SMS Agent Settings
Fine-tune how your SMS agent behaves — when it replies, how fast, and when it hands off to your team.
Available on Growth and Scale plans.
Business Hours
By default, your SMS agent replies at any time of day. If you prefer to limit replies to specific hours, you can enable business hours for each agent.
How to set up business hours
- Open your agent's settings page under Settings > SMS Agents.
- Toggle Business Hours on.
- Set your start time and end time (for example, 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM).
- Select which days of the week the agent should be active.
- Choose your timezone so the schedule matches your local business hours.
What happens outside business hours
When a contact sends a message outside your configured hours, the agent will not generate a conversational reply. If you have set an out-of-hours message, that message is sent instead — for example: "Thanks for your message! Our team is available Monday through Friday, 9 AM to 5 PM. We'll get back to you then."
If you have not set an out-of-hours message, the contact simply receives no reply until your next business hours window.
Tips
- Overnight hours are supported. If your team works evenings, you can set hours like 10:00 PM to 6:00 AM.
- The out-of-hours message is a fixed text, not AI-generated, so it always says exactly what you write.
Response Delay
Your SMS agent can wait a short time before sending its reply. This makes the conversation feel more natural — an instant reply to every message can feel robotic to contacts.
How it works
You can set a minimum and maximum delay (in seconds). The agent picks a random time within that range before sending each reply. The default is up to 30 seconds.
Setting both values to zero sends replies immediately.
When to adjust
- Lead qualification campaigns: A short delay (5-15 seconds) feels conversational without keeping contacts waiting.
- Time-sensitive follow-ups: Set to zero for the fastest possible response.
Handoff Keywords
Handoff keywords let you define specific words or phrases that immediately transfer the conversation to your team, bypassing the AI entirely.
How to set up handoff keywords
- Open your agent's settings.
- Toggle Smart Handoff on.
- Add your keywords — for example: "speak to someone", "call me", "manager", "complaint".
- Optionally write a handoff message that the agent sends before stepping aside — for example: "Absolutely, let me connect you with a team member. They'll be in touch shortly."
How it works
When a contact's message contains any of your keywords, the agent:
- Sends your handoff message (if configured).
- Pauses AI for that contact.
- Flags the conversation as Needs Human Attention in your inbox.
Keywords are matched as whole words. For example, adding "stop" as a keyword will match "stop" but not "stopping" or "nonstop."
Tips
- Start with a small set of high-confidence keywords and expand based on real conversations.
- Common keywords to consider: "call me", "speak to a person", "manager", "complaint", "cancel", "refund".
Per-Conversation AI Control
You can pause and resume AI auto-reply on individual conversations without affecting your other contacts.
AI status indicators
When you open a conversation in your inbox, you will see an AI status badge in the header:
- AI Active (green) — The agent is replying to this contact's messages.
- AI Partial (yellow) — The agent is active for some phone numbers on this property but paused for others. Click the badge to see which numbers are paused and why.
- AI Paused (gray) — The agent is not replying. This may be because it auto-paused after an outcome (like scheduling an appointment) or because you manually paused it.
Pausing AI
Click the AI badge and select Pause. The agent stops replying to this contact. You can still send manual messages.
Resuming AI
Click the AI badge and select Resume. The agent becomes active again and will respond to the contact's next message. The turn count resets, giving the agent a fresh set of exchanges.
Per-phone control
If a property has multiple phone numbers associated with it, you can control AI independently for each number. A banner inside the conversation shows which number is paused and why, with a Resume button for that specific number.
Campaign Assignment
You can assign different SMS agents to different campaigns, so each campaign gets responses tailored to its audience and goal.
How assignment works
- When creating or editing a campaign, you can select an SMS Agent for that campaign.
- Contacts in that campaign receive replies from the assigned agent.
- If no agent is assigned to a campaign, replies come from your default agent.
Default agent
You can mark one of your agents as the default. The default agent handles any inbound message that is not tied to a campaign with its own agent. If you only have one agent, it is automatically the default.
Campaign-level AI toggle
Each campaign has its own AI toggle. If you turn AI off at the campaign level, no contacts in that campaign receive AI replies — regardless of per-conversation settings. This is useful when you want your team to handle all replies for a specific campaign manually.
Auto-Disable Outcomes
Your SMS agent automatically pauses itself when a conversation reaches a definitive outcome. This prevents the agent from continuing to message contacts after the conversation has concluded.
Default auto-disable outcomes
By default, the agent pauses when any of these outcomes occur:
| Outcome | What it means |
|---|---|
| Appointment Scheduled | The contact agreed to a callback time. The agent confirms and steps aside. |
| Not Interested | The contact clearly indicated they are not interested. The agent stops replying silently (no closing message is sent, saving you an SMS credit). |
| Needs Human | The contact asked a question or raised a topic that requires a real person. The conversation is flagged in your Needs Attention queue. |
| Wrong Person | The contact is not the intended recipient. The agent sends a brief apology and stops. |
Customizing auto-disable
In your agent's settings, you can choose which outcomes trigger an automatic pause. For example, if you want the agent to continue the conversation even after scheduling an appointment (to gather additional information), you can uncheck Appointment Scheduled from the auto-disable list.
Max turns reached
When the agent reaches the maximum number of turns you configured, it stops replying automatically. The conversation appears in your inbox so you can decide whether to follow up manually.
Max Turns — Choosing the Right Number
Max turns controls how many replies the agent sends before it stops. Choosing the right number depends on your use case.
| Use case | Suggested turns | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Quick lead qualification | 3-4 | Enough to confirm interest and book a callback. |
| Appointment scheduling | 4-6 | Gives the agent room to negotiate times. |
| FAQ or information delivery | 5-8 | Covers multiple follow-up questions. |
| General-purpose | 4 | A safe default for most campaigns. |
Each reply the agent sends counts as one turn. Messages from the contact do not count toward the limit.
When the limit is reached, the conversation is placed in your inbox. You can then continue the conversation manually or re-enable AI (which resets the turn count).