PLEASE NOTE: LMN’s SMS functionality may not be used for marketing purposes. It is intended to be used only for transactional purposes with existing customers. For more information on accepted use of the SMS functionality, please see our updated Terms and Conditions.
LMN can be used to create/edit SMS message templates that can be personalized using tokens, then sent in bulk to the contacts associated with a selection of visits or jobs.
Why do you need to do this? Industry regulations are strict around sending SMS messages. Before you’re able to send SMS messages, we will guide you through a registration process that allows your company to send messages through LMN. Until this is complete, it’s not possible to send messages. Usually this takes less than about three weeks.
Steps to get started with the LMN SMS Messaging Feature!
- Step 1: Setting up and Verifying your SMS Plan
- Step 2: Building, Saving, and Managing SMS Message Templates
- Step 3: Bulk-Sending SMS Messages
Step1: Setting up and Verifying your SMS Plan
Click Here to Watch a step by step LMN Academy Video to set up and verify your SMS plan
Before you can create or use templates, you'll need to add an SMS plan to your LMN account and undergo verification as a sender.
First, head over to your SMS Notifications page in Settings. This is where your templates will eventually be managed, but for now, start by taking a look at the plans in the dropdown and select one that meets your sending needs. After clicking the Purchase button, you will be asked to review LMN's Terms and Conditions. At this page, you'll also have a chance to review your initial charge.
NOTE: Your first SMS payment will always include a one-time Messaging Registration Fee of $75.00 USD. This fee helps us cover the cost of verifying your business as a sender, and registering the phone number that will be used to send your LMN-generated SMS messages. The fee will not be charged again, unless you deactivate your SMS messaging plan and then purchase a plan at a later time.
After clicking the 'Purchase' button, the next step is to provide us with some details that will help with the Verification of your account. Conducted by our SMS delivery partner, the Verification process will review your submitted details to confirm that the SMS messages are being sent from a real, legitimate business (as opposed to an account being misused to send spam messages).
At this stage you will also be asked to select an available phone number. This will be shown as the sender number on all LMN-generated SMS messages that your customers receive.
When you finish completing the form, you will now see a status of 'Pending Verification' in the Account Details panel. While verification takes place, you will be unable to send any SMS messages via LMN.
When verification is complete, you will receive an email notifying you of the successful verification, and this status will automatically update to 'Verified'.
A Note on Message Length
If the message you are trying to send exceeds 153 characters, it will still be sent, but as a sequence of concatenated messages. For example:
- Message 1: 'Hi David, this is ABC Contractors letting you know that on Wednesday, February 5, we'll be at 123 Imaginary Avenue conducting a... (1/2)'
- Message 2: 'Fall Clean-Up visit. Call us at 555-555 if you have any questions.'
Each segment sent will count as its own SMS message against the limit of your subscription plan -- so when building templates, be mindful of character count, and don't forget that you can always preview a template (by sending it to a test phone) before using it at scale.
Step 2: Building, Saving, and Managing SMS Message Templates
Click Here to Watch a step by step LMN Academy Video to build your SMS templates
Using SMS message templates is the best way to ensure consistency in your customer-facing communications, while saving your staff a lot of manual entry time in the process.
** Please note that security admin permission is needed to be granted to the user editing / saving your SMS templates. (Learn how to enable this permission here)
Templates are managed from the SMS Notifications page found within LMN Settings. Before jumping into your template list, take a moment to familiarize yourself with the helpful panels found at the top of this page:
- The Account Details panel shows vital details like your Verification status (see section above) and the origin phone number you are using to send LMN-generated SMS messages.
- The second panel, immediately to the right, shows the number of messages you have used from your package, as well as the remaining balance under your subscription plan (before overage fees begin to apply). This panel's View History button can be used to bring up a record of all the SMS messages that have been generated and sent by your LMN account.
To add your own templates, click the green button at the bottom right corner of the screen.
A window will open entitled 'New SMS Template.' This is where you'll be able to compose and save your message template.
Start by giving this template a name. Click on the pencil icon, type in the template name, and click on the green checkmark icon when you're finished.
Next, type in your text content. Since we are going to be using templates for bulk sends of messages, it's important to make sure that each one is personalized recipient. We'll do this using the Personalize tool, which can be used to insert variable tokens into a templated message. For example, if your client Robert Smith is receiving a bulk SMS about his upcoming lawn care visit:
- If the template you created looks like this: 'Hi {{ContactFirstName}}, your turf care visit at {{JobsiteAddress}} is scheduled for {{VisitDay}}. Any special requests? Let us know at 555-555-555. Cheers, {{CompanyName}}'
- The message Robert receives will look like this: 'Hi Robert, your turf care visit at 123 Fake Street is scheduled for Tuesday, September 26. Any special requests? Let us know at 555-555-5555. Cheers, ABC Contracting'
To add a personalization token in the spot where your cursor is, just click the Personalize button and select from the options offered:
Once selected, right click and paste that token to the message. As you see, it had been added to the text.
If you want to delete a template, simply click on the '...' icon found at the right of that template and select the 'Delete' option.
Step 3: Bulk-Sending SMS Messages
Click Here to Watch a step by step LMN Academy Video to Bulk-Send SMS Messages
Sending SMS messages in bulk can save your team a whole lot of admin hours when it's time to send out a batch of visit reminders or follow-ups.
Before one of your customers can receive text messages from you via LMN, you'll need to opt them in as SMS recipients, which can be done via your CRM.
To do this, first open up the CRM submenu from LMN's main navigation menu, and then select 'Contacts':
By default, SMS is disabled for every one of your contacts until you turn it on. You can enable SMS delivery for a bulk selection of contacts by selecting the contacts you want to opt in, then opening up the 'Update Contacts' dropdown and selecting 'Update SMS Settings.'
When the 'Update SMS Settings' window opens, expand the 'Update To' dropdown and select one of the three options:
- Completely disable text message sending to the selected contacts
- Enable text messaging to selected contacts using Phone 1
- Enable text messaging to selected contacts using Phone 2
Once you're finished making your selection, click on OK, then click on 'Yes' to confirm.
You can also do the same by selecting each individual CRM contact, under the contacts tab, click on their name, and from here, change your preference.
There are three different screens where you can create a selection of customers to send an SMS message to:
- Whiteboard — great for sending a reminder out to all customers for a crew’s upcoming visits the next day or week.
- Schedule Review — can also be used for the same scenario described above, but becomes especially helpful if you want to send reminders/notices to all the visits associated with a specific service.
- Job List — for if you want to send an SMS to a grouping of customers whose visits won’t be scheduled by your team (e.g. messaging snow customers in advance of a weather event)
First, expand the Schedule submenu then select 'Whiteboard'.
Once you're on this page, select the crew or group of crews. Then, select the date on which they have jobs scheduled.
Once the jobs are selected, click on "Whiteboard Actions" and from here, click on 'Select All Visits.'
Scroll up to the top of your screen, where you'll find 'Send SMS' button. Go ahead and click on this.
You will see that the software automatically selected contacts from those jobs. Now, it's time for you to add your text message.
You can either draft one from scratch, or, you can select an existing template from the library.
Once the template has been added, click 'Send.'
The software will now automatically bulk send that message to the customers you've selected.
To check the status of this bulk attempt, click on Settings then select SMS Notification, from here, click on "View History".
You can also send messages from your schedule review page, if you want to send reminders or notices to all the visits associated with a specific service.
To access the "Schedule Review" Click on the Schedule tool in the left menu, then select "Schedule Review".
If you want to send a service reminder to all customers with a Fertilization Service scheduled within a specific date range. Select the date range, then select the service to send reminders.
Once done, select one or more than one job to send a scheduled service reminder about.
Click on 'Send SMS.' The rest remains as previously explained.
If you want to send an SMS to a group of customers whose visits won't be scheduled by your team -- for example, communicating with snow customers in advance of a weather event -- you can do so via the Job List page.
To access your Job List, click Jobs in the main left menu, then select 'Job List':
Using the 'Job Group' filter, select the group you would like to send an SMS notification to:
Select one or more jobs from here, then click on "Update Jobs" and select "Send SMS."
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