Booking texts, STOP and START

When a customer is texted, what consent is required, and how opting out and back in is handled.

Texts are off until a business turns them on, and a customer is never texted without having opted in. Every condition below is checked when the event happens and checked again at the moment of sending.

What has to be true before a text is sent

1. The business turned booking texts on. They are off by default.
2. The customer ticked the “text me updates” box on the booking form. It is never ticked by default, and it only appears once the business has texts on and a phone number has been entered.
3. The customer has not replied STOP.
4. The phone number is a valid mobile number.

Changing a phone number drops the consent that went with the old one. Consent is for a number, not for a person in the abstract.

What a text contains

Texts cover a confirmed, changed or cancelled booking, and an alternative time being offered. They open with the business’s sender name, contain no customer name and no notes, and end with “Reply STOP to opt out.”

STOP and START

• STOP suppresses the number immediately. Where several businesses send through the same gateway number, the suppression covers all of them — a customer saying stop means stop.
• START lifts the suppression again.
• Words that could mean a booking rather than a preference — cancel, reschedule, change — are deliberately not treated as opt-outs. They reach the business instead, so a customer asking to move an appointment is not silently unsubscribed.
• Both are recorded, and the suppression list is consulted again before every text.

Delivery

A text is queued, sent once, and retried on a transient failure. An authentication or rejection error is treated as final rather than retried forever. A failed text never changes a booking or suppresses its email.