Outreach

Reach the people you already know, on whichever channel they answer. Build an audience from your contacts, send by WhatsApp, text or email from your own number and address, work a call list by hand, and answer every reply in one shared inbox.

Overview

Outreach gives you:

• Campaigns on WhatsApp, SMS and email, built from your contacts, a saved contact book, a pasted list or a CSV.
• A call list your team works by hand, logging what happened on each call.
• One shared inbox where every reply lands, with assignment, close and reopen.
• Auto reply from your knowledge base when nobody is free, handing over to a person on a keyword.
• Provider-approved WhatsApp templates, created and submitted from the dashboard.
• A do-not-contact list that is honoured automatically, per channel.

Connect your number

You set this up once for the whole workspace, not per service.

WhatsApp, the quick way

1. Marketplace → Messaging, then WhatsApp in the Provider list.
2. Continue with Facebook. Sign in with the Facebook account that manages your business, then create a new WhatsApp number or pick one you already have. We fill in the rest, including the address replies come back to.
3. Send yourself a test to check it end to end.

Before you start, have a phone number ready that is not already on WhatsApp. If it is, delete that WhatsApp account on the phone first, or the number cannot be used. You will also need a card on your Facebook business settings, under Billing and payments, because WhatsApp bills you for the messages you send.

Or enter the details by hand

1. Marketplace → Messaging. In the Provider list pick WhatsApp, Twilio, Telnyx or Plivo. For WhatsApp, choose Enter details manually.
2. Paste your credentials. We check them straight away and tell you if the provider rejects them. They are encrypted before we store them and never shown again.
3. Add the proof we check replies with. For Twilio, paste your account Auth token. For Telnyx, paste the Public key from the same page as your API key. For Plivo, your Auth token already does this. For WhatsApp entered by hand, paste the App secret. We use it only to confirm that replies and delivery updates really came from your provider; without it, incoming messages and delivery updates are refused.
4. To place calls with Telnyx, also create a TeXML application in the Telnyx portal, give it an outbound voice profile that allows the countries you call, link your number to it, and paste its ID. Twilio and Plivo need nothing extra.
5. Pick the number you send from on the Numbers tab, then send yourself a test. The number has to be one on your own provider account, and it cannot already be connected to another workspace.
6. Paste the webhook address from the Replies tab into your provider console, so answers come back to your inbox.

Email works the same way on Marketplace → Email sending. Both are shared: Appointments reminders and Outreach campaigns use the same connection.

More than one text provider

You can connect Twilio, Telnyx and Plivo side by side. The first one you connect sends your texts and places your calls. The Which number sends what card at the top of Marketplace → Messaging shows the provider and number for each. Pick another connected provider under Texts go out from or Calls go out from to switch. Texts and calls can use different providers, which is useful when one is cheaper for messages and another for calls. To change which of a provider's numbers it uses, choose the provider on the Numbers tab.

When SoftSolz provides your number

Some packages include texts and calls from SoftSolz, so you do not need a provider account of your own. The Calls and SMS tab then shows Provided by SoftSolz with your number, the countries it can reach, and how many text parts and call minutes you have used this month. There is nothing to set up, and the number cannot be changed or removed there: ask SoftSolz to change the number, the countries or the allowance.

A long text counts as more than one part: up to 160 plain characters is one part, and emoji or some special characters shorten each part to 70. When you have used 80% of the month's texts, admins are told. When they are all used, single messages are refused with a clear reason and campaigns pause, then carry on by themselves on the 1st of the next month. Calls stop the same way once the minutes are used. You can still connect your own provider as well and choose which one sends.

Countries you send to

Providers charge differently in every country. On the Countries tab you can pick where texts may go and where calls may go. Anything else is refused before it costs you: a single message or a call shows why, and a campaign leaves those people out and tells you how many. WhatsApp is not affected.

Build an audience

An audience can come from any mix of:

• Your contacts - everyone in the workspace contact list, optionally filtered by tag or by a saved list you made on the Contacts page.
• A contact book - a named list you keep for a purpose, like "Lapsed customers".
• Numbers or addresses you paste in, or a CSV you upload.

Duplicates are removed for you, and anyone who has opted out is dropped before sending. The preview tells you how many people will actually be reached and why anyone was skipped.

A list you paste in or upload is saved with the campaign, so it is still there when you come back to it later.

Contact books

Open a contact book on Outreach → Contact books to add people one at a time, paste numbers or addresses, or upload a CSV straight into it. Choose whether the file holds phone numbers or email addresses; any extra columns become personal fields you can use in a message. Search by name, number or address, and remove someone with the bin icon (you are asked to confirm first).

Send a campaign

1. Outreach → Campaigns → New campaign. Choose the channel. Only channels you have connected can be picked.
2. Choose your message. WhatsApp needs a template your provider has already approved. SMS takes plain text.
3. Fill in the blanks. Map template slots to a person's name or fixed text.
4. Pick the audience and check the preview. A new campaign starts with nobody chosen, so it never goes to everyone by accident. Until you pick someone, the send button stays off.
5. Send now or schedule it. Press Send now, or pick a time and then press Schedule it. Picking a time on its own only saves it on the draft; nothing is sent until you press the button.

Sending runs in the background and you can watch it progress, then filter the people it went to by sent, delivered, read, replied, failed or left out. If your provider starts throttling you, or your monthly allowance runs out, the campaign pauses itself and tells you why rather than failing silently. You get a notification, and Resume carries on from where it stopped. Nobody is sent the same message twice.

Links in text messages

With Count who taps a link switched on (it is on for new text campaigns), every link in your text is swapped for a short link made just for that person, like app.softsolz.uk/l/m/aB3dE5fG. When someone taps it, they go straight to your page and the campaign counts it. The character counter already allows for the shorter link, and short links often save you a text.

After sending, the campaign shows how many people replied, how many tapped a link, and which links were tapped most. Link previews made by phones and apps are not counted as taps. WhatsApp templates are sent exactly as approved, so their links are not counted.

Email campaigns

Email campaigns send from the address you verified on Marketplace → Email sending, so recipients see your name in their inbox. Every email carries an unsubscribe link and a one-click unsubscribe header, which Gmail and Yahoo require from anyone sending in bulk. You cannot turn that off, and you should not want to: it is what keeps your mail out of spam folders.

Write the email

The message opens on Preview, showing the email exactly as it lands in an inbox, with your logo, colours, footer and unsubscribe link, and a sample name standing in for each person. Switch to HTML to change the wording, and the preview catches up as you type.

• Start from a template to copy a saved subject and message into this campaign. Your saved template is left untouched, so edits here only affect this send.
• Save what is here as a new template, at the bottom of that same list, keeps the email you have written for next time. It then appears for every email campaign and on Marketplace → Email sending.
• Write {{name}} anywhere to drop in the person's name. Any other blank you use is filled from your contact list and stays empty for anyone missing it, which the preview tells you.

Test two subject lines

On an email campaign, choose Test a second subject line. Write a second subject that is different from the first, and decide what share of people, from 10 to 90 percent, get the first one. Everyone else gets the second.

Everyone is put in one group or the other, and the same person always lands in the same group - so the test is a fair split, not a coin toss per send.

Once the campaign has gone out, the results appear on the campaign page: how many were sent each version, how many opened, how many clicked. We call a winner once at least 20 people have had each version, because calling it earlier tells you nothing. If both did exactly the same we say so rather than inventing a winner.

Follow up with the people who missed it

Most people will not open your first email. On a campaign that has finished sending, choose Follow up.

Pick who it goes to:

• People who did not open it - the usual choice. Same message, new subject line, sent only to the people who never saw it.
• People who did not click a link - they read it but did nothing.
• People who opened it or people who clicked a link - for warming up the interested ones.

We tell you how many people match before you commit. The follow-up is created as a draft copying the original message, so you can change the subject and re-read it before sending.

Anyone who already opened is genuinely excluded - they will not get the same thing twice. Consent and unsubscribes are respected exactly as they are on any other campaign.

Text and WhatsApp campaigns can be followed up too. Pick people who did not reply, people who got it but did not reply, or people who replied. For a text campaign that counted link taps, you can also pick people who clicked a link or people who did not click a link. The draft starts with the same message, so change it to read as a follow-up before you send.

Send a sequence

A sequence is a few text or WhatsApp messages that go out one after another, with a wait between each. Use one to welcome new customers over a week, or to follow up a quote until someone answers.

1. Go to Outreach > Sequences and choose New sequence. Pick text messages or WhatsApp.
2. Add your messages. For each one, set how long to wait after the one before (minutes, hours or days, up to 90 days). The first message can go straight away. WhatsApp messages use a template WhatsApp has approved.
3. Add people: everyone in a contact book, or numbers you paste in.
4. Press Start. Nothing is sent before that.

Someone stops getting messages as soon as they reply (you can turn this off), reply STOP, or are taken off by hand. The page shows who is in progress, who finished, who stopped and why, and how many of each message went out.

Sequences follow the same rules as campaigns: people who opted out are never added, your sending hours and the opt-out line apply, and if you turned on "only send to people who agreed" in your settings, only they are added. Pause holds everyone where they are until you start it again.

You can also add someone from a workflow, for example when a form is filled in, with the step "Add to a sequence".

Work a call list

A call list is a campaign you work by hand rather than one that sends by itself. Build the audience the same way, then open the list and call people one at a time. After each call, log what happened: answered, no answer, busy, voicemail, call back, interested, not interested, wrong number, or do not call.

People you actually reached drop off the list. People you did not stay on it so you can try again. "Do not call" adds them to your do-not-contact list. Filter the list to see who has not been called yet, who wants a call back, and who was interested.

A call list never sends a text or a WhatsApp message, even if you schedule it. It only changes when someone on your team logs a call.

Call from SoftSolz

With a calling provider connected on Marketplace → Messaging, press Call next to someone on a call list, or Call the next person to work down the list. We ring your own phone first; answer it and press 1, and we connect you, showing your business number to them. If your voicemail answers instead, nobody is called. While the call is on, a bar shows how it is going, with a Hang up button to end it from SoftSolz. You can also press Call at the top of any text or WhatsApp conversation in the inbox.

To call someone you have not talked to yet, press New message in the inbox and choose Call. Find a contact or type their number with its country code, then press Call. The call opens as a conversation in the inbox, so their next text lands in the same place.

Your phone for calls is the mobile you answer, and every team member needs their own, because the person who presses Call is the one we ring. Admins see the whole team on Outreach → Settings → Calls, with who is ready and who still needs a phone, and can add or change anyone's number there; the person is told when someone else changes it. Each member can also add their own in the window that opens the first time they press Call. The phone belongs to this workspace, so you can use a different one in another workspace. It has to be a real mobile, not one of the workspace's business numbers, and SoftSolz will not call your own phone or a business number, because those calls could never connect.

After each call, log what happened. Add a note keeps a note on the person that only your team sees. Call back asks when: at that time you get a reminder, and they come back to the top of the list. People who asked not to be called, and numbers in countries you do not call, are never dialled.

Calls placed and connected, and how every call went (from a call list or a single call), appear on the Reports page. Developers can react to a finished call with the outreach.call.completed webhook, or start a workflow with A call ended.

AI calls

An AI caller answers your phone number or rings people for you, talks with them, solves what it can and leaves your team a report. Set it up under Outreach → AI calls. It uses the calling number you already connected on Marketplace → Messaging (Twilio, Telnyx or Plivo), or a number SoftSolz provides in your package.

Set up an AI caller

Press New AI caller, give it a name and choose what it is for. To answer your phone: Customer support (finds out the problem and fixes what it can) or Receptionist (answers questions, books, takes messages and puts people through). To call people: Information (gives a message and answers questions about it), Follow-up (asks your questions and books or passes on hot leads) or Reminder (confirms, cancels or moves an appointment). Then work through the steps on the left:

• What it does and What it says: your business name, the greeting, how it should handle calls, and the questions it should ask. The answers appear in the report.
• Knowledge and actions: answer from your Knowledge Base, book appointments, take messages, text a link or a payment link, put callers through, take numbers typed on the keypad, and let people ask not to be called again.
• Checks and systems: see Checking who is calling below.
• Voice and call: the voice (press Play sample to hear it), language, tone and pace, a quiet office sound in the background, whether calls are recorded, Standard or Advanced thinking, the longest call, and finer controls such as how long it waits before answering and how easily it stops when interrupted.
• Hand-off and hours: the numbers to try in order, a spoken briefing for your colleague before the caller is connected, words that always get a person, emergency words with a fixed message, and your opening hours.
• After the call: whether to list the follow-ups or make a task for each, who hears about calls, and who gets a short text summary.

Every call starts with the same line: the AI says its name, that it is an AI assistant for your business, and that the call is transcribed. This cannot be turned off, and it never pretends to be a person.

Try it before it goes live

On Try it, talk to it with your microphone, press Call me now to have it ring the phone number on your profile, or type as if you were the caller. When you finish you see the exact report your inbox would show. Test calls never appear in the inbox or the reports.

Go live shows what is left to do, for example trying it once or choosing the collections it may use. Then open Phone numbers and choose Answer with AI on a number. You can have the AI always answer, ring your team first and let the AI take the call if nobody picks up, or answer only when you are closed. If we cannot update the number for you, the card shows the address to paste into your provider account.

Changes to a live AI caller are saved as a draft. Calls keep using the live version until you press Publish changes, and you can go back to the version before with one click.

The report after each call

Every call joins the caller's conversation in the shared inbox with a report: what was discussed, the answers to your questions, what the AI already did (booked, texted a link, put the caller through), and what your team still needs to do. Tick each to-do off with Mark done, or press Create task to send it to Tasks. Open follow-ups add a "Follow up" label to the conversation until they are done.

The Overview tab shows how many calls came in, how many the AI solved, bookings, messages, the reasons people called, your busiest hours and the questions it could not answer, so you know what to add to your Knowledge Base.

Have it call people

Create a call list under Campaigns the usual way (paste numbers, upload a spreadsheet, or pick contact books, tags or segments), then under Who makes the calls choose An AI caller. Pick the number to call from, the days and hours (always in each person's own time, never before 8am or after 9pm), how many calls at once and per day, how many tries per person, and when to start. It rings people in order, retries the ones who did not answer, and fills in each person's result on the list.

Choose why you are calling. Service or reminder calls only go to people who already deal with you, such as customers or people who contacted you. Marketing calls only go to people who agreed to AI calls: record their agreement on the Consent tab under AI calls. Anyone who asked not to be called is always skipped.

If an answering machine picks up, it can leave your voicemail message and then text them, or just hang up. You can also start a single call with the AI call button on an inbox conversation, or from a workflow with the Call someone with an AI caller step.

Checking who is calling

Turn on Text a code before sharing account details and the AI can tell a caller about their own upcoming bookings or unpaid invoices. It texts a 6-digit code to the phone number on their record, and only shares anything after they read the code back. It never shares details just because of the number someone calls from.

Under Your own systems you can let it look something up in your own software, such as where an order is. Give the action a name, say when to use it, enter your system's https address and list the details it should ask for. Each request is signed with a secret you can copy from the same page, so your system can check the request really came from us.

Hand over to another AI caller lets it pass the caller to one of your other AI callers, for example from reception to billing, without losing the conversation.

Follow calls as they happen

The Live tab shows every call happening now with what is being said. Press Take over and the AI tells the caller it is putting them through, then your phone rings. End call makes it say goodbye and hang up. The report still arrives afterwards.

Saved tests and weekly ideas

Under Try it, Saved tests let you describe a caller and what the AI should do. Another AI plays the caller and checks the call against your list. You can also turn a real call into a test with Save as a test on its report. Run your tests before you publish changes: Go live shows how many passed.

Turn on Weekly ideas in AI call settings and every Monday it reads last week's weaker calls and suggests small changes on the Improve step. Nothing changes until you press Add to draft and then publish.

On the Overview tab, Add answer next to a question it could not answer adds that answer to your Knowledge Base.

The same AI caller for texts

Under Outreach → Settings → Auto reply, set Who replies to one of your live AI callers. It then answers text and WhatsApp messages with the same knowledge, rules and booking it uses on calls, and says it is an AI assistant.

Who can do what

Everyone who uses Outreach can see AI calls, their reports and the Live tab. Setting up AI callers, phone numbers, saved tests and weekly ideas is for super admins and admins. Starting calls, running call lists, and taking over or ending a live call also works for managers. You can change this for any role under Team Management → Roles, in the AI calls group.

To use Call me now or take over a call on your own phone, add your number to your profile first.

What AI calls cost

Listening, thinking and speaking are charged in AI credits from your plan. The set-up page shows about how many credits a minute your choices use. You still pay your provider for the call minutes. Under Settings you can set a monthly AI credit budget for calls and choose whether the AI stops answering or just tells you when it is used up. Saved tests and weekly ideas use a few credits too. Card numbers and bank details spoken on a call are hidden before the transcript is saved, and transcripts are deleted after the number of days you choose. The report stays. Recordings are off unless you turn them on for an AI caller, the caller is told the call is recorded, and recordings are deleted after the days you choose.

The shared inbox

Every reply lands in Outreach → Inbox, whichever channel it came in on: WhatsApp, text message or email. Each conversation shows a tag for its channel, and you can filter the list to one channel. Anyone on your team with permission can read it, so nothing sits unanswered in one person's phone or mailbox.

• New message starts a conversation with anyone: find a contact or type a number with its country code, then write a text or pick an approved WhatsApp template. Choose Email to type an email address, a subject and your message instead; it goes out from your workspace email address. Their reply comes back to the same conversation.
• Assign a conversation to whoever is handling it. Only people on your team who can use the inbox can be picked.
• Mark unread, in the conversation's more-actions menu, keeps a conversation unread until you open it again, so you can come back to it.
• Labels such as Sales or Complaint sit under the conversation header. Filter the list by a label, or show only unread conversations.
• Internal notes are for your team only and never reach the customer. Switch the composer to Internal note to leave one.
• Saved replies are answers you give again and again. Type / in an empty reply, or use the speech bubble button, and pick one. Write {{name}} or {{first_name}} in a saved reply to fill in the person's name.
• Email replies come back here too once you turn on forwarding (see Get email replies in your inbox below). Earlier quoted messages are trimmed, and attachments are noted but not shown.
• Reply directly. Replies to an email conversation go out by email with the same subject. On WhatsApp you can write freely for 24 hours after someone messages you; after that WhatsApp only allows an approved template, and the composer switches over for you.
• Close it when it is done, and reopen it if they write back.
• Auto reply can answer from your knowledge base when nobody is free, and hands over to a person when someone asks for one.

Get email replies in your inbox

Your customers reply to your own email address, just as they always do, and never see SoftSolz. You forward those emails to SoftSolz once, and every reply lands in the right conversation in your inbox. Set it up on Outreach → Settings → Email replies, which walks you through four steps:

1. Check the address your customers reply to. This is the reply address on your sending email address. An address used only for replies, such as replies@yourcompany.com, keeps your other emails out of the inbox.
2. Copy your private forwarding address. Only your team sees it. If you ever need to, press Get a new address; the old one stops working straight away.
3. Turn on forwarding in your email. In Gmail: gear icon, See all settings, Forwarding and POP/IMAP, Add a forwarding address. Gmail sends a confirmation code, and it shows up on the SoftSolz page so you can copy it into Gmail. Then choose to forward a copy and keep Gmail's copy. In Outlook on the web: gear icon, Mail, Forwarding, turn on Enable forwarding, paste the address, tick Keep a copy of forwarded messages and save.
4. Check it works. Send a short email from another address, such as your personal email, to your reply address. Within a minute it appears in your inbox and the page shows Working.

Newsletters, bounced emails and automatic replies are left out of the inbox. If your company blocks forwarding to outside addresses, ask whoever manages your email to allow it. Use the forwarding setting rather than a rule that forwards emails as new messages, because those hide who wrote them.

Sharing out conversations

On Outreach → Settings → Inbox, turn on Share new conversations in turn and pick who gets them. Each new conversation goes to the next person, and anyone who can no longer see the inbox is skipped. Turn on Tell us when a reply is overdue to get a notification when someone has waited longer than you choose.

Sending hours and the opt-out line

Set both on Outreach → Settings → Sending.

• Sending hours. Campaigns only go out between the times you choose, 8am to 9pm unless you change it, in your workspace time zone. Anything still waiting at the end of the day carries on the next morning. Replies and single messages are never held back.
• The opt-out line. Every text campaign ends with a short line, "Reply STOP to opt out" unless you change it, whenever the message does not already mention STOP. The message editor counts it in the length, so you can see how many texts each person will be charged for. The line has to mention STOP.
• Sending speed. Some providers only let one number send so many texts a minute and refuse the rest. Switch on Limit how fast campaigns send and choose how many messages a minute (1 to 600) your text and WhatsApp campaigns send between them. Campaigns simply take longer; nothing is lost.

Each person's own time zone. On a text or WhatsApp campaign, switch on Keep to sending hours in each person's own time zone when you send abroad. Your sending hours then apply in the time zone of each number's country, so someone in Karachi gets it in their morning and someone in London in theirs. For a country with several time zones, like the US or Australia, your workspace time zone is used.

What it will cost. Before you send, the review shows how many texts the campaign uses, for example "About 1,240 texts: 620 people x 2 texts each", with a link to your provider's prices. Long messages, emoji and accented letters use more texts per person.

People not on WhatsApp. On a WhatsApp campaign you can switch on Send them a text instead and write a short text. When WhatsApp tells us a number does not use it, that person is sent your text once. These texts go out as their own campaign, named after the original, so you can see how they did. Opt-outs, your sending hours and consent still apply, and you need a text provider connected.

Get help from AI

Wherever you write a text - a campaign, a sequence message, a new message, or the text for people not on WhatsApp - press Write with AI. Say what the message is for, pick a tone and a length, and you get three versions to choose from. Pick one, then change anything you like; nothing is sent until you send it. If you have already written something, the AI improves it instead of starting again. In a campaign or sequence it writes {{name}} where the person's name goes; in a single new message it writes the text exactly as it will be sent. It never invents prices, dates or offers you did not give it.

In the inbox:

• Suggest a reply offers up to three short replies based on the conversation. Tap one to put it in the reply box, check it, then send it yourself.
• Summarise writes a one-line summary of the conversation and labels what the customer wants, such as Has a question, About a booking or Complaint. The summary is saved on the conversation, so your team sees it without running it again. When new messages arrive, the button changes to Update summary.

Every AI request uses AI credits from your plan. Who can use it is set by the AI writing help permission in your roles, and per-role AI limits still apply.

Reports and downloads

Outreach → Reports shows the last 7, 30 or 90 days: how many campaign messages went out, how many replies came in, the reply rate, how many people tapped a link, how many opted out, and how long your team typically takes to answer. A chart shows campaign messages sent, single messages sent and replies received, day by day, and a table lists your busiest campaigns. Messages sent and the reply rate also appear on your dashboard. Admins and managers can see reports.

People who hold the download permission (admins and managers unless you change it) can download:

• A campaign's people - Download CSV above the list on a sent campaign: name, number or address, status, and when each message was sent, delivered, read, replied to and tapped.
• A contact book - Download CSV on the book, with any extra fields as columns.
• All conversations - on the Reports page.

Every download is recorded in your audit log.

Who can see what

Campaigns and contact books can be kept to yourself, shared with the whole workspace, or shared with chosen people and roles. Use Share on the campaign or the contact book. Someone who cannot see a contact book cannot send to it either, from the dashboard, the API or the Assistant.

Consent and unsubscribes

Outreach will not contact someone who has not agreed to hear from you, and it keeps that promise per channel: replying STOP to a text stops texts, and unsubscribing from an email stops email.

• STOP, STOP ALL, UNSUBSCRIBE, END, QUIT, OPT-OUT or REVOKE in a text or WhatsApp message opts that person out immediately. This works for anyone who replies to your number, whether they came from your contacts, a contact book, a pasted list or a CSV.
• CANCEL opts someone out too, unless they have an appointment with you, in which case it cancels the appointment.
• START, UNSTOP, SUBSCRIBE, OPT-IN or RESUME puts them back.
• The keyword has to be the whole reply. "Stop." or "STOP!" counts; "No stopping us now" does not.
• The unsubscribe link in an email does the same for email.
• A hard bounce or a spam complaint also stops future email to that address.
• Asking an AI caller to stop calling stops all future calls to that number.

Keeping a record of consent

Outreach → Consent lists everyone who agreed to hear from you or asked to stop, how they did it, and when. Every change is kept, so you can show the whole history for a number if you are ever asked.

• Signup keywords. Put a word like JOIN on a poster, a receipt or your website. Anyone who texts it gets a thank you, is added to the contact book you choose, and their consent is recorded. Turn on Ask them to reply YES first for a double opt-in.
• Importing with consent. When you upload a CSV to a contact book, tick Everyone in this file agreed to hear from us and say how they agreed.
• Forms. In AI Workflows, the Add to a contact book step can record consent from a form submission, with the words the person saw.
• By hand. Choose Record by hand for someone who agreed or asked to stop in person or on the phone.
• AI calls. Marketing calls from an AI caller need a separate agreement to AI calls. Choose AI calls when you record it. Agreeing to texts or email does not count for AI calls.

Your contacts must already have agreed before a campaign reaches them. To hold contact books and uploaded lists to the same rule, turn on Only send campaigns to people who agreed on Outreach → Settings → Sending. People without consent on record are then left out and counted in the preview.

Opt-outs apply to reminders, follow-ups, single messages and inbox replies too, not just marketing. If someone tells you to stop, everything stops, including a campaign that is already sending. The same number written with or without the leading + is treated as the same person.

What it costs you

You pay your own provider for the messages and calls themselves. Your SoftSolz plan sets how many messages you can send per month across all channels; you can see where you stand on Subscriptions → Usage. When the allowance runs out, campaigns pause rather than half-send.

WhatsApp also sets its own daily limit on how many different people your number can message, starting at 250 for a new number. It raises this on its own as you keep sending without being blocked, and verifying your business with Meta raises it faster. Outreach shows you the current limit and pauses a campaign that reaches it, resuming by itself once the window resets. Nobody is skipped.

Replying inside the 24 hours after someone messages you is free. Reminders and confirmations are charged at WhatsApp's lower utility rate; marketing campaigns cost more. Rates are set by the country the message goes to, so the same allowance reaches more people in some countries than others.

If WhatsApp stops your sending because there is no working card on your Meta account, Outreach pauses the campaign and tells you, rather than letting messages fail one by one. Add a card in your Facebook business settings, under Billing and payments, and sending carries on where it left off.

Test it step by step

Follow these steps once from start to finish to prove Outreach works for your workspace. Outreach only sends from your own number, so a real test needs a real provider account with a number on it (Twilio, Telnyx or Plivo for texts, or Meta for WhatsApp), or a package where SoftSolz provides your number, plus a mobile phone you can read. Outreach → Settings → Get started lists the same steps in order and ticks each one off once it works.

1. Get access. You need the Super Admin or Admin role, or a custom role that includes the Outreach permissions (Members & access → Roles). With the standard roles, managers can build campaigns but only admins can send them.
2. Pick where to test. The sandbox (open the workspace menu and choose Switch to Sandbox mode) has its own connections, contact books and campaigns. A campaign sent there goes through every step and is marked as sent, but no real message leaves, so do the phone steps below in your live workspace.
3. Install Outreach. Open Marketplace, find Outreach and click Install. Outreach now appears in the sidebar.
4. Connect your number. Go to Marketplace → Messaging, pick your provider in the Provider list and paste your details (see Connect your number). On the Numbers tab, pick the number you send from and use Send yourself a test with your own mobile: the text arrives on your phone. On the Replies tab, copy the address into your provider's console so replies come back.
5. Create a test campaign. Go to Outreach → Campaigns → New campaign, choose SMS, name it "Test send" and click Create campaign. Write a short message, for example "Hi, this is a test from our team. Please reply to this message."
6. Send it to yourself. In the audience, choose Type or paste numbers and type your own mobile number with its country code. Click Send now. The review window says 1 of 1 people will get this text message. Click Send now again to confirm.
7. Check it went. The campaign page shows it sending, then your number as sent and delivered. The text arrives on your phone ending with "Reply STOP to opt out".
8. Reply from your phone. Your reply appears as a conversation in Outreach → Inbox, and the bell shows New reply or New message. Answer it from the inbox: the answer arrives on your phone.
9. Check opt-outs. Reply STOP from your phone. Outreach → Consent now shows your number as having asked to stop, and the next campaign leaves you out. Reply START to opt back in.
10. Make a test call. Add your mobile on Outreach → Settings → Calls. Ask someone with a second phone to text your business number, open their conversation and press Call, or use New message → Call. Your phone rings first: answer, press 1, and their phone rings showing your business number. Press Hang up in SoftSolz to end it.
11. Tidy up. Close the test conversation and delete the test campaign when you are done.

To test WhatsApp instead, connect WhatsApp in the same place and pick a template WhatsApp has approved, because a WhatsApp campaign cannot send free text. To test email, connect a sending address on Marketplace → Email sending and choose Email as the channel.

For developers

In the sandbox, open Outreach → Developer → Use the API, click New API key and tick Read the shared inbox. Sandbox keys start with sk_test_. Then list open conversations from your server:

curl "https://app.softsolz.uk/api/v1/services/outreach/inbox/conversations?folder=open" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer sk_test_your_key"

A 200 reply lists the conversations, newest first. folder can be open, unassigned, mine or closed. An empty list is normal in a sandbox where nobody has replied yet. See the API Reference and the Outreach API guide for campaigns, contact books and replies.

If something goes wrong