Your customers already text, the only question is whether they're texting your business number or one employee's personal cell. Cannon VoIP includes business SMS and MMS on your real business numbers, shared across your team and organized in one place, so conversations don't live and die in somebody's pocket.
What's included
Threaded SMS & MMS on your business number
Real conversations, with pictures, on the numbers customers already know, synced across desktop and mobile so anyone on the team can pick up the thread. Pictures you receive are kept in your account, so they never vanish when a carrier link expires, and on the Android and iPhone apps texting looks and works like your phone’s own messages app.
Templates, keyword auto-replies & scheduled sends
Common answers one click away, automatic replies to keywords (text HOURS, get your hours), and messages you can write now and send later.
Broadcasts that behave
Send to up to five hundred numbers at once. Broadcasts pace themselves and automatically skip anyone who has opted out.
Compliance handled for you
STOP, START, and HELP are always processed automatically, and STOP opts a person out of every number your business texts from. Opt-outs are checked before every text. Register your brand and campaign for 10DLC, the carrier framework that keeps business texting deliverable, right from the portal, and watch the approval status. Your numbers join the approved campaign automatically. Every text from a local number, including missed-call text back and receptionist texts, waits for that approval, so nothing goes out that carriers would block.
Shared text inbox
The whole front desk works from one inbox, with a separate tab for each texting number. Search by name, number or message, filter by Unread or Scheduled, and choose who is notified for each number.
Missed-call text back
Set per number: a caller you missed gets a text of up to 320 characters, at most once a day per caller and never overnight.
Translate with a long-press
Long-press any message to translate it, with the original still visible.
Branded texts with RCS
Add Branded Calling + RCS and your texts show your business name, logo and colour, with tappable buttons and read receipts on supporting phones. Other phones get a normal text automatically.
The small things that save time
- Scheduled texts: send in an hour, tomorrow, Monday morning, or at an exact date and time. Scheduled texts show in the thread with Edit, Send now and Cancel, and are dropped if the person opts out first.
- Ready-made templates: appointment confirmations, balance due reminders and more, one click away.
- Appointment texts: appointments booked on the Appointments page or your public booking page get a confirmation text when booked and a reminder before. Customers reply C to confirm or R to ask for a new time.
- Bulk campaigns with pacing: paste a list, review the count as a draft, then start, pause or resume. Duplicates and invalid numbers are dropped, batches are paced to stay within carrier limits, and live progress shows sent, opted out, queued and skipped.
- Delivery status: sent, delivered or failed on every text, plus which teammate sent it.
- Cost warnings: a character counter warns when one symbol would make a text cost more, and names the symbol.
It works with the rest of your system
- The AI receptionist texts too: callers get SMS follow-ups, and appointments it books get the same confirmation text and reminder before the appointment (customers reply C to confirm or R for a new time). A thank-you text with your review link goes out after.
- Your own software can listen: inbound texts can push straight into your systems through signed webhooks.
- Managed in the portal: texting lives alongside calls, voicemail, and fax in the self-service portal.
SMS and MMS messaging is included with Cannon VoIP service at no extra cost, it's part of the $34/extension plan, not an add-on.
Wondering why business texting needs registration at all? Our plain-English guide to 10DLC explains it, and our home services and dental pages show texting at work.
Ready to text from your business number?
We'll get your numbers registered and your team texting from day one.
Talk to us about texting