What Guidelines Should I Follow for Texting My Customers Through Engage?

Best practices and general guidelines for ensuring compliance with TCPA regulations

 What is TCPA?

The Telephone Consumer Protection Act, TCPA, enacted in 1991, restricts unsolicited telemarketing calls and faxes, requiring businesses to obtain customer consent, follow solicitation rules, and respect the National Do Not Call Registry to avoid legal consequences. Compliance with TCPA guidelines is crucial for businesses engaging with customers through voice calls or texts.

Texting Guidelines:

• Recipients have the right to withdraw their consent to receive calls or SMS messages in any reasonable manner, at any time.
• Prior to sending messages to your customer, you must obtain an agreement from the recipient to communicate with them. You must make it clear to the recipient that you intend to send messages, and what type of messages you are going to send. 
• You should keep record of the consent, such as a copy of the document or form that the message recipient signed.
• If you do not send an initial message within a reasonable time frame to the recipient, you will need to reconfirm consent in the first message sent to the recipient. 
• Companies must offer opt out options.

• Upon receiving an opt-out message, our carrier Twilio will establish a block list entry. Subsequently, any further efforts to message the blocked number will result in an error response, preventing the delivery of any messages.

• Single word messages will trigger the block. For example replying "STOP" will stop the customer from receiving messages from you, but replying "STOP PLEASE" will not.
• Customers can opt back into messaging with your Engage numbers by replying with opt-in language.

Prohibited Message Categories:

Certain message types are strictly prohibited on SMS and MMS platforms in the US and Canada to maintain a safe messaging environment. Refrain from engaging in the listed forbidden activities, which apply to both message content and business type. For more details refer to this article.

Messaging Violation Outcomes:

• Engage users who do not comply with the TCPA or Twilio messaging policy may risk having their communications blocked by our carrier, Twilio.
• If your messages have been blocked due to a messaging violation, and you believe your messages follow the rules, please contact our Technical Support Team. We will gather information and examples from your account to assist you in resolving the issue with Twilio and getting your account back on track.