Managing incoming SMS replies
How customer SMS replies get matched to jobs, where they appear, and when they don't.
When a customer texts back, VanMan tries to attach their reply to the right job automatically. It usually works. Understanding when it doesn't is the difference between a smooth thread and a missed message.
Where replies appear
On the job's Messages tab, as SMS from customer name, with a green inbound arrow (↙) and a Delivered badge. Reply from the same place you send anything else: the job header's Send Message button, then Send SMS.
The matching rule
Customers reply to the number their message came from — the From Number at Settings > Email & SMS. That number is also how VanMan knows which business the reply belongs to.
It compares the sender's number against your contacts' phone and mobile fields, normalising formats — +64…, 027…, and bare digits all match the same person.
If that contact has jobs, the reply lands on the most recently created one.
If no job matches, VanMan attaches the reply to the contact's most recent matching booking request instead. This is genuinely useful: you can hold a two-way conversation with someone who is still just an enquiry, and the whole thread comes across when the request converts into a job.
The gotchas that actually bite
"Most recently created" is not "most recent active". There is no filter on status. A reply can land on a job that was completed months ago, simply because it was the last one created for that contact. If a regular customer's reply appears somewhere strange, this is why — look for their newest job record, not their live one.
Some replies attach to nothing at all. If VanMan cannot resolve which business a reply belongs to — and the sender's number matches contacts in more than one — it deliberately attaches the message to nothing rather than risk putting a customer's text in front of the wrong company. The message is stored for audit but is invisible in the app. Nobody sees it.
A correctly configured From Number is what prevents this. It is the setting that makes reply matching work.
Nothing tells you a reply arrived. There is no notification, no dashboard badge, no unread count. Operator notification on inbound SMS is not implemented. A customer can reply "actually can we move to Thursday?" and it will sit on the job until somebody opens that job and looks.
Do not build a process that assumes you will be alerted. If you invite SMS replies, someone has to check for them.
If a reply is unmatched, its label falls back to the raw phone number instead of a name — a sign the sender is not in your contacts.
Tutorial: run a two-way SMS conversation
A customer replies to a day-before reminder asking to shift their start time.
Go to Settings > Email & SMS and confirm From Number has a value. This is not optional housekeeping — without it, replies have nowhere to arrive and matching cannot resolve your business.
Since there is no notification, build the check into your routine: open tomorrow's jobs each afternoon and glance at their Messages tabs. That is the whole mechanism. A team that sends reminders but never opens jobs is running a one-way channel and does not know it.
Open the job and click Messages. Reload if you have had the page open — the tab does not refresh itself. The reply shows as SMS from Emma Sutton, green inbound arrow, Delivered.
Click the message to read the full text: "Any chance we could start at 10 instead of 8?"
Change the schedule on the job before you answer. Answering first and then getting distracted is how a job runs at the wrong time — the text is a request, the job is the record.
Click Send Message in the header. It opens in SMS mode with the customer loaded. Write:
No problem Emma — we've moved you to a 10:00am start tomorrow. See you then.
Click Send SMS.
The Messages tab now shows the outbound reminder, their inbound reply, and your outbound confirmation in order. Anyone opening this job later can see the whole exchange and why the time changed.
If a repeat customer's reply appears on an old completed job, that is the "most recently created" rule, not a bug. Read it there, then go to the correct job to act and reply — so the live job carries the conversation that belongs to it.
Replies to an enquiry that has not yet converted attach to the booking request, and come across with it when you convert. You do not need to create a job just to hold a conversation with a prospect.