How To Create An SMS Text Bot In 10 Minutes

So you’ve decided to create a text bot for yourself or your business. Good idea. It’s the best way to manage certain communications because text messages, or SMS, can reach almost everyone and have ridiculously high open and engagement rates.

Most modern businesses are using SMS but only a few have chatbots, i.e. two-way communication capability. SMS chatbots are relatively new and getting easier to create. There are many bot creator platforms that allow you to create them without needing a developer, but the process is still not as simple as it could be. That’s because creating an SMS text bot requires signing up for at least two services — one to acquire a business telephone number and the other to implement the chatbot flow.

The easiest way to create an SMS text bot currently is through Messages Improved which combined the two services and simplified the process so that the average person could get their bot up in a couple of minutes. There are other services like Twilio and MobileMonkey which may be good options for large or tech-savvy businesses that want fully custom options (this article summarizes the various platforms).

Messages Improved is taking an everyday-user-friendly approach, prioritizing simplicity and speed. The login process and the flow builder are simple and intuitive. As soon as you’re happy with your flow, you activate the bot and deploy it, assigning a telephone number to text. The whole process from login to having a live bot to text takes less than 10 minutes.