I’d like to set up a two-way texting platform using Twilio.
Imagine my Bubble.io app is used by gyms to handle fitness class scheduling and texting communication with their gym members.
My question is: does each gym need their own separate phone number for Twilio? Or is it best to use one phone number for the entire platform (including all gyms). Given that this would be a two-way texting platform, I would need to be ensure that Gym A can only see their messages/responses in the app.
The first question I have is: Are the gyms under the same brand? If yes, from a logical standpoint I would use only one phone number to simplify the whole process. If no, I would group all of the gyms under the same brands and use the same phone number for each groups.
This is a simple scenario to point out, if Gym A located in California and Gym B located in Texas use the same phone number Member A/B will never have a problem, because the information is divided in two, but the number is centralized. Just look at two factor verification, it’s much simpler to centralize.
Extra: I would like to ask, don’t you think it’s easier and for much less cost using mobile push notifications? I know bubble doesn’t offer mobile native apps yet, but you could use a tool called flutterflow to no code bootstrap android and ios, while using bubble.io as the backend of your choice.
I use ClickSend in my app, have multiple salons with 2 way SMS, all using the same number. When they create/send the message, I just save the company code to the message and the SMS header for that client, so when they look at their text messages ( Search for ClickSendSMS, filtered by company = current user’s company) they are only seeing messages sent/received from that specific salon’s clients.
I debated on using different numbers for different salons, but in the end I just felt it was easier / more cost effective / lazier to just use 1 number.
This is very helpful. But one follow-up question is…“Imagine you have an inbound text …how do you associate the salon customer with the appropriate text chain/salon conversation?” What would happen if a customer is talking to two different salons that use your platform? How would we know the text is intended for Salon A, instead of Salon B, if all communications are done from a single phone number? Thanks a bunch.
That’s actually a great question, which I’ve never even considered…
So, when the salon messages the client for the first time, I attach that user’s email to the message as ClickSend allows me to send a custom field, so when they respond I have that email associated to that user’s phone number, and in the backend It does a search for users by that email and then attaches the appropriate company based off their email.
So any time they respond in the future, it always gets assigned from the original company it was sent from. I do have clients that have customers at 2 different salon’s, but this issue has never come up (That I’ve been notified about)
I suppose you could create some sort of workflow that, say if a user messages a salon, and that user is associated with multiple salons, you can have an automated reply that asks which salon they would want to message before officially saving the message to a specific company? Then once they respond, it sets the message to either Salon A or Salon B, and only that company would see the message.
I’d think seperate numbers are needed per salon for this and other reasons…
You already have a solution for the reply text issue, in my point of view, there’s no explanation needed. Your app and users experience will depend on the way you organize your data.
