I am trying to submit a suggestion for new RingCentral Automator work flows. I hope this is the correct place.I would like to see the Automator fully automated to support the TCR requirements. Specifically:send the opt out verbiage with the text message record the customer preferences to ensure text messages are not sent when the customer has opted out or are send when they have opted in

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esoper

The First Step

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Request: TCR opt-in/opt-out auto-replies and enforcement

Forum|Forum|1 year ago
November 19, 2024
35 replies
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I am trying to submit a suggestion for new RingCentral Automator work flows. I hope this is the correct place.

I would like to see the Automator fully automated to support the TCR requirements. Specifically:

send the opt out verbiage with the text message
record the customer preferences to ensure text messages are not sent when the customer has opted out or are send when they have opted in

Best answer by ByrneReese

@bt-chris.brown I am not sure this is what you are saying, but one thing I feel I should point out is based on my own misunderstanding early on.

TCR applies to all communications between a business and consumer. TCR does not disambiguate between 1-on-1 communications between a business representative and a customer. So if you and I are corresponding with one another via SMS, me from my RingCentral phone number and you as one of its customers, if you text STOP to me, I am obligated not to text you again -- even if we are talking about what we both did last summer. You know? I thought I would share, because again, I thought TCR governed how I use SMS to market to you or sell to you. But it governs more than that.

Let me take a step back and look at your request fresh. You are not talking about an auto-reply to a request to STOP, START, etc. You are looking for a way to inform the people you correspond with of their ability to unsubscribe if they want to. I think that is correct, but let me know if I got that wrong - otherwise, the rest of my advice below is likely to be wrong. :-/

Ok. So I see two ways to solve this problem: one is through the use of SMS templates. SMS templates allow you to write and share a message across your organization that you can easily insert into a text you intend to send to someone. This would not be automated, but would at least let you create a consistent message that could be sent to the people you correspond with. The downside being that it is not automated, and your employees would need to be trained to send this disclosure reliably. Ug.

Ideally we could automate this message using Workflow Builder. We don’t have a trigger for SMS sent - that seems like the ideal trigger. The workflow would work like this:

At a frequency of once per month or even once per year, when you send an SMS to someone, the workflow would be triggered and send a second SMS shortly thereafter saying, “FYI - you are corresponding with INSERT NAME from COMPANY NAME. If you would like to no longer receive messages from them, you may send ‘STOP’ at any time.” The workflow would periodically send this disclosure based on the workflow’s frequency settings - in this way it would also work to remind users of their rights on a recurring basis. In this scenario, the following would be possible:
- Byrne: “Hey Chris, I wanted to follow up regarding our phone call.”
- Workflow Builder to Chris: “Disclaimer: you are corresponding with Byrne Reese from RingCentral. If you would like to no longer receive messages from Byrne, you may send ‘STOP’ at any time.”
- Chris: “Oh hey Byrne. No problem. It was great speaking with you.”
- Byrne: “Likewise. Let’s schedule a meeting to chat...”
Alternatively, you could bind the same logic to the “SMS received” trigger. So the interaction would be slightly different, but it would still work to achieve the same results. In this mode though the following interaction would be more common.
- Byrne: “Hey Chris, I wanted to follow up regarding our phone call.”
- Chris: “Oh hey Byrne. No problem. It was great speaking with you.”
- Workflow Builder to Chris: “Disclaimer: you are corresponding with Byrne Reese from RingCentral. If you would like to no longer receive messages from Byrne, you may send ‘STOP’ at any time.”
- Byrne: “Likewise. Let’s schedule a meeting to chat...”

You can see the only difference between the two would be the order in which the messages are sent. What do you think of these ideas?

Show previous replies

ByrneReese

Product Manager

@amidragon I must defer to @gurpreetsingh on this question as he is the PM for this product, and I do not have the same level of expertise and knowledge that he has. This could be by design, or a bug, I am not sure.

G

gurpreetsingh

Employee

@amidragon , Good questions, as we are actively working thru it. Here are my inline replies.

>>It seems that the customized START/STOP/HELP messages are not yet implemented.

Correct, it’s developed but under deployment process. We should see them later this month or early March.

>>Is it also in the plan to display those automatic messages in the RingCentral interface?

This is planned for Q2, 2025 to show automated messages sent by RingCentral in our desktop and mobile apps.

Regards

Gurpreet

PM, RingCentral Platform Products

A

amidragon

Participating Frequently

Thank you, @gurpreetsingh! It is helpful to know that these things are in the pipeline. I appreciate the response!

B

bt-chris.brown

@gurpreetsingh Do you have any updates on the SMS feature updates?

I do see that during the creation of a new SMS message (1-to-1) from the RingCentral App, there’s now a checkbox to add opt-out message, but it just says “Reply STOP to opt out of these texts” and doesn’t necessarily reflect any custom Opt-out messaging we submitted during the TCR Registration. Is that going to be available at some point?

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gurpreetsingh

Employee

@bt-chris.brown

There are two key components:

Adding an Opt-Out Instruction to Outbound Messages:
- Currently, there is a checkbox option to include an opt-out message when sending outbound messages. This message is a predefined template:
  “Reply STOP to opt out of these texts.”
- Since the opt-out instruction is not collected as a separate field during TCR registration, customization is not available at this time. We will evaluate internally whether to support custom opt-out messages in the future, but for now, the standard message will remain unchanged.
Sending an Auto-Reply When Someone Opts Out:
- At present, the auto-reply for recipients who send STOP is a canned message.
- By the end of this month, this message will be customizable—it will be automatically replaced by the opt-out auto-reply you specified during TCR registration, ensuring recipients receive the personalized opt-out confirmation you’ve configured.

Let me know if there are more questions.

Regards

Gurpreet

PM, RingCentral Platform Products

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bt-chris.brown

@gurpreetsingh I noticed today that the checkbox to include opt-out messaging when sending outbound messages through the Web/Desktop RingCentral app to a single person has been removed. Was that intentional? From my understanding, we needed to ensure we used that messaging for all communications we sent to a client (at least initially).

Do you have any additional updates you can talk about related to the SMS features?

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bt-chris.brown

@gurpreetsingh Do you have any updates on the current features that were set to be deployed around SMS/TCR?

I’ve noticed the Opt-Out checkbox no longer appears on 1-to-1 messages in the RingCentral web/desktop app, only the mobile app. Is this as intended? It looks like you have to create a group message to have the option.

Since we’re required to send out the opt-out information on initial text messages, this feature was helpful to remain compliant while not making it extremely inefficient to have someone copy/paste a template.

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bt-chris.brown

@gurpreetsingh I also noticed a new “Company Template” in the RingCentral App Today. I couldn’t find any documentation on how we’d set up administrative templates, but figured this would be an option for asking users to supply opt-out language. I didn’t see the same feature set in the Web/Desktop App yet.

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bt-chris.brown

@ByrneReese would you or someone at RingCentral have any thoughts on my above two posts? I’ve tried getting answers from RingCentral support and they’re unaware of such options.

ByrneReese

Product Manager

@bt-chris.brown This is not a good solution for that. SMS opt-in and opt-out auto-reply messages are controlled by the system. I would not recommend sending your own, as you will just duplicate the messages that are sent for you automatically.

My understanding is that the responses are controlled from your TCR application.

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