Welcome to your Communications tab! This part of your account is focused on connecting you with people through texting and email. Here you can add your congregants to the system, gather prayer requests, broadcast out announcements, and so much more.
There are over a dozen features packed into this little tab, and for the sake of keeping things simple, we aren't going to cover them all here. The goal of this article is just to walk you through getting things set up quickly so that your account is as helpful and efficient as possible.
If you haven't already, make sure to check out our Full Account Setup Guide for a few necessary setup steps every account must take. Once you've completed those, come back here to go through a few steps that are highly recommended to get started with the Communications tab.
Important: When sending out a first message to a Connection, try not to include any links, pictures, videos, or any sort of media. This is because messaging providers (AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, etc.) often block these messages and mark them as spam. We suggest sending a simple greeting when messaging contacts for the first time, and then adding pictures and videos once you've already established communication!
Communicating with Connections
Many features under the Communications tab are focused on texting with your current audience, who we'll call Connections. Connections are the people who are already connected with your church or ministry that you want to stay in touch with and encourage to growth and more engagement.
You can use the Communications tab to interact individually with people, but there are also many features you can configure to help automate your interactions to get people the information they need.
As people text commonly asked questions and categories (services times and locations, how to give, statements of belief, etc) to your Gloo phone number, you can set up Workflows that will automatically be sent back and relieve the administrative burden of answering these common questions. Under your Communications tab, navigate to Workflows -> Templates to set up and turn on your responses.
Gloo automatically acknowledges when someone sends in a text so people receive immediate feedback. System Workflows are built into Gloo to give you the ability to make sure every text sent automatically by the account fits your unique culture. Edit each response - or simply do nothing and the default will be sent! Under your Communications tab, navigate to Workflows-> System Workflows to edit them.
At this point you might be thinking, "this is all great, but who exactly am I even texting!?" Well, like we said in step 3, one option is to publicize your number at church, in your community, or online, and allow anyone to text in. But another option is to add people yourself, whether that's manually, through a csv upload, or through an integration with your existing database. Check out the article linked above for a walk-through of each option.
As you're setting things up, always feel free to use the Texting Simulator to text things out. Just click on the Texting Simulator on the left hand side, type out some messages, and watch how the system responds to you! This way you can get a feel for what it would be like for one of your church congregants to start messaging with your system.
Due to new federal regulations, the messaging industry is making changes to the message volumes that can be sent over an unverified Toll-Free number, like the one you've just claimed. With text messaging being such a personal and effective form of communication, it makes it susceptible to spamming and ill-intended usage. This means that carriers are cracking down in order to protect consumers, and there are certain limits in place until your number is verified.
As a service to you, every new account phone number that is claimed will be initiated into our Toll-Free Number Verification process. Make sure to check out the article above to learn more about what this means.
Next Steps
Once you've completed these steps, you'll be ready to go to use your Communications tab to connect with people through text. There are over a dozen features available to you, but to keep things simple we're going to recommend a few features to familiarize yourself with to get started.
The All Messages tab of your Inbox is a catch-all for every message sent to and from your Gloo phone number. Familiarize yourself with this tab to make sure no message slips through the cracks.
Broadcasts are text blasts you can send out to everyone in your account, or just specific groups or people. They're a great way to quickly send out information, announcements and updates.
Easily gather and respond to prayer requests using our Prayer feature. Anytime someone texts in something around the idea of prayer, the system will recognize the request, record it for you, and allow you to come in, pray for people, and respond to their requests.
Set up Workflows that will automatically send people who subscribe to them through actions like sending texts, adding to groups in Gloo, or notifying team members.