How texting works

Ostira texts your leads from one shared Ostira phone number, and their replies come back into Ostira. Here's what your leads see and how replies and opt-outs are handled.

The number your leads see

Every text from Ostira, whether it's Ostira's reply, a message you write, or a campaign step, comes from the same Ostira number. That number is shared by all Ostira agents. You can't choose your own number.

Texts are plain text. If a campaign step has formatting from the editor, such as bold text, it's removed before the text is sent.

Where replies go

When a lead texts back, Ostira matches their phone number to your contact and adds the reply to their conversation on Conversations.

• If the conversation shows "Ostira handling", Ostira answers. If the contact also has an email address, Ostira's answer goes by email, not text.
• If you've taken over, the reply waits for you. See Take over and hand back.

Because the number is shared, a person who is also a contact of another Ostira agent is matched to whichever agent messaged them most recently. Texts from numbers that aren't one of your contacts don't show up in Ostira.

STOP, START and HELP

Leads can text these keywords at any time. The keyword has to be the whole message.

Ostira also checks each reply for a request to stop in the lead's own words, like "please stop texting me". See Do Not Contact and unsubscribes.

Every text is checked

Each text goes through the Fair Housing check before it's sent. See How the Fair Housing check works.

What you can control

• Text a lead yourself: take over the conversation and reply. Your reply goes by text when the lead's last message was a text or they have only a phone number. When Ostira can't tell, you choose Email or SMS. See Work your conversations.
• Stop texts to one contact: turn on Do Not Contact in their panel.
• Calls: Ostira doesn't place phone calls. Call leads from your own phone.