Attaching an SMS to a person
The sending number is looked up as an identity. A match attaches the message to that Person's history, so a text sits on the same timeline as their email and their calls. No match creates a new contact rather than guessing at the nearest one. Because outbound SMS is not available on the live carrier, this attachment is most of what the channel is for today: it is how a text becomes part of a relationship rather than a stray message.
One mobile, one identity, one person#
Connect models a person as a record with several identities hanging off it — an email address, a WhatsApp handle, a landline, a mobile that receives text messages. An identity is one address on one channel that resolves to a Person. Resolving an inbound SMS means finding the identity that matches the sending number and following it to the person who owns it.
That indirection is what makes cross-channel history possible. The same human being who emailed last month and rang on Tuesday does not become a third stranger because they sent a text; the message lands on the record that already holds both, and Customer 360 shows the three in order. One person across phone, email and WhatsApp is the engineering note behind that design.
What happens when nobody recognises the sender#
Connect looks for an identity matching the number as the provider gave it, and in the normalised forms it also stores.
Result A hit attaches the message and stops there. Nothing else is inferred from the digits themselves.
With no hit, a contact is created carrying that number as its first identity.
Result The conversation is usable immediately, with a person record that is thin rather than absent.
The new contact is offered to the duplicate machinery alongside everything else in the workspace.
Result If it is really an existing customer writing from a number nobody had recorded, the merge tools join them later without losing either history.
The near-misses worth knowing about#
| Situation | What Connect does | What you do about it |
|---|---|---|
| The same person texts from a second handset | Creates a second contact | Merge the two records; both numbers survive as identities |
| A shared office mobile | Attaches everything to one contact | Decide whether that contact is a person, or should be a company with people under it |
| Number withheld or masked by the carrier | Files the message with no identity to match | Ask on another channel; there is nothing in the payload to resolve |
| A number recycled to a new subscriber | Attaches to the previous owner | Detach the identity from the old person; the next message creates a fresh contact |
| The number is stored with a different country prefix | May fail to match | Correct the identity on the person record so later messages resolve |
What the attachment is worth on a channel that cannot reply#
SMS cannot answer on the live carrier, so it is fair to ask what resolution buys you. Three things, none of which depend on sending. The message joins the person's timeline, so whoever picks the relationship up next can see it. A follow-up can be booked on a channel that does work — email, WhatsApp or phone — with the text as its reason. And a directive inside the message, above all a stop request, is recorded against that person rather than against a number nobody can place.
The third would bite hardest if resolution were skipped. A block held against an unattached mobile protects nothing on any other channel, because the rules resolve against the contact. Attaching first is what lets one refusal cover all of them, as described in A do-not-contact reaching every channel.
Questions#
Will an SMS create a duplicate of a customer I already have?
It will if the number is not already one of their identities, and that is deliberate — a new contact is recoverable, a wrong match is not. The duplicate surfaces in the merge tools, and merging keeps both histories and both identities on one person.
Can I add a mobile number to a person before they text?
Yes. Adding it as an identity means the first message they send resolves at once and no second contact appears. For customers you already know, doing this in advance is the cheapest way to avoid the duplicate.
Does the message text influence who it is attached to?
No. Attachment is decided by the identity on the sending number alone. A message naming a company in its body does not attach itself to that company; a signature in a text is a claim, not evidence of identity.