# Two-way SMS agent

Answers texts to your number from your knowledge base: short, plain, never inventing prices, dates or promises, and saying it's an AI in its first text. Pricing, contracts, complaints, anything it isn't sure of, or a request for a person go to the thread's owner instead. Each answer waits for your approval; opt-outs, quiet hours and do-not-contact always apply.

Category: Prospecting. For: Sales, Founders, Customer success.

## What it's for

Answer every text quickly and correctly, and get a person in when it matters.

Suited to:

- Teams that give prospects a number to text
- Answering texts outside office hours

## What you get

- A drafted answer from the knowledge base, sent once you approve it
- Or the thread handed to its owner, with why

## When it runs

- When you run it
- When a text arrives

## What it uses

- Text messages (needs your own Telnyx account)

When you run it yourself, you choose (an event fills these in):

- The inbound text

## Its steps

1. Draft
2. Answer
3. Hand off

## Approvals

Reads the thread and your knowledge base. Each answer waits for your approval before it's texted (it read a text from outside the company), and is checked again against opt-outs, the calling window and do-not-contact when it's sent. The first text says it's an AI and names your business.

## Checked before release

The template's eval suite must pass these:

- Drafts from the knowledge base and waits for a person before texting
- Hands off when they ask for a person
- Never texts someone who opted out

## Questions

**Can it answer instantly without approval?**

Yes: turn on the built-in SMS agent in Settings → Phone and SMS. It sends on its own only when its draft passes code checks (no links, no numbers or dates that aren't in your knowledge base, never claims to be a person); anything else goes to a person.

**What about STOP?**

STOP, START and HELP are handled before any agent sees the text, and someone who opted out is never texted.

Use this template: https://app.closefinch.com/app/agents/templates/two-way-sms-agent (sign in first). Every template: [https://www.closefinch.com/templates](https://www.closefinch.com/templates).