Give your customer the option to receive real-time text alerts when tracking their shipments.
Here are the steps to set this up:
Step 1: Create a campaign in your Skycore.com account. We suggest that you use the following settings.
- Set the campaign name to “Delivery Status Notifications” or something similar. The campaign name will appear in the Opt-in message. This will ensure that the customer is aware of what they are agreeing to.
- Set the “Re-Subscribe Opt-in SMS Flow” to OFF. This means that if a customer is already subscribed they will not receive the opt-in message flow again.
- Set the Re-subscribe to automatic responses to OFF. This means that if the customer is already subscribed they will not receive any automatic responses again.
Step 2: At checkout provide customers with an optional checkbox to receive SMS delivery status updates. When checked, make sure to request their mobile phone number and disclose they will be receiving text messages to their phone and that it is not a required part of the purchase.
Step 3: After customers submit their order, your server will need to call the subscribe API function. Within this API call below you to change the “API_key=”, “mobile=” and the “campaignid =” sections of the API.
Example “SUBSCRIBE” API Call: https://secure.skycore.com/API/wxml/1.3/index.php?action=subscribe&api_key=aBcdEfgHijkLMNopQrSTuvw1xyZA2bCd&mobile=12345678912&campaignid=1234
- “api_key=” is your account’s API key.
- “mobile=” is the customer’s phone number including the country code.
- “campaignid=” is the campaign ID can be found on the “SMS/MMS Campaigns” page.
Step 4: Once the Subscribe API is called, the customer will be sent an opt-in message requesting their ‘written consent’ to receive text messages from you. Affirmative written consent is a FCC mandate which is why we ask the customers to reply “YES”. Your customers will then be segmented into three groups in your Audience Manager.
- Subscribed Users – Customers who reply “YES” or “Y” and have not unsubscribed.
- Unconfirmed Users – Customers who did NOT reply “YES” or “Y” but who checked your checkbox to receive delivery notifications.
- Unsubscribed Users – Customer who unsubscribed themselves by replying “STOP”, “QUIT”, “CANCEL” or “UNSUBSCRIBE”.
Step 5: All messages you send out will automatically start with your brand name as they did in the double opt-in message above. To send messages, use the SendSMS API call. In the SendSMS API call below, you will need to change the “api_key=”, “to=”, “text=” and “campaignref=” sections.
Example “SendSMS” API Call: https://secure.skycore.com/API/wxml/1.3/index.php?action=sendsms&api_key=aBcdEfgHijkLMNopQrSTuvw1xyZA2bCd&to=12345678912&from=60856&text=This+is+test+SMS&campaignref=5678
- “api_key=” is your account’s API key.
- “to=” is the customer’s phone number. Make sure to include the country code.
- “text=” is the actual message you will be sending out.
- “campaignref=” is the campaign ID of the campaign that you are sending the message from.
Step 6: When you call the API – you should receive one of two messages depending on if the customer is subscribed into the campaign or not:
- A “Success” message mean the customer should be receiving your SMS very shortly.
- A “Failure” message which means the customer has not opt-in. They will not receive any SMS messages. We recommend that you flag the user as opt-out in your internal database.
Example of an API Success Message and an API Failure Message:
