Sending email and SMS from a chatbot flow: confirmations, alerts and notices

Updated 2026-10-23 · 5 min read · By the Convo360 team

Why add email or SMS to a WhatsApp-first flow

Most Convo360 flows run on WhatsApp or website chat, but there are moments where email or SMS still matter: a booking confirmation that also needs to land in someone's inbox, an order notice sent as SMS for a customer without WhatsApp, or an internal alert to a staff member who is not part of the conversation at all.

The Send Email and Send SMS blocks let you fire these from inside the same flow that is already talking to the customer, so you are not maintaining a separate notification system or copy-pasting order details into a second tool by hand.

How the blocks work

Both blocks can be placed anywhere in a Flow Builder canvas, including inside branches created by a Condition block. You map fields from your flow, such as the contact's name, order ID or appointment time, into the message body using system or typed variables.

A Send Email block needs a connected sender address; a Send SMS block needs a registered SMS channel (Convo360 supports this via Plivo). Neither block interrupts the WhatsApp conversation, they fire in the background while the chat continues, so the customer sees their WhatsApp reply immediately while the email or SMS lands a moment later.

Both blocks accept plain text with variable placeholders rather than rich HTML design; keep the wording short and factual, since SMS in particular has a character limit and gets truncated or split into multiple messages if it runs long.

The DLT registration step you cannot skip

Under TRAI regulations, any business sending promotional or transactional SMS in India must complete DLT registration: registering your entity, your sender ID (the six-character code shown as the sender) and the exact wording of every template you intend to send. Unregistered SMS is blocked by telecom operators, not just discouraged.

This is a one-time setup per entity and template, done through your SMS provider's DLT portal before you switch on a Send SMS block in a live flow. Budget a few working days for approval, especially around festive seasons when volumes at the DLT registrar spike. Keep a note of your approved template IDs alongside the flow, since editing even a single word of an approved template in the Send SMS block, without also updating it on the DLT portal, causes every send to fail.

A practical tip: register a small family of templates upfront (order confirmation, delivery update, appointment reminder, payment received) rather than one at a time as you build new flows, so you are not waiting on approval mid-project.

Using SMS and email for internal staff alerts

A frequently missed use case is alerting your own team, not the customer. Examples: notify a manager by SMS when a high-value lead crosses a budget threshold, email the operations inbox when a customer replies 'urgent' and needs a human, or SMS the on-call technician when a service request is logged after hours. Combine a Condition block with Send SMS or Send Email so only the alerts that matter reach staff phones, instead of every conversation triggering a ping.

Internal alerts do not need DLT registration in the same way customer-facing promotional SMS does, since they are transactional and sent to your own team's numbers, but confirm the exact requirement with your SMS provider if the volume is significant.

Building a confirmation flow on Convo360

1. After a booking or order step, add a Send Email block and map the customer's email variable and order details into the template.
2. Add a Send SMS block below it for customers whose email variable is empty (use a Condition block to check).
3. Add a second Send SMS block routed to your staff number, triggered only on high-value orders using a Condition on order value.
4. Test the whole sequence in Preview / Try-it with sample data before publishing.

Reading failures in Flow Logs

Not every send succeeds, an email address can bounce, an SMS can fail DLT matching if the template was edited after registration. Convo360's Flow Logs record a per-step note for every conversation, so a failed Send SMS shows the reason (for example 'template mismatch' or 'invalid number') instead of failing silently. Reviewing Flow Logs weekly for any flow using email or SMS blocks catches these issues before they pile up into a pattern of customers not receiving confirmations they expected.

Choosing which channel gets which message

A simple rule of thumb works well for most Indian businesses: use WhatsApp for anything that benefits from buttons, images or a two-way conversation; use SMS for short, time-sensitive facts a customer might read without opening an app, like a delivery notice or an appointment time; and use email for anything that needs to be kept as a record, such as a tax invoice or a detailed itinerary. Trying to make SMS do the job of WhatsApp, long persuasive copy with multiple links, usually costs more per message and reads worse on a phone's default SMS app.

A workspace running all three channels from one flow is common in practice: a coaching institute might confirm a demo class booking on WhatsApp instantly, text a reminder SMS the morning of the class in case the parent's WhatsApp notifications are muted, and email the fee receipt afterwards for their records. None of this needs three separate systems, it is three blocks in one flow.

Step by step

1. Register your entity and sender ID for DLTComplete DLT registration with your SMS provider before enabling any Send SMS block in a live flow.
2. Register your SMS template textSubmit the exact wording, including variable placeholders, for DLT approval.
3. Add the Send Email or Send SMS blockDrop the block into your flow and map customer or order variables into the message.
4. Add a fallback conditionUse a Condition block to send SMS only when email is unavailable, or vice versa.
5. Set up a staff alert branchRoute high-priority conversations to an internal Send SMS or Send Email step.
6. Test and publishPreview the full flow with sample data, then publish and monitor Flow Logs for delivery notes.

Example conversation

Frequently asked questions

Related reading

Available across India — see WhatsApp & AI calling automation by state and city.