MessageKite

After extensive research into our options for SMS marketing, I was very discouraged by the lack of affordable options. We are a small retail boutique and didn't have the budget for some of the more robust options available. We decided to give MessageKite a try with their free trial option, and fell in love! It's super simple to use, very user-friendly, with customizable templates you can build that allow you to easily respond to your business' FAQs. They also have automated messaging options for appointment reminders, and you can group your contacts into specific categories so that you can send one kind of text to one group, without having to choose each contact you want to include individually. Overall, we've been very happy with this software and are grateful for it.

My only complaint with the software is that there's no way for a fully automated response to take place other than an appointment reminder, so when a customer opts in to your texts with a set phrase, for instance, there's no way for the software to trigger an automated response, such as "Please confirm your opt-in" etc. That makes the process a little more labor-intensive, but overall, it's a very minor issue when you consider that the templates make responding super easy, and the value of the software for the price is amazing.

the fact that we can easily add an option to text our business phone number

1-the "robot" that tries to help problem solve does so during business hours & while i'm already texting back/forth with someone. it makes it very confusing for our clients as to why "i'm" sending them odd texts. (would love a manual switch to where i can turn off the autobot feature when needed)

2-the feature that sends me an email letting me know i've missed texts doesn't always get sent to me. in the beginning it would send it after a few minutes had passed, now it sends the email alerts randomly and most of the time not at all.

3-some emojis or images that client's send me show up as weird characters or just blank texts. i never know what i'm missing as it could be important

4-the alert for the notifications is the most annoying sound ever. there is no way to choose a different tone/sound or to adjust the volume. if i have my speakers turned up to use other web based apps when a text comes it i literally jump out of my chair, know over my water, etc. i dislike it so much that i leave the browser for this feature off and try to hope that the emails will come thru letting me know i have missed texts or randomly log back in to check for myself. not ideal in both circumstances.

You can use from different computers and mobiles at the same time, software has message history and has great search option. Mass or group message is also available. Photo sending is good option, too.

Search command in message history will be better to be done a little faster.