About SmartMessage

Q: How does 1:1 Texting work?

Answer: Hiring Teams can initiate text conversations with an individual candidate on a per-application basis. Likewise, Sourcing Teams can initiate text conversations with individual prospects (SmartCRM) on a per-community basis. 

All members assigned to the Hiring Team can view and participate in messages sent to and from the candidate. From the Hiring Team user perspective, each conversation participant is clearly identifiable by name. From the candidate perspective, all messages from the Hiring Team are simply from the customer / hiring company. The same applies for Sourcing Team and prospects. 

Q: How does Candidate and Prospect Reach work?

Answer: All customers with SmartRecruit and SmartMessage can message candidates. Customers with SmartRecruit, SmartMessage and SmartCRM can message both candidates and prospects. 

Q: How does Inbox work?

Answer: The Inbox enables Hiring Teams and Sourcing Teams (SmartCRM) to manage all their communications in one place. It is an entirely new way to view, manage, and send messages to candidates and prospects without having to step through individual pages. It combines email, SMS and WhatsApp together into a comprehensive conversation for each candidate-application (or prospect-community) ordered by most recent message. 

Hiring Team users will still be able to message within the candidate-application and prospect-community pages, but Inbox provides an organized way to address communications quickly and efficiently. New features will be added in later quarters.

Inbox is also available to SmartRecruit customers who do not purchase SmartMessage, but only email will be available. 

Q: What is the difference between SMS and WhatsApp?

Answer: Some summarized differences between the two channels.

• SMS is the standard text messaging protocol used by telecom operators globally. It is a text-only protocol that does not support images or attachments. While it is supported by most mobile phones (feature phones and smartphones), not all consumers have SMS service plans through their telecom operators. Messaging without an SMS service plan may be costly for consumers. SMS is popular in the Americas where data plans may be cost prohibitive. 

• WhatsApp is a messaging service owned by Facebook. It requires the WhatsApp app from Apple’s App Store or Google’s Play Store, and phone number verification for the mobile device. Messages are relayed over data plans  with the telecom operator (not SMS service plan) or WiFi. WhatsApp is popular in Europe and Asia where data plans are affordable. 

Q: How do the SMS and WhatsApp messaging channels work? 

Answer: Customers will be able to choose which channels they would like to use for their company and hiring process, whether SMS only, WhatsApp only or both. Hiring Team users must select the channel (SMS or WhatsApp) when sending messages to candidates and prospects. Messages will not be sent through both SMS and WhatsApp simultaneously. 

Within the Inbox, both SMS and WhatsApp messages are viewed together in an ongoing conversation. In the Candidate-Application or Prospect-Community pages, the messages are separated by channel. 

Q: Can a customer use either SMS or WhatsApp? Must they use BOTH?

Answer: Customers can opt to use the channel of their choice. They need not use both channels. The practical difference is that WhatsApp has a longer Customer Implementation process due to the guidelines set forth by Facebook (owner and operator). 

Q: How are phone numbers assigned?

Answer: Phone numbers are statically assigned to each customer, starting with one per sending country requested. This forms a pool of sending numbers for each customer, and messages are automatically routed to ensure deliverability. The locality of phone numbers are assigned at the country level with the appropriate international code (see table below). Customers are asked to provide any preferences for area / destination / region portions of phone numbers for a best match attempt, but there is no match guarantee beyond the international code. For customers with high volume of users and messages, additional phone numbers can be added for each country to ensure two-way conversations with minimal interruption.

Candidates will receive texts from a phone number within their own (that is, the candidate's) country designation if it available within the customer's pool of numbers. If not, candidates will receive texts from another number within the pool, a US number if available, or another.