Texting and calls

An owner picks a number by area code under Settings → Connections → Phone & SMS. Calls work straight away. Texting needs the registration below first. How many numbers you can have depends on your plan.

US phone carriers require every business that texts customers to register (it's called A2P 10DLC). DVT walks you through it on the same page:

1. Pick your business type: private or public company, non-profit, government, or sole proprietor (no EIN needed).
2. Enter your EIN, business phone, website, address and industry.
3. Pick what you text people about (“Customer care and notifications” suits most businesses).
4. Describe what you text and how customers agree to it, and write two example texts.
5. Sole proprietors confirm a code texted to their mobile.

Approval usually takes a few days to two weeks. Owners are emailed when it's approved, or if the carriers send it back with questions. Fix it and send it again from the same page.

• Texts to your number land in the inbox, and the team replies from there.
• You can text people who ticked the texting checkbox on your form or booking page, or who texted you first.
• A text that starts a conversation waits for 8am–9pm in your time zone. Replies within 24 hours of their last text go straight away.
• Anyone who replies STOP (or UNSUBSCRIBE, CANCEL, END, QUIT) isn't texted again until they reply START.
• Texts can be up to 1,530 characters. Long ones are sent in parts, and each part counts toward the month's texts.
• With texting set up, booking reminders and review requests can go by text too.

• Owners choose which phone calls to your number ring (a mobile or the office line), and can record a voicemail greeting. Nobody answers? It goes to voicemail, which plays in the contact's conversation.
• To call a customer, press Call on their contact page or in the inbox. DVT rings your phone first, then connects you. They see your business number.
• Every call shows in the contact's phone conversation, next to your texts, with how long it lasted.
• When nobody answers, the caller is texted straight away to say sorry and offer your booking page (at most once a day per caller). Change the words, or switch it off, under Phone & SMS and Automations.

Owners can choose to record calls. Callers then hear that the call may be recorded and press a key to be connected, and when you call a customer, DVT tells them before connecting you.