Text messages and consent

Texts get read. A texted appointment reminder prevents the no-show an email does not, and a texted booking confirmation reaches somebody who has not opened an email in months.

Texting is also the channel with legal teeth, so consent is not a setting bolted on the side of this feature — consent is the feature, and delivery is the easy part.

Understand what the law requires

Under the US TCPA, a promotional message sent without prior express written consent carries statutory damages of $500 to $1,500 per message — and that lands on the business that sent it, not only on the platform. Carriers separately require that STOP and HELP always work.

That is why this product will not let you text somebody who has not agreed, and why it asks for the two kinds of agreement separately.

Get consent, in two kinds

A client answers two questions, not one:

• Service texts — messages about work they have actually booked. A reminder about tomorrow’s visit. These go because the client gave you their number in order to receive service, until they opt out.
• Marketing texts — anything promotional. These need the client’s yes, recorded with when and where it was given.

They are separate because agreeing to a reminder is not agreeing to be sold to, and treating one as the other is precisely what the rules are about.

Consent is recorded on the client, where you can see it, and every decision to text anybody goes through the same check. No part of the product decides consent for itself.

To see it or change it, open the client’s Communication tab, under Text message consent. Each row says what the client agreed to and where it came from, and has its button: Record opt-out for service texts, Record opt-in for marketing, and Stop all texts. Each has a field for your reason, up to 500 characters, such as confirmed by phone, kept as the evidence behind the change. Stopping all texts also clears a marketing opt-in, so it has to be given again even after the stop is cleared. A client with no phone number on file is shown as unreachable, which is not an opt-out.

Marketing texts are paused, for every client. The law asks for the client’s own written agreement before a marketing text, and the opt-in you can record on a client’s page is your word that they agreed, not theirs; your number is also registered with the carriers for service texts. Until clients can give that agreement themselves, nothing promotional is texted: the share prompt and your automations’ messages go by email instead, and a reminder to book goes by email only — the reminder that a client’s unit is due for service, and the reminder that work they had before is due again (see Reminders to book). For a client with a phone number, the unit reminder’s text is on their Communication tab as not sent, with the reason reminders to book go by email only. An opt-in you recorded stays on the client as a record.

Honor STOP and HELP

A client who replies STOP is opted out of your texts immediately: the carrier blocks your number for them, and the opt-out is recorded on the client. Your texts go from your own number, so a STOP stops your texts and nobody else’s. START resumes them. HELP is answered by the carrier, with how to stop and that message and data rates may apply. Every text you send ends with Reply STOP to opt out. — added for you when your own wording leaves it out. The one exception is the phone assistant’s replies inside a text conversation, because the text that opened the conversation carried the line.

The one text that does not come from your number is the one-time code a client asks for to sign something, move a visit or open their records: when your business texts, it comes from SMG Tools’ own number and names your business — see Prove it was really them. A STOP to that number stops only the codes, which then come by email to a client whose record has an email address — one with only a mobile number gets none.

None of that is something you have to configure or remember. It is handled for you because a carrier will suspend a number that does not honor it.

What gets texted

Texts are sent as a consequence of something that happened — a visit booked, moved or coming up — and sending one never holds up what caused it. That is a deliberate design decision with a practical effect: an outage at the message provider can never fail a booking. The booking succeeds whatever happens to the text. A text the provider could not take is not tried again, so nobody gets the same text twice.

Whether your business texts at all is one switch, under Organization → Texting, beside the number it texts from. Which texts go is each tool’s own choice, on its page: Also by text on the appointment reminder, Remind clients before a visit — in Automations, and under Client Reminders — and Send the on-my-way text under On the way. The share prompt’s Also by text under Referrals is paused with every marketing text. A visit’s booking confirmation is Booking confirmations by text, on Texting itself, because it goes for every visit booked, by you or by a customer online, and it also tells the client when a visit is moved or canceled. Where texting is off, each says so, with the way to switch it on; each tool’s page also shows the Texting switch itself, under Works with. The Texting switch and every by text choice are the owner’s, because each spends texts on your bill.

Every text asks the carrier to report what became of it. One that never arrived is on the client’s Communication tab, marked failed — Appointment reminder text not delivered, say — with the reason in words: the phone was off or out of reach, the client has blocked texts from your number, the number is a landline, and so on. See Read what actually happened.

Get your business’s own number

For now, every business’s texts are held. Before any business on SMG Tools can text its clients, Twilio, our texting provider, has to approve SMG Tools itself as a platform that texts for the businesses on it, and that review is still under way. Until it is approved no business’s texts are delivered — yours included, whatever your number and its verification say — and email carries on. Getting your number and verifying it now is still worth doing: both are needed the day it lands.

Your texts go from your business’s own number — the same one the phone assistant answers, if you have it. It is included, at no charge. Once texting is on, the owner takes it on Organization → Phone number, with Find a number and Take this number. Until then, Texting says your texts are held, not sent, with Get your number beside it. A business without the phone assistant takes one just for its texts.

If nothing uses the number any more — texting switched off or no longer in your plan, and no phone assistant — it is kept for 30 days in case you change your mind, and Phone number shows the date it goes back to the phone company. A number given back takes its verification with it: a new one is reviewed afresh, with the form filled in from last time but the EIN.

Verify your number

The carriers check who texts from a number before they carry its texts, so a new number is verified once. The owner does it on Organization → Phone number, under Verify your number for texting, and most of the form arrives filled in from what SMG Tools already knows about your business:

• Legal name — exactly as the IRS has it: on your EIN letter, or your own name for a sole proprietor.
• EIN — passed to our texting provider, Twilio, for the carriers’ check. SMG Tools keeps no copy of it, and the form clears it the moment it is sent. A sole proprietor ticks Sole proprietor, with no EIN instead.
• Website — your business’s public website. With none, your public page on SMG Tools is filled in if it is switched on; a public Google Business Profile or social media page works too.

If something the carriers need is missing — your business’s address, say — the form says what to add first. Send for verification sends it. A review usually takes three to five business days.

Until it is approved your texts are held, not sent, and email carries on. When it is approved, the texts waiting go out, each checked again against consent, your plan and the Texting switch — if you switched texting off while they waited, they are not sent. A text about a moment — a reminder, a confirmation, an on-my-way — is dropped once it is twelve hours old rather than sent about a visit already past; a note about a job keeps for a week, and nothing waits longer. If the carriers refuse it, the page shows their reason: fix what it says, type the EIN again, and Send it again.

What it costs

Texting needs Professional, because unlike an email a text costs us per message.

Every equivalent notification is available by email on every plan. Choosing Starter does not mean your clients go unreminded; it means the reminder arrives by email.