Autoresponder: Auto Text Responses Based on Your Time Zone

Autoresponder is a great way to give your customers a timely auto text response, even when you’re not in the office.

Text Request's updated Autoresponder lets you choose the time zone and cooldown for your auto response texts, plus set your office hours more easily.

What is an auto text?

An auto text, or Autoresponder, automatically sends a text reply to all inbound messages. Autoresponder is flexible and can be used for a variety of reasons. It’s perfect for when your team can’t manually respond to messages quickly, such as after business hours, on weekends, and during staff meetings.

How do you auto send a text?

You can create a new Autoresponder or edit an existing one in the Settings section of Text Request.

There are 4 types of autoresponses you can send:

1. When my office is open – The autoresponse will follow the office hours schedule you set in Autoresponder Settings.

2. When my office is closed – The autoresponse will follow the opposite of the office hours schedule you set in Autoresponder Settings.

3. With a custom schedule – You create a unique schedule for this autoresponse to follow.

4. When I manually set it – The autoresponse will only send messages when you manually toggle it on.

Most autoresponses run on a schedule, sending messages based on the time slots you’ve set up. New autoresponses will always be added to the bottom of your Response List inside Text Request.

How do you set up an auto reply to text messages?

There are three new settings to consider when creating an Autoresponder with Text Request.

Office Hours – If your business has scheduled hours of operation, we've made it easier to enter them into your Autoresponder's settings.

Time Zone – Your Autoresponder will adhere to whichever time zone you set. This applies across the dashboard for all autoresponses regardless of which user creates it.

Cooldown Timer – This is the amount of time the system waits before resending the autoreply to the same contact. For example, suppose you set the timer to 30 minutes, and a contact texts in and receives the autoresponse message. In that case, the system will not send the autoresponse again, no matter how many times the contact messages you, until 30 minutes have passed from the first autoresponse message.

You can have multiple Autoresponders for different kinds of uses or auto reply texts you want to create. We recommend that the majority of your autoresponses read something like:

“Thanks for contacting [My Business]. We’ve received your message and someone will respond to you shortly.”

The key is to let the customer know they will eventually get a response from an actual human, so they don’t move onto a competitor.

How do you set up an auto reply on your iPhone or Android?

Text Request’s mobile apps give you the power to create Autoresponders from your iPhone or Android, in addition to all the other text capabilities offered on the platform. This makes creating auto texts on the go a cinch, like say for instance you take a last second vacation or there’s an unexpected office emergency.

Can you auto forward text messages?

So now that your Autoresponder is set up, how do you make sure you still see any messages that come in? Afterall, the entire point of the Autoresponder is that a real person eventually gets back to the customer.

Escalations notify you if a text isn’t resolved after a specific amount of time has passed. The notification comes as a message forwarded from your Text Request dashboard to your personal cell phone, so you can see which text needs to be answered.