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Texting a customer

Text a customer from your business number and keep the conversation where the whole team can see it.

Texts go out from the number your company registered. Until that number is approved, outbound texting is switched off — see Registering your texting number.

Send a customer a text

Each customer has a single text thread, under the Texts tab.

  1. Choose Comms in the left rail and open the customer.
  2. Choose Texts. The customer's text thread opens.
  3. Type into Type a message... at the bottom.
  4. Choose Send.

Your message appears in the thread, newest at the bottom. The customer's replies land in the same thread.

If Texts reads No SMS conversation yet, this customer has no text thread and there is no composer to start one from here. A text thread opens the first time the customer texts your number, or the first time a visit sends them a text — for example when their technician sends an on-my-way message. To reach the customer before then, email them: see Emailing a customer.

Message a customer from their file

You can go straight from a customer's file to their conversation.

  1. Choose Clients in the left rail and select the customer.
  2. Choose Message at the top of their file.

Lupa opens the customer in Comms:

  • If your texting is working and the customer has a phone number, you land in their text thread.
  • Otherwise, if they have an email address, you land in one of their email threads.
  • If they have no thread of that kind yet, you land on their Activity tab.

Lupa warns you before texting a customer whose permission to be texted is not recorded. The warning names the customer's consent state:

  • No SMS consent on file
  • Consent request still pending
  • Client prefers email
  • Client revoked SMS consent

While the warning shows, the composer reads Compose with caution — consent not on file and the send button reads Send anyway. You have two choices:

  • Choose Send opt-in request first to email the customer a request for permission. Lupa confirms with "SMS opt-in request sent." The customer needs an email address on file; without one, Lupa says "Client has no email on file — add one first."
  • Type your message and choose Send anyway. The text goes, and the override is recorded in the customer's consent history against your name.

The warning does not appear when the latest message in the thread is a text from the customer that arrived in the last 24 hours — replying to them then is always allowed. Once you have replied, the latest message is yours, and the warning returns for your next text.

Consent itself — asking for it, recording it, and handling opt-outs — is covered in Text messaging, particularly Texting without consent, and opt-outs.

Understand the marks on a text

A text you sent normally shows in a gold bubble. Some texts carry a badge instead:

  • failed or undelivered — the text did not reach the customer. Hover over the badge to see the reason, when the carrier gave one.
  • opted out — the carrier refused the text because the customer has opted out of text messages. Do not resend it.
  • partial — a long text from the customer arrived incomplete. Choose retry beside it to ask for the full text again. If Lupa reports "Twilio still reports the partial body. Ask the client to resend.", ask the customer to send it again.

If the composer is greyed out

When your company cannot send texts, a notice above the composer reads Sending disabled — followed by the reason, the composer reads Sending unavailable, and Send is switched off. The usual reasons:

  • SMS outbound is pending TFV approval — your number is still being verified.
  • SMS outbound was rejected by Twilio TFV — the verification was turned down and needs resubmitting.
  • SMS isn't configured for this tenant yet — no number has been set up.
  • SMS outbound is suspended — contact Lupa support.

Incoming texts still arrive, and email keeps working, while texting is off. To see the full picture, see Is messaging working?.