Leap users can now easily send text messages to their sellers for showing notifications. Before we start, let us provide you with a quick run through about the difference between SMS and MMS text-messaging.
An SMS gateway (Short Message Services) can transmit plain text messages only. Images, audio, and other media will not show up in this form of messaging. An MMS gateway (Multimedia Messaging Services) can transmit multimedia text messages, i.e. photos and audio, in addition to text.
What, you may ask, is the advantage of one over the other? In the case of SMS, many service providers limit the message size to 160 characters, meaning a text that is larger will be broken up into multiple pieces. MMS does not suffer the same issue, and will be transmitted and displayed as one text. Additionally, MMS text messages can include specific details to the recipient about who the text is from, from what email address it came, etc. Thus, we recommend that you choose the MMS over the SMS address.
Now, here’s how to set up the messaging:
1. Determine their “text email address”:
a. Determine the 10-digit phone number of your seller.
b. Determine service provider (This can be most easily done by asking your seller).
c. Assemble the “text email address” by including:
i. The phone number (less a preceding ‘1’, and hyphens or parentheses) ,
ii. Followed by the ‘@’,
iii. Followed by the service provider URL (A list of the URL’s of most service providers can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_SMS_gateways).
d. The number should look like this: 3125555555@domain.com
2. Add the email address to the sellers information in Leap. To do so:
a. Select “Listings”.
b. Select the desired property.
c. Click “Edit Contacts” and, either search for the owner’s name and click “Contact Search” or, if this is a new seller, select “Manual Add”.
d. In the expanded field, enter in the “text email address” by “Email” if this is their preferred form of contact, otherwise Email 2 or 3, but make sure to select “Notify Email 2/3.”
e. Finally, select “Update Contact”
NOTE: You may want to change your default seller showing notification message to handle the shorter character availability of SMS. You can do this through “Scheduling” -> “Emails” -> from the drop down Seller notification email.
For quick reference, the URL’s for major service providers are as follows:
AT&T – domestic-number@txt.att.net (SMS)
domestic-number@mms.att.net (MMS)
T-Mobile – number@tmomail.net (MMS) (include the ‘1’ at the beginning in this case.)
Verizon – number@vtext.com (SMS)
number@vzwpix.com (MMS)
Virgin – number@vmobl.com (SMS)
number@vmpix.com (MMS)
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