those that prefer text messages over email. I'm looking for suggestions on programs/APIs that have been successful and perhaps what impact it has had on your business model once implemented. Thanks in advance for sharing.

------------------------------
Diane Conti
Business Development Director
Continental Flooring Company
Scottsdale AZ
------------------------------