With our mass communication feature, you are able to send a mass text message or email, to all or a segment of your clients. This can be helpful in the event of an unexpected closure, adjustment to hours, or monthly education and promotions.
Create a New Message
First, you will need to create a new message by selecting "New Mass SMS/Email" and then choosing whether you would like to create an Email or SMS Template. Then you will need to enter a template name.
Mass SMS blocks can be purchased directly in Shepherd. It is $99 for a block of 5000 units. Two way texting is free and included with Shepherd; this charge only applies to mass SMS.
Note: One unit does not always equal one message. Larger messages may take more than one unit.
Content
Next, you will type your message
For an SMS communication, you can also select from existing SMS templates set up in your account.
For an Email communication, input a Subject and then the body of the email
Once completed, you will select "Next Step".
Audience
Within the audience tab, you will be able to manually select clients or apply one or more filters to select a specific group of clients and patients. Once you have the appropriate clients selected, you will select "Next Step".
Review & Send
Once the message is complete and the audience is selected, you will be able to either send the message immediately or schedule a date and time for it to be sent.
From this section, you can also see the number of clients the message is being sent to under the total number of recipients.
Once a message has been sent, you will be able to select the recipient list for reference of which clients specifically received the message.
Purchase SMS Blocks for Mass SMS
SMS blocks can be purchased directly in Shepherd from the message center or automatically purchased by toggling a setting under Admin. SMS blocks are $99 for 5000 units. It is important to note that depending on the length of the message sent, it is possible each text requires more than one SMS unit to be used.
The message center will show available SMS units under 'mass communication' (yellow). You can also purchase additional units by clicking the blue plus sign (purple). Shepherd will bill your credit card on file that is already used for subscription billing.
You can also navigate to Admin > Clinic Settings > Settings > General and activate the toggle to 'automatically purchase block of SMS units.' If this is toggled on, then units will be automatically purchased as needed. Shepherd will bill your credit card on file that is already used for subscription billing.
Opt-out and Opt-in of Texting
By industry standards, if a client replies to text messages with any of the following keywords, it will automatically opt clients out of SMS.
STOP, UNSUBSCRIBE, END, CANCEL, QUIT, STOPALL, ARRETT, ARRET, and ARRETE
Clients must resubscribe to receive text messages by replying with the following keywords.
START, YES, and UNSTOP