The Messaging Center in Retention Pro is an area that experiences a lot of activity and shops will generally spend quite a bit of time accessing it.
This article goes over the basics of how to view and navigate the Messaging Center in Retention Pro. For more information please see Message Center
- Opening the Messaging Center
- Message Center Main Page
- Starting a New Message
- When a Conversation is Open
- Options at the Top of the Conversation Listing
Opening the Messaging Center
From the Dashboard in Retention Pro you have two different ways to access the Messaging Center. You can click on Messages in the left side menu under the Service tab or you can select the icon at the top right of the screen that looks like a chat bubble.
Once you navigate away from the Service tab (if you went to the Campaigns or Management tab for example) then you would still be able to use the icon at the top right of the screen, this allows you to always quickly access the Messaging Center no matter where you are in Retention Pro.
Message Center Main Page
When you open the Messaging Center you will see something like this to start with:
You will see that you have two buttons available for starting a new message with a new or existing customer. The button that says Create New Message+ at the center of the screen will only be available when you first open or refresh the page. The button at the top right that says New Message will always be available in the Messaging Center regardless of if you have conversations open or not.
To open an existing conversation you would select it from the conversation listing on the left side of the screen. The conversation list will show you the customer name, phone number, and the first part of the most recent message in the conversation. Simply find the conversation you want to view by scrolling through the listing and then click on that conversation. This will open the conversation in the middle section of the screen.
Starting a New Message
Lets say you clicked on one of the New Message buttons mentioned above, you would open a dialog box first, this will allow you to search for the name or phone number of the person you want to text.
If the customer already exists they will appear as an option to select. You can click on their name and move forward to text them. If the customer does not already exist in your database then you would select the Add a new number + option which will open a form to allow you to enter their information manually.
When a Conversation is Open
If you have either selected a conversation from the left side conversation list or started a new conversation using the New Message option you will have the conversation open in the middle of the screen.
From here you can read the message in the conversation and reply through the Enter Message area at the bottom. When you are ready to send a message you would click the yellow arrow button to the right.
At the top right of the conversation area you will notice an arrow that points outward (it will be just below the New Message button), if you click on this arrow it will open the customer information preview panel.
For more information on the panel please see Customer Information Panel
Options at the Top of the Conversation Listing
Among the options in the Messaging Center you will see a few areas at the top left of the screen above the conversation listing that can aid with navigating your messages.
If you click on where it says "Active" just below Messages you can alternate between a few different inbox views. The Active inbox sorts by customer responses, Automated Only shows your outgoing messages, and All sorts by any activity so it will show responses and outgoing messages.
Clicking on where it says All Messages with the unread counter in orange next to it will give you some further options for controlling your view in the Messaging Center. You can choose to only view unread messages, view only read messages, see unsubscribed customers, see messages you haven't responded to, or mark all unread messages as read.
You can also use the box that says "Search messages" to look for a specific conversation using either the name or the phone number of that customer. This will populate matching results in the conversation listing and then you will need to click on them like normal to open the conversation itself.