An SMS text message has 2 main parts – the Body and the Sender Name. The body is the message itself, the Sender Name identifies who sent the message.
A Sender Name can be either:
- A Word. Sender names can consist of up to 11 characters (A-Z/ a-z) and/ or numbers (0-9). Special characters can also be used (Space, Full stop, &, Underscore or Dash only). Your chosen sender must be limited to your brand or company rather than a reference to the message content or individual sender. Sadly no more than 11 characters can be used (we wish, but networks do not support it). You can add a new word at any time by selecting “Add New” from the Sender Name dropdown list.
- A Number. Any mobile number can be added. This means people can reply back to the mobile number, or phone your switchboard. Clearly adding a mobile number is preferable so you don’t lose any SMS text replies.
- The number can be a mobile handset number, one of our SMS long numbers such as our Dedicated Reply Numbers, or our Simple Reply Service which allocates a reply path to your message.