Captivated goes beyond basic SMS marketing by combining features like secure business texting, internal chat, automation, Virtual Door Knock, and secure payment collection — all in one platform. Unlike other business communication software, Captivated also provides 24/7 live U.S.-based support, along with real-time collaboration tools, and customizable automated texting workflows to super-charge your team any time, from anywhere. Businesses can send targeted messages, automate customer engagement, and collect payments — all through a secure, compliant texting system that feels personal and efficient.

When you send a message from Captivated to a customer, they receive it just like any other text they receive! It goes right to their personal phones or devices, and they can send replies right within their texting app – it’s a familiar, easy, real-time conversation for them, every time. Even messages that are automated send this way for customers; campaigns or other messages that are sent to them, which provide them with ‘auto-reply’ options (i.e. they can respond with certain keywords to elicit a discount, link, or other conversation they want), they just reply with that word via text!

In this way, Captivated’s automated texting workflows are designed for real, two-way conversations. Customers can reply to any automated message—whether it’s an appointment reminder, payment request, or service update—and your team can pick up the conversation instantly. This human-plus-automation approach helps businesses maintain personal, responsive relationships while saving hours of manual follow-up work.

Not only that, but it’s a fan favorite feature of ours! Captivated includes integrated scheduling and automated appointment reminders right within the platform, so you can text customers booking links, and they can pick a time from your calendar easily right from the link you texted them. You can also send pre-appointment forms, or confirmation messages, which are all sent to be clicked right from within the text conversation – so there’s no need to keep switching between apps.

Once a customer books, Captivated automatically sends reminders and follow-ups, ensuring fewer no-shows and a smoother scheduling experience. This seamless workflow keeps your team organized, and keeps your customers on time.

Yes, absolutely. Not only CAN you, but you SHOULD: now more than ever, it’s becoming a non-negotiable that you provide your customers with an easy and secure way to pay invoices. It ensures faster, complete payments for you – and offers an easier payment process for customers (besides, who wants to be reading their credit card number over the phone?). Captivated’s Express Pay feature allows businesses to securely collect payments directly through text; you just send the link, and they can easily pay – and you can track the payment within the Captivated app.

Customers receive the secure payment link and can complete transactions using a credit card or ACH, with no logins or third-party apps required from them. Express Pay integrates with your CRM and accounting tools, reducing friction and helping you close out invoices faster. It’s a trusted, compliant, and customer-friendly way to get paid faster via SMS. And, as a huge bonus: with Express Pay, customers who choose to pay with a credit card assume the credit card fee for themselves, meaning YOU save an enormous amount of money on those fees yourself!

You can design text cadences for almost any business process (which we call a “workflow”): appointment reminder cadences, pre-service and post-service follow-ups, review requests, lead nurtures or upsell offers, and even seasonal promotions can all be automated to fit into your customer communication journey. Captivated’s automated texting workflows can be triggered based on customer action or engagement, and they can tie in  with CRM lists or customer segments (to be used with our Announcements feature, which sends SMS marketing campaigns in a targeted and relevant way), ensuring every message is personalized, timely, and effective. Businesses often use Captivated to build engagement sequences that boost response rates, retention, and revenue—all while feeling like personal one-on-one communication.

Captivated’s automation engine uses personalized templates, custom tags, and human-style timing to ensure every automated text feels like it came from a real team member. Team members can draft their own scheduled messages, include their personal signatures, and customize the messages to feel genuine and personal every time. Combined with Captivated’s shared inbox and internal collaboration tools, every automated message feels conversational and authentic —never robotic.

Yes. Captivated can be set up to include a built-in internal business chat feature, so your team can communicate and collaborate directly within the platform. Beyond that, Captivated also allows team members to collaborate in real-time right within customer conversations, by leaving “Notes” to one another – so teammates can tag each other to ask questions or reference a customer’s need (and the customer won’t see the Note, only the team member who’s mentioned will see it). So you can tag colleagues, leave private notes to swiftly serve customers (and reference the notes later, since they’re right within that conversation history), and hand off conversations seamlessly.

This internal chat replaces scattered email threads and clunky third-party apps or chat platforms, and keeps your team organized, connected, and focused on fast, high-quality customer communication.

Internal notes allow your team to comment privately within a customer chat thread—without the customer seeing it. Team members can tag each other for help, share context, or prepare the right response before replying. This makes it easier to collaborate across departments and maintain a consistent brand voice. With Captivated’s shared inbox, every message, note, and tag is visible to your team for full accountability and visibility.

Absolutely. Captivated gives managers full oversight of all customer text conversations in real time. They can monitor response times, view message histories and jump in to help where needed, and track how leads and support requests are handled across departments. With Captivated workflows, for example, Sales teams can assign leads to various Stages to reflect their interest level or place in the buying process – so a Manager can easily reference prospects in certain stages.

For Support, the same functionality is available, but also Managers can easily receive “Mentions” from their team members, when someone needs help serving a customer – and when received, that Manager can easily jump in to support in real-time. This visibility helps managers maintain compliance, measure performance, and ensure every customer interaction meets company standards—all within one unified business texting platform.

Captivated offers 24/7 live, U.S.-based support for every customer, regardless of plan size. Our dedicated team provides onboarding, training, and ongoing guidance to ensure your business texting platform runs smoothly. Unlike providers that rely on bots or ticket-only systems, Captivated’s support is personal and immediate—because we believe in empowering businesses with a real human touch behind every message.

This is truly the greatest differentiator of Captivated compared to other competitors in the business texting & communication software industry: where some providers offer less support as their client base grows, we have always continued to keep strong Customer Care a cornerstone of our corporate values. Our team is always only a text away!

There are lots of moving parts to getting a company set up for compliant texting, so it depends on their history and background. If they have moved through the approval process to obtain 10DLC approval before, for example, then this process can move very quickly, and they can be set up and operational within Captivated in a matter of days.

Our onboarding specialists work directly with your team to customize setup, assist with contact imports, and offer training resources so your team can is ready to hit the ground running as soon as approval is obtained. You can easily connect Captivated to your CRM, activate automation workflows, and customize your templates within a day of being up and running. With guided support and intuitive tools, getting started with Captivated’s business texting platform is fast, seamless, and stress-free.

Businesses of every size can directly benefit from Captivated’s full-service business texting communication platform. Small businesses, with lean personnel resources, can see substantial value from Captivated in terms of the way we can multiply the reach and impact of their messages, automate and streamline their admin work (to SIGNIFICANTLY reduce the number of hours they’re spending on it), and help smooth out the customer experience from start to finish.

For larger corporations and franchising structures, our clients report that Captivated is an exceptional tool because it allows for oversight across multiple locations and departments, includes features to allow for standards of excellence (for example, branded message templates for easy one-click sends), and can easily integrate with CRMs to message customers more quickly and send targeted campaigns more seamlessly than other platforms allow.

In terms of which industries benefit most from Captivated, we serve dozens of industries who each find unique value from our platform: automotive and retail businesses benefit from transactional cadences and review requests; automotive also benefits from appointment-related cadences, as do industries like medical, dental, personal and financial services, consulting, or home services (landscaping, lawn care, roofing, HVAC, etc.).

Express Pay can be used across virtually all industries, by any company who collects payments from customers. For those in landscaping or home services industries, or who offer home-delivery services, our Virtual Door Knock tool is a highly effective way to keep customers in the loop using our geo-based texting capabilities. And, whether you’re in pet care grooming or boarding, construction or facility management, or even own a brick-and-mortar retail shop – every business can benefit from the ability to send targeted, relevant, and personalized marketing campaigns, like can be sent using Captivated’s Announcement feature.

Curious how we can specifically meet your needs? Schedule a 10-minute discovery call with us to learn more today!