Texting Customers: The Rules Are Stricter Than Email

Texting isn't email

Sending a text to your customers feels casual. It's the same thing you do with friends all day, and it works remarkably well - texts get read almost immediately, where email often doesn't.

The rules around it are much stricter than the rules around email, and the penalties are much larger. A lot of small business owners find this out the hard way, after they've already sent something.

Why the rules are tougher

Marketing email in the United States runs on the CAN-SPAM Act, which effectively lets you send to someone until they ask you to stop. Text messages are covered by a different law, the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, and it works the other way around: you generally need permission before the first message, not after.

The other difference is who enforces it. TCPA claims can be brought by the individual who got the message, with statutory damages per message. It's a well-established area for lawsuits. Getting this wrong at any real volume is not a slap on the wrist.

I'm not a lawyer and this isn't legal advice. But the shape of the rules is worth knowing before you start.

What "permission" has to look like

The safe version is simple: the person clearly agreed to receive texts from you, you can prove it, and you can say when it happened.

• Get it in writing, in some form you keep. A checkbox on your form, a signed intake sheet, a reply of the word START to your number. Save the record.
• Be specific about what they're agreeing to. "Yes, send me appointment reminders" is not the same as "yes, send me promotions." Say which, and honor the difference.
• Don't bury it. Consent hidden in a wall of terms, or pre-checked for them, is the kind of thing that gets picked apart later.
• A phone number you obtained for another reason is not permission. Someone giving you their cell so you can call about their order has not agreed to marketing texts. Neither has a purchased list. Buying a list of numbers to text is the single fastest way into trouble.

The practical rules for sending

Assuming you have real permission:

• Identify yourself in the message. People should know instantly who is texting.
• Include how to stop. "Reply STOP to opt out," and then actually honor it, immediately and permanently.
• Watch the clock. Don't send outside reasonable local hours for the recipient. Early morning and late night messages generate complaints faster than anything else.
• Send sparingly. Texts are far more intrusive than email. What feels like a reasonable email cadence feels like harassment as a text.
• Use a real texting platform, not your personal phone. Carriers now require businesses to register the number and the type of messages they send, and an unregistered business number sending bulk texts gets filtered or blocked. A proper platform handles that registration and keeps your opt-out records for you.

Where it's genuinely useful

None of this means don't text. It means text for the things people actually want: appointment reminders, "your order is ready," "I'm running fifteen minutes late," a delivery confirmation. Those are welcome, get near-perfect open rates, and cut your no-show rate.

Promotional blasts are where the risk concentrates, and where the annoyance is highest. If you only ever use texting for logistics, you get most of the benefit with very little of the exposure.

The bottom line

Email is opt-out; texting is opt-in. Get clear, recorded permission first, say who you are, honor STOP instantly, keep the volume low, and send through a registered business platform.

Use it for reminders and updates and your customers will thank you. Use it for a bulk promotion to numbers you collected for something else, and you're taking a risk that far outweighs the campaign.