Today we're excited to launch TextIt, our new product to help organizations leverage SMS. We've been building custom SMS products for three years in East Africa, and TextIt takes everything we've learned and puts it into an intuitive and powerful package. Our goal with TextIt is to enable every organization in the world to inexpensively use SMS to better accomplish their mission.
At the core of TextIt lies what we call Flows, which you can think of as interactive flowcharts. They are simple to build and understand, for example here's the start of a flow used to register new customers of water filters:
Traditionally, most SMS systems have been built around having users send in very structured messages, in very specific formats. We ourselves have built many such systems, and while they have their place, they require significant training for the users. TextIt takes a different approach, Flows let your users use SMS in a way that is natural to them, as a conversation. Handling unexpected input is much simpler, you simply create friendly error messages when the user makes a mistake. In this example we make sure the user enters either Yes or No before moving onwards:
Another advantage of Flows is you can tailor your messaging based on each response. So here, we might want to further educate customers who are not boiling their water, which we can do by splitting on their response:
Not only does TextIt record all the steps that a user takes through a Flow, but it also lets you take other actions at any point in a flow. For example, we might choose to add a user to a Customers group when they are complete and send an email for each new registration. That is just a few clicks in TextIt:
It is hard to overstate just how flexible and powerful this approach is. Because TextIt takes care of tracking the state of each user, you can very simply create sophisticated interactions, interactions that feel natural to the user, both personalized and responsive. That's why we are so excited about TextIt, we think with the power it provides people are going to build some amazing things.
This was just a quick overview of Flows, but it only scratches the surface of what TextIt can do. From custom fields on contacts, to triggering flows off of keywords, to launching in any country with our Android client, there is a lot more to cover. But before we get to talk about those the best way to discover how it might fit your needs is to give it a try.
It is free to sign up for a TextIt account, give it a spin and let us know what you think. We work every day to make it a little bit easier, a little bit more powerful, and a little bit better for you, we hope you love it as much as we do.
