Video tutorial

Walkthrough

By default, if you have a 2-way account, the Sender ID will show as your virtual mobile number on the recipient’s handset. A 1-way account will show as coming from ‘WebSMS’.

This can be changed in the Sending Settings page under ‘From address’.

If you have a 2-way account and you wish to receive replies, you will need to leave this at the default setting. It can be changed as often as you wish, allowing you to switch between displaying the virtual mobile number (to permit replies) or a Sender ID.

There are some restriction on how you can change the Sender ID (please note some handsets may not be able to display some characters):

• It can be no more than 11 characters and no fewer than 3
• Characters can be: A-Z a-z 0-9 * $ ? ! ” # % & _ – , . @ ’ +
• Spaces are allowed and count as a character, but aren’t recommended as not all handsets support this.
• There are exceptions for the UK which can be found here. 

Recommendations for using Sender IDs

To prevent fraud you won’t automatically be able to send as a number, if it isn’t your virtual mobile number or a short code assigned to your account. If you need to be able to send as a numeric such as your customer care number, contact our support team and we can arrange this for you.

If you are sending messages as voice messages, we advise it is best practice to send them from your customer service number and not an alpha Sender ID. It is a legal requirement to provide the customer with a number to call back; if you don’t send these messages with a number, we have to change it to ours.

We also don’t recommend using Sender IDs such as ‘Information’, ‘Support’ or ‘Sales’ as these are commonly used by fraudsters. Customers will more likely trust a message which advises who the message is from or what it’s regarding, such as your business name or ‘Vet’, ‘Doctor’ etc.

We don’t allow messages to be sent from fraudulent ‘from’ addresses. If you need to use a brand name which doesn’t belong to you, please contact your account manager to discuss this. You’ll need to be able to demonstrate you have permission to do so.