I want to develop a two way text messaging application for queue management. I have people that queue up for hours to do a certain activity on first come first serve basis. I want to get rid of the queue by having people SMS to the application. The application line them up on the basis the time the SMS was sent and how many people sent before it. The system will reply to the person by giving him or her the time and date he or she can come and do the activity. Thus removing the time spend in the queue which normally take several hours.

Answer:
Voicent BroadcastBySMS and IVR Studio have the capability to manage your text message for queue. This may require programming knowledge on your end. We do offer developer’s subscription to help you develop your own application. For detailed information, please see http://voicent.com/devnet/

The Voicent Gateway has a setting that will auto-detect the COM port being used by your USB modem for BroadcastBySMS. To find this setting, you will need to open up the Voicent Gateway, go to “Options” then go to the SMS tab. Select “Auto detect” and then restart the Gateway. If you see an SMS line started then your modem is connected to the Gateway.

To start a dynamic campaign, follow these steps:

Step 1. Define call list

Open Voicent CRM, select Contact > Find Contact… from the program main menu. From the Quick Search dialog window, enter any criteria for the call list, such as a specific city name or area code.

Step 2. Start dynamic campaign

From the search result window, select Campaign > Start Campaign from the program main menu then select the type of campaign (predictive campaign, voice broadcast campaign, sms/text message campaign or email campaign) to run. The following is the SMS broadcast campaign window:

Make sure to choose “this is an dynamic campaign”.

Step 3. Choose the phone number column

In the CRM customer record, there are different fields for customer’s phone number, such as mobile phone, home phone, work phone, and other phone. You can choose the search order in the phone column window. Click OK to start the campaign.

To see all the current dynamic campaigns, select Campaign main menu, then select Show campaigns.

Add new contact to campaign

As opposed to a static campaign, dynamic campaigns will keep the campaign active even if it reaches the end of the call list. Once it reaches the end of the call list, a dynamic campaign will enter into a waiting mode. As soon as new customers are added to the CRM database, if the new customers satisfy the original search criteria, these customers will be added to the call list and the campaign will resume.

Everything described above will be executed automatically. So for example, when a new customer calls in, a new CRM record will be created automatically. This customer, if his or her record matches the campaign search criteria, will be automatically added to the dynamic campaign.

Add new contact using the web interface

You can also add new customers to a dynamic campaign using HTTP POST. This is a useful feature, for example, a call or email can be automatically triggered after a customer fills in a web-based “contact us” form. The following is the CRM update URL:

http://(gateway host name or ip address):8155/vxcrm.jsp

The required parameters are:

action: add
passwd: this is the CRM web password defined on Voicent Gateway
user: this is the customer ID if you are using Voicent hosted service, or 0

The rest of the parameters corresponds to the fields in Voicent CRM for customer table. They are:

first_name, middle_name, last_name, home_phone, work_phone, work_phone_ext, cell_phone, other_phone,
email, email2, fax, business, job_title, customer_catid, do_not_call, do_not_email

For custom fields, use cf_1, cf_2, …, cf_20

It is also possible to use the display name of the custom field. What you must do is to replace the space with underscore in the display name. For example, if you set the first custom field (cf_1) to “Age Group“, the you can set the parameter name as: Age_Group.

For the customer category, you can also use the display name. For example, instead of setting customer_catid to 3, you can set customer_catname to “Priority Customer“.

For address, use the following:

home_street, home_city, home_state, home_zipcode, home_country, work_street, work_city, work_state, work_zipcode, work_country.

Please note that adding a new customer to the CRM database may trigger multiple dynamic campaigns. As long as the new customer record satisfies the campaign call list search criteria, the new customer will be added to any current dynamic campaign where the customer fits the search criteria.

The advantages of using multiple single USB Modems is just how easy it is to manage, and to keep all data valuable. Four Zoom Modems can now be plugged into the same computer, to send out 4 sms messages at the same time. Originally, you would of have to have multiple GSM modems of a different version in order to send out simultaneous text messages, or would of had to purchased a GSM Modem Pool.

Hello, i want to buy Broadcast By SMS Professional Edition, but i want to ask about GSM MODEM, what it is? I am located in Beirut Lebanon, i have Broadband connection LAN not Dial-UP , so my question is does it work in my country?
About the purchase i will purchase it from California next week but i need to know before if it works in Lebanon and if you can give me info about GSM modem

Hello,

Thank you for your interest in Voicent BroadcastBySMS, we appreciate that you took the initiative to check us out!

Pertaining to your question, BroadcastBySMS does not utilize an internet connection to send text messages; however, it does require a GSM Modem, which is an USB adapter that houses the GSM card that is provided by your cellphone provider. Here at Voicent, we sell the Zoom Model 4598 Modem which you can also purchase on Amazon.com. http://www.amazon.com/Zoom-4598-Unlocked-USB-Modem/dp/B0089XJG64

Please note for this particular GSM modem, it is only compatible with GSM cards that operate at frequencies of either 850, 1900, or 2100 MHz. You need to talk to your cellphone provider to confirm. And yes, you should be able to send SMS messages wherever in the world as long as your GSM card is compatible, and that a GSM cellphone tower is nearby! You can normally find information about GSM from your cellphone provider.

Hello

Can I check as to the time taken to send out 50,000 sms at one list?

In order to send 50,000 SMS messages, (with one SMS Modem) it takes 5 seconds to send 1 SMS message.

12 SMS messages in 60 seconds (1 minute).

720 SMS messages per 60 minutes (1 hour).

17,280 SMS messages every 24 hours (1 day).

It would take about 3 days or 70 hours to broadcast 50,000 SMS messages with 1 SMS modem.

If you had more than one SMS modem, e.g., 10 SMS Modems, then 10 SMS messages will be sent in 5 seconds.

120 SMS messages in 60 seconds (1 minute).

7,200 SMS messages per 60 minute (1 hour).

172,800 SMS messages every 24 hours (1 day).

It would take about 7 hours to broadcast 50,000 SMS messages with 10 SMS modems.

We currently do outbound dial for appointment reminders but would like to know what is required in accordance with your software in order to send appointment reminders via text.