Gloo uses built-in natural language processing to automatically respond to certain messages. This means that whenever someone texts in something related to one of these topics, Gloo understands the sentiment of the text and sends the appropriate response. Some features utilize this natural language processing but some don’t, and it’s important to know the difference.
Which features use natural language processing?
Prayer - texts like “I need prayer,” “Pray for,” “Will you pray for me,” and “Please pray” will all trigger the Prayer feature.
Stories - texts like “Story,” “I have a story,” and “I want to share a story” will all send people the story submission link.
Quick Responses - texts about any of these topics will trigger the automation if it has been turned on. For example, if the Giving Quick Response is on, texts like “I want to give,” “Giving,” and “How do I give” will all trigger the Giving quick response.
Other than customizing your responses to each Quick Response category, these features don’t require any setup on your part. The natural language processing is built in and works on its own.
Which features don’t use natural language processing?
Other features in Gloo are built on using custom keywords. Unlike natural language processing which relies on the sentiment of the text, these need to be texted in exactly and alone in order to trigger the response you’ve set up. This allows a huge amount of control to customize texts and keywords to the exact goal or campaign your church is currently working on. These are not automatically built into Gloo, and must be created by you. These features include:
Keywords - If you are gathering interest for a mission trip and set up a “mission trip” keyword, it will only be triggered by a text that says exactly “mission trip.” Unfortunately “missions trip,” “I want to go on the mission trip,” “mision trip,” and “mission trip info” will not trigger the keyword. This is why we recommend setting up keywords with multiple options, phrases, misspellings, etc, to capture as many responses as possible.
Pro Tip: Check out some more suggestions on how to set up your keywords well so that people get the information they’re looking for right away.
Series - these require opt-in keywords, which function exactly like normal keywords.
Opt-in Surveys - these also require opt-in keywords, which function exactly like normal keywords.
What happens if I set up a keyword related to a feature that already uses natural language processing?
Avoid setting up keywords related to Prayer, Stories and Automations, because the keywords will interfere with the natural language processing. For example, if you set up a “prayer” keyword with a response of “We are praying for you,” then when someone texts in to ask for prayer they will only get that response - Gloo will not ask for or record their prayer request in the Prayer log.
Important: The keyword that you have set up will override the natural language processing and break the intended functionality of the feature.