Texting your customers
Your Callify number sends and receives text messages as well as calls. Customers text the same number they’d call, and you reply from a thread in your Shopify admin.
The Messages list
Section titled “The Messages list”Messages shows one row per conversation, most recent first.
Contact — the other number, with their name if they match a Shopify customer.
Last message — a preview. Your own replies are prefixed You:.
Received — when the last message arrived.
Status — unread messages show a new badge with a count; threads you’ve opened show Read.
Two views: All, and Unread for anything waiting on you. The search box matches phone number or message text, so you can find a thread by number or by something that was said in it.
Replying to someone
Section titled “Replying to someone”Click a conversation to open the thread. It reads like any messaging app — theirs on one side, yours on the other, grouped by day with Today and Yesterday headers.
Type in the box at the bottom and press Send. Your message appears immediately and updates as it moves along.
New messages arrive in an open thread on their own — you don’t need to refresh.
Starting a new conversation
Section titled “Starting a new conversation”Press New message. You’ll be asked for:
To — the customer’s mobile number.
Message — what you want to say.
A permission checkbox — “This person agreed to receive text messages from us.”
That checkbox isn’t a formality. Carriers and US law require permission before you text someone. If they texted you first, you already have it. If not, you need a real reason to tick it — permission and opt-outs explains what counts.
You don’t need to tick anything to reply to someone who texted you. Replying to an existing thread is always allowed, unless they’ve opted out.
Delivery statuses
Section titled “Delivery statuses”Under each message you send:
Sending — on its way to the carrier.
Sent — the carrier accepted it. It’s in the network.
Delivered — it reached the handset. This is the one you want.
Not delivered — the carrier took it but couldn’t deliver it. Phone off, out of range, or blocking your number.
Failed — it never got sent. The reason is shown alongside; see troubleshooting.
Not every carrier reports delivery, so a message can legitimately stop at Sent and still have arrived.
Message length and cost
Section titled “Message length and cost”A text message is billed in segments, not messages — a plain-text SMS is 160 characters per segment, and a longer message is split and counted as several.
Emoji and accented characters switch the whole message to a different encoding where a segment is only 70 characters, so one emoji can turn a 160-character message into three segments.
The hard limit is 1,600 characters. Both messages you send and messages you receive count toward your plan — see how usage is counted.
Pictures and attachments
Section titled “Pictures and attachments”Customers can send photos, but Callify doesn’t display them. The thread shows a note — “1 attachment — view it on your phone” — and you’ll need to look at it on the handset your number forwards to.
You can’t send attachments from Callify. Text only.
Texting versus calling back
Section titled “Texting versus calling back”For most customer questions, a text gets a faster answer than a call. The customer replies when they’re free rather than having to be free when you ring, and you both get a written record.
A voicemail is often best answered with a text — but a voicemail on its own isn’t permission to text. Read permission and opt-outs before you do.