Text messaging has long been a staple in business practices, including official communications and marketing. In this age, customers appreciate businesses that contact them for various reasons, that is, on their terms.

Maintaining compliance for text messages is essential for good customer relationships and adherence to the law. If you are starting a new channel to reach out to your market, there will be new sets of compliance concerns to tackle.

From obtaining consent to capturing text messages, here are the best text messaging practices to help you get started:

Express Written Consent

When customers say that they want your businesses to text them on their terms, this specifically means they wish to consent to it first. The golden rule of sending messages to your customers is obtaining their explicit permission before starting the texting campaign.

There are various ways you can get the express consent of your target recipients. You can have users fill out an online form on your company’s website or use a keyword to opt-in. Letting consumers express their permission through physical forms in your shop also counts.

It is worth remembering that under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), written consent freely given by the customer to the business is required to send promotional or marketing text messages. Failure to comply can lead to legal charges and fines.

Opt-Out Mechanism

The freedom to opt out of receiving business messages must not be overlooked when planning a text message campaign. If your market is given opt-in methods, you must also state ways they can stop receiving texts from your company.

When writing the terms and conditions of your business text messages, include information on how to opt out of receiving them. Customers can send a certain keyword, such as “STOP” or “UNSUBSCRIBE”, to inform or prompt your system to remove them from the call/text list.

Archiving Messages

Besides being transparent to customers of your text marketing campaign and giving them the autonomy to decide whether to receive them, it is paramount to maintain compliance with business laws. Organizations like FINRA, the SEC, and HIPAA mandate businesses to keep complete and accurate records of their communications.

To further secure messages and remain compliant with legal requirements, consider investing in reliable archiving solutions. This type of software was designed to capture and store all messages sent to and from the business, creating a database of valuable information and a tight means of monitoring.

To get the best archiving solution and understand how to leverage it in text marketing campaigns, talk to us at LeapXpert.