Man, BeeTexting carries a pretty hefty cost per month... Hopefully, there will be an inclusive option with RingCentral sometime soon. The additional $100+ per month for our small office is just not feasible.

What’s the difference between beetexting and RC “advanced SMS inbox”, do I need to purchase this feature from RC? Can I achieve my goal within the existing RC framework?

https://www.ringcentral.com/sms/advanced-inbox.html

My AI says this is the answer…

“Your goal is clear: you need a centralized system for multiple employees to manage text messages sent to your main company number, without resorting to costly third-party applications. This is a common requirement for businesses looking to consolidate communication, and while your frustration with past experiences is understandable, a native solution does exist within the RingCentral framework.

Let's address the core need while acknowledging the features you already value, like RingSense AI.

The Recommended Native Solution: Call Queue Messaging

The most direct and effective way to create a shared SMS inbox is to leverage the built-in messaging functionality of Call Queues. RingCentral is designed to treat incoming messages to a queue's number as a group activity, not an individual one.

While the idea of a user being logged into two accounts simultaneously is a creative thought, the RingCentral application requires users to switch between accounts, making it impractical for real-time team monitoring. The Call Queue method is the intended design for this purpose.

How It Works: Step-by-Step

* Assign Your Main Number to a Call Queue: Ensure your primary company number—the one clients text—is the direct number assigned to a Call Queue in your phone system settings. All employees who need to respond to texts should be members of this queue.

* A Group Thread is Automatically Created: When a client sends a text to this number, RingCentral automatically creates a group message thread that includes all members of the Call Queue. This thread appears in the "Messages" section of each member's app.

* Collaborate Seamlessly: Any employee in the queue can view the incoming message and the entire conversation history. When they reply from within that thread, the client sees the response coming from the main company number, maintaining a professional and consistent identity.

Key Advantages of This Approach
This method directly achieves your objectives:

* Truly Centralized: It creates a single point of truth for all client text conversations.

* No Third-Party Costs: It uses core functionality included in your existing RingCentral service.

* Seamless Collaboration: The entire team sees messages in real-time, preventing duplicate replies and ensuring context is never lost.

* Consolidated Workflow: It keeps your phone calls and text messages managed by the same team within the same application, fulfilling your goal of a unified system.

Your Next Step: To implement this, navigate to your Admin Portal > Phone System > Groups > Call Queues. Select the appropriate queue and verify that your main number is assigned to it and that all relevant team members are included. This should immediately enable the shared messaging functionality you require.”

Is my AI “off it’s rocker” or is this actually possibly?

-Robert from www.nexusunify.com

Needs to be integrated in the RC APP. Please!

We have teams at my company and some people are on multiple teams. We all need text access to every department that we are added to. There are 4 people in my department and we all use one line to communicate with clients. All 4 people need to be able to text using the same line.

Jessica - our company is using Avaya Cloud Office on the RingCentral framework and we also have been using Beetexting through the Beetexting web app... Are you saying that there is an integration that allows Beetexting to live inside the RingCentral interface? Too clarify.... Does this integration allow for the user to work inside of RingCentral and have all the functionality of Beetexting? OR Does it simply mean, we can do what we are doing today which is connecting the two systems but still having to work in two different programs? RingCentral & Beetexting

Only allowing one person to answer the Call Queue texts is very lackluster. I really hope a solution can be found to allow the entire Call Queue to respond to texts.

While I appreciate that RC responded, pushing this off or suggesting a separate paid integration isn't helpful.

I was shocked to discover that my staff, for whom I pay for each to have a separate RC license, cannot see texts to our main number. That isn't acceptable.

Having a single integrated call/text/video platform with click-to-call is why I chose RC years ago and why I've stayed despite what feels a higher price tag than alternatives (6 figures / year vs. say having a $12/mo VOIP line or something).

I do not run a call center where it makes sense to pay thousands a year for a texting add-on (no joke, that is what your recommended integration costs).

Like many (if not most) small businesses, we simply need our small team to communicate with our clients/customers. RC, please consider your small business customers. They want to stay with you so long as you provide the services they need for a fair all-in price.

We need this so that when a team member is out, other team members can support SMS!

This affects us when we are in Sales Force. There are 2 of us that follow up on leads. While we are on the page for the lead we use the integrated Ring central app on the bottom left side of the page. We do lots of flollow up texting. If I send a text to a lead my co worker who may be working the lead the next day needs to be able to comment on that same phone number so that it appears they are only communicating with one person and the conversation flows

Hello, is there an update on this?

This would be so helpful! Please do it sooner rather than later!

Yes, I need my entire staff to be able to respond to a text message, just as they would be able to answer and respond to a phone call. Everyone assumes they can text phone numbers, which causes a lot of confusion and lost messages and frustration on the part of everyone when we are not able to do that.

This was the whole reason i signed up for RC in the first place!!!

This was a promised feature during the pre sign-up demonstration. After over six months of back and forth before getting SMS approved, it turns out that the feature is not really usable as others have described. Please get this corrected ASAP!

If the inbox is not shared it's about as useful as the current setup (useless).

One team member cannot be on call 24/7 and be responsible for all inbound / outbound SMS messages.

The feature was promised to us as just a few months away when we signed up with ringcentral (2 years ago). Then we were pushed to ideas, then we got a Q2 date and a year later we don't even have the dollar store version above?

If the inbox is not shared it's about as useful as the current setup (useless).

One team member cannot be on call 24/7 and be responsible for all inbound / outbound SMS messages.

The feature was promised to us as just a few months away when we signed up with ringcentral (2 years ago). Then we were pushed to ideas, then we got a Q2 date and a year later we don't even have the dollar store version above?

This is an absolute necessity in our business and the main reason we moved to Ring Central. I now have to do a work around where every person on my scheduling team signs into the "shared line" and then they also have to have the app on another device to log into their own line. It really shouldn't be this complicated and this change would significantly improve the workflows for our busy business-Kayla

Absolutely unbelievable. I'm dumbfounded really. Clearly "SMS for call queues" is a completely different feature. A shared inbox is by far the most requested feature on here, it was promised to be delivered in Q2 2024, delayed, and now we don't know if it's coming at all?! I think about this literally every day. I got excited every 1st of the month for the release notes hoping it'd be in there.

We and our customers are inconvenienced every day because our main number texts go to only one person after we switched from Grasshopper (of all places) and lost a shared inbox.

I can't fathom why this wouldn't be top priority because clearly customers are leaving for other VOIP providers over this. Beetexting must have some real dirt on you guys.

Jessica
When is this going to be released thru RC so you don’t have small businesses paying an additional $20-39 per user to subscribe to beetexting. It was promised many times and yet to deliver. Does the VP of product development have any answers?

Hi Team,

this feature suppose to be added or planned to be added on March 2024 Q2 2024 but no update since then. I would like to know if there is another roadmap, plans to have this feature available this year 2025.

I am following this on behalf of Mega Refunds Tax Group as this feature is important to their business.

Regards
Ram Carillo
APAC Support Team