What your SMS agent does
When a guest fills out an event inquiry on your website, your Ande agent chats with them right away. If the guest shares their phone number and agrees to texting, the same conversation continues over text message after they leave your site.
The agent remembers everything it learned from the web conversation, so the guest never has to repeat themselves. You can watch every conversation — and step in personally — from your venue portal or the Ande Chrome extension.
How it works
A guest submits an inquiry on your website through the Ande inquiry form.
If they checked the SMS opt-in box, the agent will instantly engage via SMS once they close the widget — or after about 10 minutes of inactivity.
The text arrives from your venue's own dedicated number, referencing what the guest already told you.
The agent answers questions from your venue's knowledge base — spaces, menus, capacity, parking, policies — and gathers any missing event details.
When a question is out of scope, or the guest asks for a human, the agent escalates and emails your events team.
You open the conversation in your portal and press Take Over whenever you are ready to take over the conversation and end the ability for the guest to converse with the agent
Following a conversation in your portal
Navigate to your venue portal and look for agent conversations where the SMS column is marked as “Yes”. You'll see the guest's details, a structured summary of what the agent gathered, and the full conversation history — web chat and texts together, in one thread.This information can also be seen in your Tripleseat via the extension. Navigate to the “Discussions” tab.
While the agent is handling the conversation, the status reads AI active on SMS.
The Agent chat in the Venue Portal while the agent is still handling the conversation.
Taking over a conversation
Press Take Over when you want to handle the guest personally. Two things happen immediately:
The guest receives a text letting them know a team member is helping them.
The agent stops responding on that conversation — it won't jump back in.
The same conversation after a coordinator has taken over.
Good to know
Guests are only ever texted if they check the box agreeing to it.
Guests can opt out of SMS by texting STOP at any point, all texting to them ends immediately.
The agent replies to guests right away, any time they message.
The agent will never message a guest proactively - unless you configure it to. It saves any outreach it starts itself for normal business hours configured by you in your Knowledge Base
The SMS agent reads from the same knowledge base as your web agent - meaning it is an extension of your website agent. So the agent will continue to collect the information that's important for your venue.
Frequently asked questions
Will bookers receive unprompted messages?
No. A guest is only ever texted if they check the SMS opt-in box on your inquiry form themselves. The box is always unchecked by default, and the full disclosure of what they're agreeing to is visible before they check it — we never pre-select it or hide the terms.
How is the SMS agent different from the one on my website?
It's the same agent, just over text — the only thing that changes is the channel. Practically, that means replies are shorter and written for a phone screen instead of a chat window, and the agent can't send attachments like menu PDFs over text. It also carries over everything from the web conversation, so it never re-asks for details the guest already gave.
What number do the texts come from?
Your own venue-branded number, dedicated to your venue. Guests see your venue, not Ande, and the thread stays consistent.
When will the agent text a guest?
The agent replies to inbound messages during its response hours. Any outreach it starts on its own is held for normal business hours in your time zone — which you can configure in your agent settings!
What happens after I take over a conversation?
The guest gets a text letting them know a team member is helping them, and the agent stops responding on that conversation permanently. It won't jump back in, so only take over when you genuinely want to handle that guest yourself.
Screenshots use sample data. Need help? Reach out to your Ande contact.