PLEASE NOTE: There may be an additional charge for our text messaging service depending on your current subscription. Please contact support by emailing us at [email protected] to request this feature for your business.
Our Automated texting feature allows you to notify your customers when a new service is scheduled, reminding them of upcoming services and letting them know once services are completed.
We know that sometimes customers don't check their email, or the occasional email gets kicked to spam. This allows you to send both an email AND a text message to ensure your customers receive this timely communication.
All outgoing communications in the system are now able to also be sent via text message in addition to email. You have the ability to pick and choose which notifications or reminders you want to be sent via email and/or text message and turn them off or on as desired.
HOW TO SETUP TEXT MESSAGING
Before you will be able to turn this feature on for your customers, you will need to reach out to our support team and request that this feature be turned on for your account. Once it is enabled, you will then be able to customize the text messages from your Settings page. Then, at the individual customer level, there is a toggle button next to the mobile phone number field where you can turn text messages on or off for that customer. This is called "Text Alerts". You are responsible for obtaining written consent from your customers prior to enabling this feature for them. Our Customer Portal allows your customer to sign up for text message alerts themselves. This is the best way to obtain consent. Alternatively, you can send out a mass email to your customers asking them to respond to your email stating that they want to receive text messages and provide the phone # they would prefer to receive messages. This will serve as written consent.
Once receiving consent, you may check the box next to the customer's mobile # in the customer profile screen to turn on text messages for these customers.
Each of the automated text messages can be edited from your "Settings" screen.
These work the same as our automated email communications. You can choose which texts to turn on or off from here and edit these messages as you would like. One thing to keep in mind is that specific service information is not included in these text messages due to character limitations. So if you need to include these details in specific reminders/notifications, you will need to either send an email or an email and a text message.
To enable any of the automated messaged, you can switch the toggle to "On" next to the message text.
NOTE: We recommend that you always include your company name and phone # to contact you in each text message as your customers will be unable to respond to these text messages.
IMPORTANT - PLEASE READ BEFORE UTILIZING TEXT MESSAGING
Before you begin using this feature it is important to be aware and understand the regulations and laws governing text message communications for businesses. The laws state that any business that sends out text messages must get explicit written consent from their customer before sending them a text message. And, although these automated text messages that our system sends might seem transactional in nature, they are not classified as transactional messages. The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) requires that all businesses receive consent from their customer before sending them any kind of text message communication.
Our system is setup to properly handle unsubscribes so that if your customers do not wish to receive text messages, they can simply reply with the word "stop" and they will not receive any future text messages from you.
How to RE-SUBSCRIBE a customer if they have been unsubscribed to text notifications, but now want to receive them again
- The customer will need to send the word "START" back to the phone number (864) 207-4430 to re-subscribe to text notifications
- You will also need to make sure their customer profile has text alerts toggled to "On"