0

Anyone else encounter issues with text messaging via a Twilio Flow and Android in regards to user's phone recieving a message and answering it, but the follow-up messages show up above the previous answer in the texting app? This is causing confusion for our users.

I searched the forum and found a few similar questions/answers but could find anything specific to tell me what might be going on. Curious if anyone else has seen this and was able to resolve it.

I have a survey that asks a question for rating... between 1-10. If they type in say 11... we send a following up message that says... that is not a valid answer, please enter a value between 1-10. Then the original message is sent again. Something like this...

This is how it should be:

  • Question: Pick a number between 1-10
  • Answer: 11
  • Question: Invalid, must be between 1-10. Try again.
  • Question: Pick a number between 1-10
  • Answer: 9
  • Question: Thank you

This is what the user actually gets:

  • Question: Pick a number between 1-10
  • Question: Invalid, must be between 1-10. Try again.
  • Question: Pick a number between 1-10
  • Answer: 11
  • Answer: 9
  • Question: Thank you

The user answers the first question with an 11 and it shows up as expected. But the next two questions are injected above the Answer. Each time a follow-up text is sent within the invalid answer loop, it shows up above the answer. That seems a bit odd to me. I am using the sample flow from Twilio to build this. So I suspect the flow is correct. I'm wondering if this is the Android app, maybe a user setting, and if it there might be something I can adjust in the Studio flow to resolve this.

I'm wondering if this is just how the text message app works or maybe it's a user configurable setting in the Android app. Like it thinks it's helping by dropping them above the answer because they are coming from the same phone number a second or two later. But I have never seen this ever before in any texting app. It only seems to happen with Twilio Studio Flow messages and I think it only occurs on Android... not Apple. Seems like there could be something here that is causing this that can be resolve.

Just curioius if this is a common issue and maybe others have resolved this. Any thoughts or suggestions are much appreciated.

Jon Rothlander
  • 35
  • 6

1 Answers1

0

Your best bet is to add a short delay between messages. This happens because Twilio can't guarantee those messages will arrive in the order that you sent them. Because the order of delivery depends on the carrier and the receiving mobile device.

For more information, here's a support reference: can my SMS messages arrive in order

anthonyjdella
  • 481
  • 2
  • 16
  • Much appreicate. That makes complete sense. I can drop a delay in the flow. Do you think just a few seconds would be enough or do you think it needs longer? – Jon Rothlander Jun 29 '23 at 16:35