What This Automation Does
When someone texts a keyword to your VipeCloud texting number, they receive an automated reply asking for their name. The system then parses their response and updates the contact record automatically with their first and/or last name.
📺 Watch this overview: 0:05–1:08
Requirements Before You Begin
To use this feature, you’ll need:
A texting subscription enabled on your account.
The contact’s name must be provided in the first reply after sending in the keyword.
📺 Covers this: 1:10–1:36
Step-by-Step Instructions
1. Navigate to Text Keywords
In the left-hand sidebar, click Automation.
From the expanded sidebar, choose Text Keywords.
Click the green Create button in the upper right.
📺 Watch this step: 2:15–2:42
2. Set Your Keyword and Match Rule
Type in the keyword you want to use.
Leave the match type as Entire Inbound Text Matches the Keyword (recommended).
📺 Watch this step: 2:45–3:05
3. Choose "Text Reply" as the Keyword Action
Under Keyword Action, select Text Reply.
Create the automated reply your contacts will receive.
Recommended message:
"Please respond with your first and last name."Optionally clarify:
"Only include your name in the reply."
📺 Setup demo: 3:07–3:56
4. Enable Name Capture on the Reply
Scroll to the Enable Name Capture On Reply toggle.
Switch it on.
Click Save Keyword Action at the bottom.
📺 Watch this step: 4:28–4:46
5. Review the Keyword Setup
After saving, your keyword will appear in the list with all relevant details. You’re now ready to receive names automatically.
📺 Review shown: 4:49–5:05
Best Practices for Clean Name Capture
Encourage contacts to reply only with their name.
If their message includes extra text (e.g., “Hi my name is…”), the system may not parse the name correctly.
If they only provide a first name, the system will store just that and leave the last name blank.
📺 Helpful advice: 5:09–5:39
Live Demonstration: Sending and Capturing a Name
Go to the Communication tab → Text → Conversations.
On your phone, text the keyword (e.g.,
capture).Reply with a name (e.g., “Bugs Bunny”).
Refresh the conversation—your new contact is created with the name automatically added.
📺 Live demo: 5:43–7:02
Related tutorial: How To Use Texting Keywords
Transcript
Transcript
hello everybody my name is Drew and
0:05
today we're going to be talking about
0:08
how you can use text keywords to capture
0:11
the names of your contacts in your CRM
0:16
so in other words you can create a
0:18
keyword that you can prompt your
0:21
audience to text in so they can text
0:24
into your text number using a word that
0:27
you specified it'll then send them a
0:30
response saying "Please text back your
0:35
first and last name." And then when they
0:38
do that it'll be able to parse up their
0:40
name and add that to the contact record
0:43
and what's cool about this is that it
0:45
saves you from administrative work of
0:47
having to add contacts into your CRM and
0:50
it also means that uh that that your
0:53
system will then know what their name is
0:55
and it could even then merge their name
0:58
in future messages automatically to them
1:02
so that it's gives them that nice
1:04
personalized experience that people
1:06
really
1:08
value uh so a couple of things just to
1:10
note here first of all naturally this
1:13
requires having a text subscription in
1:16
your
1:17
account and it
1:21
also you know they need to in that first
1:25
message that they send back after
1:27
sending in the keyword they'll have to
1:29
make that the message where they include
1:32
their name in it so it can't happen
1:34
after that next message that they send
1:36
in
1:37
and also we're going to be talking about
1:40
texting keywords here i'm going to tell
1:42
you everything that you need to know how
1:43
to set this up but I'm not going to go
1:46
into complete details about everything
1:48
about texting keywords there's a
1:50
dedicated video in our help center that
1:53
covers all of that and also on the help
1:57
center page where this is going to be
1:59
posted I'll be sure to post a link there
2:03
so that you to that text keywords
2:06
article so that it's nice and easy for
2:07
you to find
2:08
that so let's dive right
2:15
in all right so here we
2:17
go so this is an automation so what
2:21
you're going to want to do is in that
2:23
left sidebar you're going to want to
2:25
click on the automation
2:29
button and then in the sidebar that
2:31
opens up you'll see text keywords click
2:33
on text
2:34
keywords and we're going to make our
2:36
text keyword
2:38
here you can do that by clicking on the
2:40
green create button in the upper right
2:42
corner
2:45
you can then specify the keyword it is
2:48
that you want people to send into you so
2:52
in this case I'm going to make that
2:57
captured and we'll leave this process if
3:01
right here just as it is entire inbound
3:04
text matches the keyword we're going to
3:05
leave that the keyword action we're
3:07
going to make this a text reply it it
3:10
this this uh is important that it has to
3:13
be a text reply automation that takes
3:15
place this is then what we're going to
3:17
specify here is the message that is sent
3:20
in reply to your contact when they send
3:23
in to you the keyword in this case
3:27
capture so with text reply actions you
3:30
can either choose an existing template
3:34
that you already have like a text
3:36
template but in this case I think it's
3:39
simple enough just to use the simple
3:41
text option so I'm going to make
3:50
this so the contact is going to get this
3:54
message that says "Please respond with
3:56
your first and last name." Now let's say
4:00
that they only respond with their first
4:02
name that's actually totally fine it
4:05
will still just update that first name
4:07
and leave the last name as a blank
4:11
value um so it's up to you if you want
4:14
to prompt them to respond with their
4:17
last name as well um but I think it
4:20
never hurts to have more information
4:22
about
4:24
people and lastly we scroll all the way
4:28
down here and we see this little slider
4:31
here that says enable name capture on
4:34
reply so that's the topic of this video
4:37
here today so you're certainly going to
4:39
want to turn that
4:41
on we're going to click at the bottom
4:44
here save keyword
4:46
action and there we go we now have our
4:49
texting keyword we can see that it it's
4:52
right up here in our text keywords table
4:56
with all of the information here in the
4:59
details column
5:01
describing how it's all set
5:05
up so um oh one other thing too it's
5:09
really important that your contacts
5:13
reply with only their name so if you
5:17
start to find people are maybe they're
5:20
they're specifying their name but then
5:22
they're also uh getting kind of wordy
5:24
with the message and they're saying
5:26
other things to you then you might need
5:28
to really be specific in that response
5:31
that they automatically get that just
5:34
then says "Please respond only with your
5:36
first and last name or something along
5:38
those
5:39
lines." So let's demo this i'm going to
5:43
go jump over here to our uh
5:46
communication tab going to click on text
5:48
and go to the
5:50
conversations and I'm going to go onto
5:53
my phone and text in that
5:58
um that keyword
6:06
capture all right and we can see here
6:14
that I have texted
6:19
in and there we
6:22
go so I sent in that that word
6:26
capture and I got
6:28
the automatic response telling me to
6:32
respond with my first and last name now
6:34
I'm going to text
6:36
in a madeup name
6:46
and I refresh
6:49
and there we go so we'll see now this
6:53
contact has been created and it also has
6:58
the name Bugs Bunny automatically added
7:02
to
7:06
it all right so I think that's about it
7:10
you've learned how to how to create text
7:14
keywords that will capture the name of
7:17
your contacts saving you from having to
7:20
do administrative work and it's uh one
7:24
other cool automation that uh is in your
7:27
toolbox so of course if you have any
7:29
questions about any of this feel free to
7:31
reach out to us and until then thank you
7:33
very much