Sending a request by text, what the message says, and how clients opt out.
Many clients answer a text faster than an email, and some clients you only have a cell number for. Cartenda can text a client their link, their reminders and their signing codes. Every text uses fixed, pre-approved wording, and every client can opt out by replying STOP.
When you send a form, enter the client's Cell phone number. It must be a cell phone that can receive texts, not a landline or office line. The question mark beside the box says so too. You can enter it with or without an email address. A client you only have a number for still works.
Open Details on the client's card, and under Send by, tick Text. When you send to several clients at once, Send by is in the batch's own settings. Email is ticked by default, and you can leave it on to send both ways or turn it off to send by text alone. When you tick Text for a number you haven't confirmed yet, a window opens asking whether the client agreed to texts. It shows the full text-message agreement, which you confirm on the client's behalf by ticking the box and pressing Agree to texts. Tick it only if they did. The box is never ticked for you. Press Close instead and Text goes back off. For a client already on your list, the confirmation is saved to their record straight away. For a new client, it is saved when you send.
You only need to confirm once. When you send to the same client and number again, the screen says You confirmed on and the date. If you change the number, you are asked again. An agreement covers only the number it was given for, so a request sent to a different number isn't texted until you confirm that one. Correcting a client's number on their page clears their agreement, and the new number is asked to reply YES once you confirm again.
The box says what your client should already have been told: that texts come from your firm through Cartenda about documents, files and signing codes, that message and data rates may apply, how often texts come (at most three reminders per request), and that they can reply HELP for help or STOP to opt out. Below it are links to the text message terms and the privacy notice. How you get that agreement from your client is up to your firm. This is general guidance, not legal advice. Check your process with your compliance officer.
Wherever your form shows Your details, your client can choose How to reach you at the end of the card: by email, by text, or both. Choosing a text option opens the same disclosures on their own, in their words rather than yours, and the choice is kept only once they tick the box and press Agree to texts. That is their own agreement, and their record says Agreed to texts with (on their form) beside it. What they choose is written onto every request still waiting on them, and Send by starts from it on your next send.
If they choose By email, they have turned texts off. Their agreement is withdrawn, Text can't be ticked on your next send, and you can't confirm it again on their behalf. Only they can, by choosing a text option on a form again.
The first time you confirm a client agreed, or they agree on their form, Cartenda sends them one text straight away asking them to reply YES. It is always in English. It says your firm would like to text them through Cartenda about documents you ask for, files you send and signing codes. It also says how often, that rates may apply, and how to get help or opt out.
Nothing else is texted to that number until the client replies YES. This proves the number is theirs and that it can receive texts, which a landline or a mistyped number never will. Meanwhile:
When they reply YES, Cartenda texts them once more to confirm. Then it texts every request and every set of files you chose to send by text that went without one and that they haven't opened yet.
Texts cannot be written freely. Each one is a fixed message filed in advance with the carriers, with your firm's name and the link filled in. The request text reads:
Hi, [your firm] has asked you to complete a short form and send some documents. Start here: [link] If you were not expecting this, call [your firm]. Reply STOP to opt out.
A reminder names up to two things still needed and counts the rest. The note you write when sending goes in the email only, never in the text.
Cartenda also texts signing codes, and messages when you ask for more after reviewing, send files or write about an item or the whole request, whenever the client was reached by text.
If a client texts back, their message is added to the request, under What they wrote back.
If a client replies STOP, Cartenda stops texting that number at once, for every request. They are still reached by email if you have an address. The request's page tells you they asked to stop. You cannot turn texts back on for them. The client can start again by texting START.
Every plan includes a monthly allowance of texts, listed in Plans. Every text counts, including reminders, signing codes, the text asking for YES and the confirmation that follows it. Texts are never charged for. When the month's texts are used up, reminders, notices and new requests go by email instead, and a client with no email address on file is not reached until next month, which the request says. The codes a client signs in and signs with always go by text, because a client partway through a request still needs their code. See Usage and allowances.
Any member who can send a form can send by text and confirm a client's agreement. Each confirmation is recorded with who gave it and when, in the audit log.
Still stuck? Write to hello@cartenda.com and a person will answer.