Integration Spotlight: Solutions by Text

This month we’d like to spotlight one of our most popular third-party integrations:

Solutions by Text (SBT) is the leading text and payments provider for consumer finance. Their powerful FinText^™platform is a text messaging and payment platform designed specifically for financial account management. This platform includes:

• One-way & Two-way SMS Messaging
• Send and Receive Documents via MMS Messaging
• Payments via Text
• Text Verification
• Reporting & Analytics
• Compliance

Why is this important to you? Well, because text is the most effective and efficient channel to reach your customers. Here are some quick stats from SBT’s website:

• 97% of consumers use their texting app at least once a day.
• 85% of consumers prefer receiving text messages over phone calls and emails.
• 69% of bill pay customers would be more likely to pay bills on time by text.

Those are some powerful numbers. And at GOLDPoint Systems, we pay attention to powerful numbers. We know that texting is an incredibly effective way to communicate with customers and can be game changing when it comes to getting customers to make payments. This is one of the biggest reasons that we offer Pay-by-Text through our integration with SBT.

Speaking of integration, it’s a lot easier than you think.

10-Step Process to Solutions by Text Integration

For current GOLDPoint Systems (GPS) customers, getting set up to use Solutions by Text (SBT) is a simple process that can be completed in the following 10 steps:

1. Getting Set up with Solutions by Text (SBT)

The first step in the process is getting set up with SBT. This will happen in one of two ways:

1. New Customer: If you are not currently working with SBT, you will need to. This involves signing a contract with SBT for a staging and production environment and telling SBT that you’d like to work with GPS.
2. Current Customer: If you already have an account with SBT, all you’ll need to do is reach out to SBT and tell them you want to work with GPS. SBT will then restructure their setup to work with us.

At this point, you will decide with SBT which method you want to use to confirm subscriptions: PIN, Reserved Word, or None. (SBT will then set this up.)

2. Demo

After getting set up with SBT. GPS can perform a demonstration to show you how to use SBT with GPS. This isn’t required but can be a very helpful step to begin using SBT with GPS as quickly and easily as possible. I recommend it.

3. Submit a Work Order

Now it is time to submit a work order to GPS specifying your request to begin using SBT with GPS.

4. Getting Set Up with GPS & the Notification System

Getting set up with GPS & the Notification System involves the following sub steps:

1. Organization Codes: Submit the Org codes for both Staging and Production to GPS. You will need to get these codes from SBT.
2. Whitelist Phone Numbers: Submit a list of phone numbers that you want added to a testing whitelist. Whitelisted phone numbers are numbers that GPS and SBT can safely use to test text messages sent via trigger or manually sent. These numbers need to be actual cell phone numbers. (When texts are sent, the tester can view the text on their cell phone.) This allows messages to be safely sent during the testing period to approved test numbers, and not to actual customers. Note: These numbers are used solely in testing environments, not Production.
3. Triggers: Work with GPS to set up triggers in the Notification System. Triggers allow you to automatically send notifications (texts, emails, and HTML emails) to a list of accounts. For example, you can automatically send a text to all text-capable borrowers at 9:00 AM their time every time a payment is five days late or you could set up a trigger to send a Happy Birthday text to borrowers on their birthday.
4. Templates: Collaborate with SBT to create templates to be used by the Notification System. Once these templates are created, GPS will connect with those templates and map them to the Templates screen in the Notification System. Templates typically include the body of the message you want sent, the fields you want included in the message, the email address used to send, the subject of the message, etc.
5. Scrub Numbers: Team up with SBT to develop a list of scrub numbers. These are the phone numbers that will be used for the initial marketing message sent to customers to help them opt into the service. You will need to work with SBT to make sure the numbers are able to receive text messages. Once you have a list, submit the list to GPS. We can then take those numbers and run an init to be able to update our records to ensure that those numbers are opted in.

5. GPS Sends a Ticket to DevOps

Now the main setup is completed and we’re halfway through our steps. Stick with me. At this point, SBT creates a project plan and then shares it with GPS. Once GPS has the project plan, we send a ticket to our DevOps team. This ticket must include the institution and the environments to be set up. Once our DevOps team receives the ticket, they will:

1. Enter the ticket into the next sprint to be completed (each sprint follows a two-week cycle).
2. Create a database, setup server, and test the setup (typically takes one week to complete).
3. Send a notification once the ticket is completed.

6. GPS Sets up Institution Options and Other Settings

After our DevOps team has completed their part, GPS needs to set up certain institution options, message wrappers, and a wrapper ID. We will also need to change certain settings for your institution in GOLDTrak® PC Setup.

7. Test

Now that everything is set up, it’s time to test! During testing you get to make sure everything is working exactly the way that you want. If something isn’t quite right, let us know and we’ll fix it.

8. Contact Solutions by Text

Once you have fully tested and approved the setup, it’s time to contact SBT and go live.

9. Get Phone Numbers Subscribed

To actually begin sending texts, you’ll need to get phone numbers subscribed with SBT. To help, GPS can run inits to get and subscribe existing customer data. We can also use these inits to retrieve phone numbers and then update our records to show that the phone number is subscribed.

10. GO LIVE!

All the hard work is done and it’s time to start reaping the benefits of better customer communication.

We are excited to be working with Solutions by Text to provide our customers with great products and real-world solutions. If you’d like to learn more about our integration with Solutions by Text, contact us today! If you’d like to learn more about our other third-party integrations (over 350 and counting), click here.