Integrate SMS With Twilio or Quo | Check Cherry

0:00 If you've been looking for a way to communicate with your staff and clients faster and more directly, you're in the right place. In this video, we're going to walk you through everything you need to know about using SMS or text messaging inside Check Cherry. And once you enable SMS, you can do anything with text messaging that you can already do with email. And here are

0:19 a few examples. First is staff notifications. When you assign a staff member to a booking, you can automatically send them a text letting them know right away. Second, you can use SMS to send proposals to clients. Instead of relying solely on email, you can shoot them a quick text with a link to their proposal. Third is lead follow-ups. Following up with new inquiries

0:40 via text. Now, this one works really well, but a word of caution here, use it sparingly. Text messages are personal, and if someone feels like they're being bombarded, it can do more harm than good. And also you can watch our automated message video for more examples of how to use automated messages in Check Cherry. Checkerry integrates with two SMS providers, Twilio and Quo.

1:03 Let's quickly compare them so you can choose the one that's right for you. Twilio is what's called a programmatic phone number for your business. Think of it as a dedicated business text line that plugs into many different services and software platforms. It has excellent international support. The trade-off is that Twilio is a little more technical to set up. You do need to sign up for

1:23 a Twilio account separately, and there's some configuration involved. Quo is a business phone system that lets you send text messages and even make calls all within a single app. The trade-off, it's limited to the US and Canada, and it has fewer third party integrations than Twilio. So, in short, if you need international support or you're already embedded in a tech ecosystem,

1:45 go with Twilio. If you want simplicity and a clean business phone experience and you're US or Canada based, Quo may be a better fit. All right, let's connect Twilio first. You'll need an active Twilio account before starting. If you haven't signed up yet, head over to twilio.com. Once you're logged in, there are four pieces of information you'll need to copy over to Check Cherry. Your account

2:06 SID, your O token, your phone number, and your phone number SID. Let me show you where to find each one. Log into Twilio and go to your account dashboard. Scroll down and you'll see an account info section. Right there, you'll find your account SID and your O token. Keep this tab open cuz you'll be copying these. The O token is hidden by default. So, click show to reveal it before

2:33 copying. In the left sidebar, go to phone numbers, then manage, then active numbers. You'll see the phone number associated with your account listed here. Click on that number to open its details. Then go to the properties tab. You'll see the phone number SID listed there. It starts with PN. Copy that. You now have everything you need from Twilio. Now to enable Twilio,

2:56 head over to Check Cherry. Go to business settings. Click the integrations tab. Scroll to the SMS integration setting and click enable under Twilio. This opens the integration setting forms. Fill in all four fields. account SID, O token, phone number, and phone number SID. If something isn't working after setup, Twilio has a useful monitor section. Click the monitor tab,

3:19 then go to logo, error logs. This always shows any errors with your account and is the first place to check if texts aren't sending or receiving correctly. Now, let's connect Quo. The process is much simpler. Instead of copying multiple credentials, you just need a single API key. Open your Quo account and go to settings in the left sidebar. Then click API. Click generate API key.

3:43 Give it a name. Then click create key. When your key appears, click the copy icon next to it. Treat treat this like a password and don't share it publicly. Now to enable it and check Cherry, go to business settings, integrations, SMS integrations, and click enable under quo. Paste your API key into the API key field. Then enter your quote phone number in the same format

4:06 as before. You'll also see a quiet hours option. This lets you set a time window when Check Cherry will hold off on sending automated texts so your automations aren't going out at 2 a.m. Click enable integration and you're done. Quo will show as an active integration in Check Cherry. If you want to go deeper on carrier registration or need a more detailed setup walkthrough,

4:26 check out our Check Cherry live on setting up your account with SMS. And as always, if you ever have any questions, feel free to chat with us.