Twilio text-back

Twilio text-back turns a Twilio phone number into a lead line. Calls to the number ring the business owner’s phone. When the owner does not answer, the caller gets a text message straight away, the owner is told by text and email, and the missed call is saved as an entry. Replies from the caller are passed on to the owner.

This feature is optional and separate from forms. It needs a Twilio account, and only administrators can set it up.

When to use it

• A small business that misses calls and wants to answer them by text.
• For collecting details through a web page, use a form instead.

How to set it up

1. In Twilio, buy a phone number with voice and SMS. For text messages to US numbers, register it for A2P 10DLC in Twilio’s Trust Hub; until that is approved, carriers block or drop the messages.
2. In WordPress, go to Form Entries → Twilio Text-Back, open Settings, enter the Account SID and Auth Token from your Twilio Console, save, and select Test Connection.
3. The Settings tab lists two Webhook URLs. In Twilio, open the number’s configuration and paste the Voice URL into “A call comes in” and the Messaging URL into “A message comes in”, both as HTTP POST.
4. Open Clients and select Add Client. Fill in the fields below and select Save Client.
5. Call the Twilio number from a phone other than the owner’s, and let it ring out.

Options

Field	What it does
Business Name	Used in the text message and the owner’s alerts.
Twilio Number	The Twilio number, in E.164 format such as +15551112222.
Owner Phone	Calls are forwarded here, and alerts and replies are texted here.
Owner Email	Receives an email for each missed call.
Auto-Reply Template	The text sent to the caller. {business_name} is replaced with the business name. Starts as “Thanks for calling {business_name}! Sorry we missed you. How can we help?”
Webhook URL	A Google Apps Script address for this client’s lead sheet.

Each client can be Deactivated without deleting it, and has Edit and Delete actions.

What happens on a call

1. The call is forwarded to Owner Phone and rings for 20 seconds.
2. If the owner answers, nothing else happens.
3. If the call is not answered, is busy or fails, the caller’s number is saved as an entry, the caller is sent the auto-reply, the owner gets a text (“Missed call from … Text-back sent automatically.”) and, if Owner Email is set, an email.
4. When the caller texts back, the message is added to that entry’s SMS Conversation and texted on to the owner.

Entries appear on Form Entries under a form named after the client, such as “Acme Plumbing (Twilio Text-Back)”. Adding a client creates that form, which is also listed on Forms.

Limits and common problems

• Sending limits. At most 50 texts an hour from each Twilio number, and 500 a day across the site. Developers can change them with the pforms_twilio_hourly_sms_limit and pforms_twilio_daily_sms_limit filters.
• Missed-call leads go to the client’s Webhook URL, as well as to Form Entries. Up to version 1.10.0 the Webhook URL was never called for them; on those versions, look at the entries in Form Entries. A missed call does not start FlowMint workflows.
• Texts are not delivered. Check the A2P 10DLC status in Twilio, the sending limits above, and Twilio’s messaging logs.
• Twilio reports an error on every call. Twilio signs each request, and the site checks the signature against its own address. The site must use HTTPS, and behind a proxy it must pass on X-Forwarded-Proto. Paste the URLs exactly as shown, with nothing added.
• The owner’s messages are fixed text and cannot be changed.

Related pages

• Entries — Read, mark, search, export and delete form submissions, and what each entry stores, including uploaded files.
• Privacy and data retention — The personal data Forms stores, how WordPress's export and erase tools reach it, and how to delete old entries on a schedule.
• Webhooks — Send every submission to Zapier, Make, Google Sheets or your own endpoint, with signed requests, retries and a delivery status on each entry.