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Siderea, Sibylla Bostoniensis @siderea@universeodon.com
9mo
Looking for recs in the virtual phone number space. I am in the market for a small business VOIP+SMS solution that allows a shared SMS number for teams via Android app. That is inbound texts (e.g. from customers or suppliers) are distributed to all the team members' devices, and when any team member replies to the external SMS, 1) it appears to the customer/supplier to come from the shared number and 2) all the other members see it in their app, so any team member can take over the discussion at any time.

You know, like a support email address for a trouble ticket system. Only SMS.

It is really hard to figure out if various small business virtual phone app systems support this. Quo (previously OpenPhone) advertises this feature, but I am wondering if there's competitors that do it too. Before I start brute forcing the problem by tediously contacting a lot of vendors to ask, I figured I'd ask here if anyone has found a vendor that supports such a feature.

I would particularly love what is called in this space a "Twilio app" (a version that's a client app that integrates with the user's Twilio account), bc I do in fact have my own Twilio account, so those are on the table - but also least likely to support team shared texting.
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walnut 🌱 @walnut@thesoftestpaws.net
9mo
@siderea
It's possible to do this with xmpp clients and Twilio. You don't need to self host anything either, though that is also possible.
wiki.soprani.ca/TwilioSetup

If you didn't want to use Twilio for some reason jmp.chat (run by the same people) might also work. You'd also probably want to message their support to let them know it's a business line, but from what you describe of human replies to customer initiated messages that shouldn't be a problem.

If an Android app is optional (or the website works fine on mobile) chatwoot is another option too. It's currently only possible to map a phone number to one xmpp account, so you'd have to share credentials/wouldn't be able to see who responded, just their response. Chatwoot does not have this limitation.
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Siderea, Sibylla Bostoniensis @siderea@universeodon.com
9mo
@walnut Whoa

Edit: Android app is the sine qua non.

Also, the project isn't actually a support service, but that is what it is most shaped like.
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Siderea, Sibylla Bostoniensis @siderea@universeodon.com
9mo
@walnut I'm a little confused: does chatwoot support voice calls?
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walnut 🌱 @walnut@thesoftestpaws.net
9mo
@siderea
It does not seem it yet unfortunately, sorry
github.com/chatwoot/chatwoot/issues/11481

The xmpp-twilio bridge does
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Siderea, Sibylla Bostoniensis @siderea@universeodon.com
9mo
@walnut Okay, like I said, I'm looking for a VOIP+SMS solution.
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walnut 🌱 @walnut@thesoftestpaws.net
9mo
@siderea
My bad. Didn't realise that voice over ip meant, voice and not just sms over ip 😅
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