Understanding Text Messaging and Plan Limits
Think back to when you first started texting on your good ol’ indestructible Nokia brick. While hammering out messages on a T9 keyboard, you may have noticed a counter ticking down from 160 next to a 1. When that counter hit 0, you’d see that 1 that was sitting next to the 160 jump up to a 2.
This means you’d end up with two messages on your bill. This first number was counting how many characters you had left per segment and the second one was counting how many segments you had used.
SMS standards have barely changed since the days of the brick phone. Messages are still sent in 140-byte chunks known as message segments.
As long as your text message stays below 160 characters, it only counts as one segment, 161 characters, and you are into segment number 2.
We want to be able to help you keep track of those numbers so you fully understand what is being sent out from your account. Any templates that we have in place in ServiceWorks will now have a link to a segment calculator, shown like this
Once this link is clicked you will be taken to simple page where you can paste your message and get an accurate count of characters in the text message and how many segments it will use.
In the bottom left of the calculator you will see the “Use Smart Encoding” please select “Yes” in that drop down as your account does have that enabled. Your Messaging Service’s Smart Encoding feature detects hidden Unicode characters and replaces them with a similar GSM-encoded character. This helps ensure that your message gets segmented based on simple characters and saves you from sending two message segments, which increases your spend.
Keep in mind that if you use our dynamic links in your text message, your count could be off. For example, here is a text message in a template:
Hello, our technician {techname} is on the way to your address at {customeraddress}. He should arrive within {arrivaltime}.
This message has 129 characters (spaces count)
However, you might want to select that preview button first to pull the complete message – copy that and then put that flushed out message in the calculator
“Hello, our technician Hank Johnson is on the way to your address at 10001 Craig Rd, Suite 456, Santa Anna CA 65981. He should arrive within 22 minutes. “
As you can see that message is now up to 3 segments. (special characters, extra spaces, can all contribute to the character count
However, with Smart Encoding turned on, mentioned above, we are back down to 1 segment
If in doubt, now you always have the ability have these messages in your control.
To track your message usage we have created a report that you can run to got those details you can go to Reports > System > SNS Summary
If you need more texting added to your account, please reach out to support@service.works for assistance
Need More Assistance?
Contact us:
Use the chat bubble on our site here
Email: support@service.works
Phone: 636-220-4363 Ext #1
