# When you text a customer yourself

An SMS agent answers your customers by text. Sometimes a person on your team needs to step in, for example to confirm a time from a Workiz job or to answer a question the agent should not. When you text a customer from an SMS agent's number, you choose what the agent does next. Each agent has a default, which you set.

## What you'll need

- **Permission to text a contact**: **Contacts → Edit** on the Roles page (`crm:contacts:edit`), which the Member and Manager roles carry.
- **An SMS agent** with a number. The choice only appears when you text *from* that agent's number.
- To change an agent's default: permission to edit SMS agents.

## Choose when you send

You can text a customer from three places:

- a contact's page (**Text**);
- a Workiz job (**Text**, under the job's header);
- the SMS conversation itself.

In the text dialog, when the **From** number belongs to an SMS agent, a choice appears under the message: **After you send, <agent> should…**

| Choice | What happens |
|---|---|
| **Keep replying** | The agent answers the customer's next text as normal. Use it when you are dropping in one message. |
| **I'll take it from here** | The agent stays quiet with this customer on this number. Their texts are still kept on the conversation, and you are told when they text (in the app and by email, as your notification settings say). |

The choice starts on the agent's default, or on **I'll take it from here** if someone already took the conversation over. A line under the choice says which, and, if you can edit SMS agents, **Change the default** opens the agent's setting in a new tab. With **I'll take it from here** picked, the button reads **Send and take over**. If you schedule the text with **Schedule (optional)**, the choice is not offered. A text that has not gone yet does not change what the agent does.

The choice is recorded only once the text has gone. A text that fails changes nothing.

## Set the default for an agent

1. Open **Agents → Agent Types → SMS Agents** and select **Edit** (the pencil) on the agent's row.
2. Open the **Telephony** tab.
3. Under **When a person texts a customer**, pick **Keep replying** or **Stay quiet with that customer**.
4. Select **Save & Push Live**. The setting reaches conversations once the agent is live.

**Keep replying** is what every agent did before this setting existed, and it is the default. With **Stay quiet with that customer**, the text dialog starts on **I'll take it from here**. You can still pick the other option for any one text.

## Hand a conversation back

While the agent is quiet with a customer, their SMS conversation shows an amber line. It says who took the conversation over and when, and links the Workiz job when it started from one. Select **Hand back to the agent** and the agent answers that customer's next text as normal. Texting with **Keep replying** does the same.

## What the agent does not do

- **Approve before sending.** It does not write a draft for you to approve on a text conversation. That option exists for Google Local Services leads ([Human takeover on Local Services leads](/help/integrations/google-ads-human-takeover)), where a held draft can be approved and sent. For texts it is not offered yet.
- **Override a ticket.** When a helpdesk ticket is handling the customer by text, the ticket's own **Hand back to the SMS agent** applies, as before.

## Troubleshooting

**The choice does not appear in the text dialog.** The **From** number is not an SMS agent's number, or the text is scheduled. Pick the agent's number, or send it now.

**A customer texted and nobody answered.** Someone took the conversation over. Open the customer's SMS conversation: the amber line says who. They were sent a notification; check their notification settings under **A customer you took over by text replied**.

## Related

- [SMS Agents Overview](/help/sms-agents/overview)
- [Workiz Jobs](/help/integrations/workiz-jobs): texting a customer from a job.
- [Human takeover on Local Services leads](/help/integrations/google-ads-human-takeover)