Avionté Chat Feature

Hey everyone!

Big news if you haven't heard — Avionté Chat launched on April 9 and it's replacing the way you message talent in BOLD. I know change can feel like a lot, so I wanted to break this down in plain terms and answer the questions I know are already floating around.

So what actually changed?

The Send Text button on talent profiles is now Send Chat. Messaging talent goes through Avionté Chat, built right into AviontéBOLD and the 24/7 app. No third-party tool, no separate inbox. Every conversation lives on the talent record.

Why did we do this?

A few real reasons. Shared phone numbers meant no one could tell who sent what — not great for compliance or accountability. Chat fixes that because every message is tied to a specific user or User Group. We're also seeing clients report two to three times higher response rates from talent compared to SMS. Messages hit the 24/7 app first, and if talent isn't in the app, SMS fires automatically as a fallback. Faster replies, fewer no-shows, less chasing.

And here's something people keep asking about...

The 24/7 app is NOT required for Chat to work. Talent with the app will get the best experience — that's where the response rate lift really shows up. But if talent hasn't downloaded it yet, messages still reach them via SMS automatically. Nobody gets missed.

A few other things worth knowing:

• Contacts (clients, hiring managers) are not affected. Send Text Message on Contact profiles still works exactly the same way through Avionté SMS — nothing changed there.
  
  
• Talent cannot start a conversation. Recruiters always initiate, and talent can reply. One talent can have Agency Chat and Individual Chat threads running at the same time, including threads with multiple recruiters or multiple User Groups.
  
  
• Chat is recruiter-to-talent only — it's not for internal team messaging, and file sharing isn't available yet but it's on the roadmap.
  
  

What's gotten better since launch

The team has already shipped four improvements: email notifications when talent replies to your message, per-message activity logging on the talent record, a from number selector for contact messaging if you have multiple numbers, and the migration utility now works for individually assigned numbers too, not just shared ones.

Quick tips if you're getting started:

If your org had shared phone numbers, those need to be migrated to a Chat User Group before SMS fallback works — there's a utility built right into BOLD that makes it one step. Individually assigned numbers carried over automatically. For setup details, the Avionté Chat article is your best friend.

Has anyone already been using Chat since the April 9 launch? Would love to hear what your experience has been — drop your questions or feedback below!