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Customer SMS History

Menu Location: Customers > Last Cust Viewed > SMS Messages (customer-sms.php), opened from a customer's account page. Only shows up when SMS/Twilio messaging is enabled for your account.

Last Updated: 2026-07-20

Overview

Customer SMS History shows the full text message thread for one customer: what they have texted in, what the automated system or an admin has replied, and the delivery status of each outbound message. It uses the same conversation bubbles as the Chats inbox, scoped to a single customer and opened from their Customer Detail page.

Primary Functions:

  • Read the full SMS conversation with a customer, incoming and outgoing
  • Reply as an admin, which automatically takes the conversation over from the automated system
  • Mark the conversation complete when you are done, which turns automated replies back on
  • See who sent each admin reply, and why an outbound text failed to deliver

Message Attribution

Each message bubble shows who sent it:

  • Customer replies: the customer's name and a Gravatar identicon, matching the avatar shown in Chats
  • Automated replies: labeled "AI"
  • Admin replies: labeled with the sending admin's full name, with their Gravatar avatar. Admin messages sent before this attribution existed fall back to showing your company name
  • Test messages: sent from the Test Mode panel, which simulates a customer text without going through Twilio. Labeled "Test"

Delivery Failure Reasons

If an outgoing text fails or is undelivered, the status shows a plain-English reason next to "Failed"/"Undelivered" (for example, "Invalid phone number", "Recipient texted STOP and is unsubscribed"), based on the delivery error Twilio reported. Messages with no specific error code just show the plain status.

Common Use Cases

Use Case 1: Reply to a Customer's Text From Their Account

Goal: Answer a customer's text without leaving their Customer Detail page

Steps:

  1. Open the customer's account
  2. Click the "SMS Messages" link
  3. Type a reply and send. This automatically hands the conversation to you (takes it over from the automated system)

Use Case 2: Check Why a Text Didn't Deliver

Goal: Find out why a customer didn't receive a message

Steps:

  1. Open the customer's SMS Messages page
  2. Find the failed/undelivered message and read the reason shown next to the status
  3. Act accordingly (correct the phone number, respect an opt-out, or contact the customer another way)

Troubleshooting

A message shows "Undelivered" or "Failed" with no reason

Twilio didn't report a specific error code for that message, so only the status is shown.

An admin reply shows the company name instead of a person's name

The message was sent before admin attribution was added, or was sent by a process with no logged-in admin session.

  • Chats (brinks-conversations.php): the same conversation view across all customers, with Open, Unread, Completed, and Automated filters
  • SMS Messages (sms-pending.php): the outbound SMS queue and delivery stats across all customers
  • SMS Settings (brinks.php): linked from this page's sidebar, for configuring automated SMS messaging

Recent Updates

2026-07-20

  • New: outbound message delivery failures now show a plain-English reason (from Twilio's error code) instead of just "Failed"/"Undelivered"
  • New: admin replies are attributed to the specific admin who sent them (name + Gravatar avatar), not just the company name
  • Customer avatar in the thread now matches the identicon shown elsewhere
  • Fixed: messages containing pasted text with escape sequences (like \n or \') now display with real line breaks and quotes instead of stray backslashes