Within Street there are two ways of sending an SMS - manual, which can be manually created and sent from various pages within Street and automated, that can be sent when specific actions are taken such as confirming a viewing.

Additionally, your clients have the option of requesting to be contacted via WhatsApp instead of SMS from their Street account however it's important to note that you cannot activate this as an agent yourself, your client must do it from their side.

Any form of single SMS text costs 5p (exc VAT) and may contain up to 160 characters, including spaces. If the text is longer than 160 characters, it will count as multiple texts and be charged as such. Ie 200 characters would be two texts, so 10p (exc VAT).

Before you can send manual or automated SMS, there are a few settings that need setting up first.

Firstly you need to setup the Twilio telephony integration to verify your branch phone number. This integration is required for both phone calls and SMS out of Street. For more information, see our Telephony Integration help article.

Additionally before you can send an SMS from within Street it is mandatory for a company admin to set up the Know Your Customer section of your Company Settings. For more information, see our KYC Details help article.

Manual SMS can be sent from various pages in Street where you would see the activity stream and send email option by clicking the 'SMS' option.

However the ability to send a manual SMS is locked behind the permission 'Allow this user to send general SMS messages.' If you cannot see the 'SMS' option, this will be why and you should speak to a branch or company admin to gain access. For more information, see our Roles and Permissions help article.

Initially you will see a blank page where you can begin adding your content. You also have the option of embedding hyperlinks as well as making us of Street AI to edit content you have written to be more friendly / professional or even generate a content directly from a prompt.

Additionally you can make use of any Correspondence Templates you have created for SMS by using the template drop down.

As you type your message the character count at the bottom will update, informing you of how many messages it will count as.

Manual SMS can be identified by the wording in the activity stream. If the SMS was manual it will show 'SMS by agent name > client name' (highlighting who sent the SMS).

Within your Notification Preferences, you have the option of toggling on/off automated SMS based on various actions within Street. For example, you can choose to have an SMS sent out to the vendor when a viewing is confirmed. It's important to note that automated SMS will still be charged at the standard rate of 5p (exc VAT), per text.

If a person has more than one phone number, automated SMS messages will be sent to the primary phone only. You can check which number is the primary phone number by going to the Person > Edit > Phone Numbers - and then check which is ticked as primary.

Automated SMS can be identified by the wording in the activity stream. If the SMS was automated it will just show 'SMS > client name' (without any sender information).

When your client responds via SMS, that reply will appear in the activity stream in Street for that person and the page the original SMS was sent from as well going to your branch email address in an email format.

Street has an integration allowing SMS to be sent via WhatsApp instead. This integration doesn't need to be enabled or configured however it is not something that you as the agent can control as it is controlled on an individual basis per client.

Within their Street account, your clients can navigate to their profile communication preferences and choose to receive WhatsApp. If a client selects WhatsApp as their preference then any SMS that you send will be sent to their WhatsApp account - there is nothing for you as the agent to action in your account.

For information on how a client can do this, see our Consumer Changing Personal Details (App) help article.