How to build SMS auto reply workflows

[OJohnson777]

I made a workflow to sent out a marketing template depending on if they had email, sms or both and then added the action to enroll in the auto reply workflow I built that triggers certain auto replies based on certain trigger words like "Help" but the contacts go into the non-met branch instead of the the trigger word even though they text back "Help" 
What am I doing wrong? 

[Wesimplifi_ · Accepted solution]

Hi @OJohnson777,

When someone replies to your SMS with “Help,” that reply might be coming after the system already checked for it. If your workflow jumps straight into the trigger word check without waiting, then it’s checking too early before the contact has even replied. So technically, the condition was true, just not yet.

A few things to check:

• Make sure the workflow includes a small delay (even just 5–10 minutes) before checking for the keyword. That gives your contact time to reply, and gives HubSpot time to capture it.

• Double-check where the workflow is actually looking for that trigger word. It needs to be pulling from wherever your SMS responses are stored whether that’s a custom property or something your SMS tool updates directly.

• Also, if your condition is set to something too strict (like “is exactly Help”), try changing it to “contains Help” just to be a bit more flexible with how people reply.

If everything looks right and it’s still not working, it might be that the reply isn’t being recorded fast enough before the check runs that’s where the delay can really help.

[Kenny2000]

 1. Trigger Word Timing

Issue: If the contact sends “Help” before the second workflow is ready to listen for it, the trigger won’t catch it.
Fix: Make sure the auto-reply workflow is active and listening before the message is expected.

🔁 Delay or Wait step before enrolling in the second workflow (auto-reply), if needed.

🧠 Example: Add a short delay between sending your SMS and enrolling them in the auto-reply workflow (e.g., wait 1 minute).

2. Trigger Word Matching

Issue: HubSpot’s trigger conditions may require exact match or case-sensitive input.
Fix: Check the trigger criteria in your auto-reply workflow:

Make sure it’s "contains" or "equals any of" → help, Help, HELP, etc.

You can use lowercase match and a workflow condition like:
If SMS reply text contains "help"

3. Enrollment Trigger Logic

Issue: The auto-reply workflow may be expecting certain criteria to be met before enrollment.
Fix: Check that the workflow allows manual enrollment or enrollment via another workflow, and that it's not filtering contacts out.

Make sure “Allow contacts to be enrolled in this workflow by another workflow” is enabled.

Confirm there are no extra filters like lifecycle stage, subscription type, etc.

4. Delay Between Send and Response

Issue: Contacts might respond too quickly, before the auto-reply listener is active.
Fix: Try adding a "delay until event happens" after enrolling them in the auto-reply workflow.

Example:

Enroll contact in auto-reply workflow

Add "Wait until contact replies to SMS" (with timeout)

Then branch based on reply text

[OJohnson777]

Is this using an integration or just native hubspot? because our company just has native hubspot SMS with no other integrations