Business texting
Texts your customers send, answered from your own records.
Customers would often rather text than call: to move a booking, ask whether an order is ready, or check whether you can fit them in. Zenith takes those texts on your business lines and answers them from your own systems, and hands the ones that need a person to your team.
Sorry we missed you at Larkin & Rye Ballard. I can book a table or answer a question right here.
Zenith · 6:05pmTable for 2 tonight around 8?
6:06pm8:15 is open by the window. Shall I book it?
Zenith · 6:06pmYes please
6:06pmWhat gets texted
The texts a front desk gets all day.
Change a booking
Moved, cancelled or noted in your calendar or system, then confirmed by text.
Order status
Read from your POS or ERP: ready, out for delivery, shipped, or late, with the reason when you have one.
Questions
Hours, parking, menu, services, pricing you publish and policies, answered from what you have given Zenith.
A new inquiry
Treated as a lead, qualified with your questions and booked.
Rules
Texting rules that are not settings.
These hold for every company and every agent, and no configuration turns them off.
- Consent
- Zenith starts a text only with consent on file. Replies to a person who texted you are always allowed.
- Opting out
- STOP ends texting to that number at once, across every agent.
- Hours
- Texts Zenith starts go out only between 8am and 9pm in the recipient's local time.
- Registration
- Each company registers its texting through Zenith before any text is sent.
- Health details
- Never sent by text. A dental patient gets a time and a place, not a treatment.
Getting started
From registration to the first reply.
- 01
Register
Ferrata registers your business for texting on your Zenith lines, with the wording customers will see.
- 02
Connect
Your system of record is connected so answers come from real orders and bookings.
- 03
Write the basics
Hours, policies and the questions you get most, in your own words.
- 04
Go live
Texts start landing on threads, and your team watches the first days from the inbox.
Your voice
Texts that sound like your business.
Your tone
Short and friendly, or formal and precise. You choose per company, and per agent if you need to.
Your facts
Answers come from your menu, price list, policies and records, never from general knowledge about businesses like yours.
Your limits
What the agent may offer (a later time, a note on a booking) and what it must hand to a person.
On its own, and where it stops
Zenith handles the routine. Your people handle the rest.
Zenith answers texts on its own for bookings, changes, order status and routine questions. A refund, a discount, a complaint or any outbound campaign waits for a person on your team.
Zenith answers, routes, books and handles routine questions on its own. Refunds, discounts, complaints, low reviews and campaigns wait for a person, and anyone on your team can take over a conversation at any time.
Your dataThe voice model carries the spoken conversation and nothing else. Your customer records stay in your own database, read only by your own agents.
Start here, keep the foundation
Start with business texting. Add the rest without starting over.
Texting is often the first channel turned on after calls, because missed-call text-back already starts text threads. The consent, registration and threads you set up for it are what reviews, reminders and reactivation use later.
FAQ
Questions, answered plainly.
What is business texting?
Business texting is two-way text messaging between a business and its customers from a business number rather than a staff member's phone. In Zenith, texts land on each person's thread and are answered by agents or by your team.
Do we text from our main number?
You text from your Zenith numbers: the lines your calls are forwarded to and any tracking numbers you publish. Your main number and carrier stay as they are.
Who registers our business for texting?
Ferrata does it with you during setup. Each company is registered on its own, with its own business details and sample messages, before any text goes out.
Can we send promotions by text?
Campaigns are drafted by Zenith and sent only after a person on your team approves them, to customers who have consented to marketing texts. Replies to customers who text you are a different matter and are answered on their own.
What happens when a customer texts STOP?
Texting to that number ends at once, for every agent and every campaign. The thread records when and how they opted out.
Can a text include an order total or appointment details?
Only once the person is matched or verified, and never health details. A dental patient can be told their appointment time; their treatment is not sent by text.
Related in Zenith
- Missed-call text-backA caller who hangs up gets a text that can book, answer or arrange a callback.View
- Shared inboxOne thread per person across calls, texts, webchat, email and reviews.View
- Appointment schedulingAppointments and visits booked into your real calendar or system, confirmed and reminded.View
- Review managementReviews asked for after a visit, replies drafted, and three stars or below seen by a person first.View
From Ferrata Labs
- Ferrata LabsThe firm that builds Zenith, and builds AI agents into operating businesses.
- The platformThe Brain: retrieval, models and audit inside your own environment.
- Finding use casesA method for choosing which workflow goes first.
- Book a discovery callThirty minutes on one workflow, and an honest answer on where to start.
Start with business texting, or talk it through first.
Thirty minutes with Ferrata Labs on how calls and messages reach you today. You leave with a view of where Zenith fits, and an honest answer if something else should come first.
Your menu, your policies, your routing and the way you talk to customers are yours. Zenith is configured to them. You are not fitting your front desk into a template.