Twilio SMS - allowing user to respond directly

Question

I’m allowing my users to broadcasting SMS messages to other users using the Twilio platform.

In this process, the recipients are receiving the broadcasted SMS with the Twilio static phone number or the local carrier number, and so recipients cannot reply to the sender directly. I want recipients to be able to reply directly to the sender.

Essentially, I want to have the sender’s phone number appear as the sender of the SMS, so that the recipients can reply directly via SMS to the sender. Is this possible in Twilio?

Answer 1

Twilio developer evangelist here.

When sending SMS messages from Twilio you can only use numbers in your account (or now alphanumeric sender IDs).

You could build a system in which replies to the number you are using to broadcast get forwarded on to the person that sent the original broadcasted message. That way the Twilio number just serves as a proxy between the broadcast group and the broadcaster. Does that make sense at all?