Texting and the Phone inbox

The Phone section: header and tabs

Every page in the section sits under the same header, so the two facts you check before trusting anything below are always on screen: which number this is, and whether texting has cleared the carrier.

• The title Phone with a Beta pill.
• A status chip with a dot showing your business number (green when the assistant is answering calls or texts, grey when it is answering nothing) — or "Forwarding to your assistant" on the free forwarding path, where the private line is never shown to customers.
• A texting chip reading Live, Pending carrier approval, or Not registered. It only appears for owners and administrators — the registration record holds business details, so staff without the manage-phone permission never see it.

Under the header is a tab strip: Inbox · Activity · Automated texts · Broadcasts · Settings. Each is its own page — <code>/dashboard/comms/phone/inbox</code>, <code>/activity</code>, <code>/texting</code>, <code>/broadcasts</code>, and <code>/settings</code>. Broadcasts sits between Automated texts and Settings, and only appears if you hold the "Send text broadcasts" permission (owners and administrators by default) — everyone else sees four tabs. See text broadcasts.

Cmd+K (Ctrl+K) reaches them all directly: "Phone inbox", "Phone activity", "Automated texts", "Text broadcasts", and "Phone settings".

The Phone inbox

The inbox lists every call and text on the business line, newest first, with filter chips All / Texts (with an unread count) / Calls and a search box. It's a master-detail view — click any item to open it on the right:

• Text threads open the full conversation, with the reply composer and assistant controls (below). New leads are tagged "New lead".
• Calls show the outcome, a summary, any message taken, and the full transcript.
• Calls your team placed from the web dialer show as outgoing ("Placed by …") with a note that calls placed by your team aren't recorded, so there's no transcript — only assistant-answered calls are transcribed.
• An outbound text the carrier could not deliver shows a red "Not delivered" indicator under that message bubble (on web and in the technician app).
• Outbound messages show who sent them — a teammate's name under their replies, and "Assistant (approved by …)" when a teammate approved an assistant draft.
• Automated texts sent on the shared number — the on-the-way and invoice-ready texts a company without its own texting-live business number gets — appear as read-only "Automated text" rows: the row shows the customer, the kind (On the way / Invoice ready), the first line of the text, and Sent or Failed. Clicking one shows the full text, the number it went to, and a "Customer" link; there is no thread to reply in, because customers can't text the shared number back. These rows count under the Texts filter chip. The same rows appear on the customer's page under Communications.

The two banners above the list

Work that is still outstanding sits as a thin, one-line banner at the top of the conversation list. Click the line to expand it in place, or the ✕ to dismiss it — a dismissal lasts for that browser session only, so anything still outstanding comes back next time you sign in.

• "Finish setting up" with "N of M done" — the setup checklist (Get your phone number → Set up call answering → Forward your calls). Owners and administrators only, and it disappears on its own the moment setup is complete.
• "N visits need approval" (or "1 visit needs approval") with "Proposed by your assistant" — expands to the same approve/decline queue as before, for anyone with the "Approve scheduling" permission.

The Activity tab

Activity answers "how is the phone doing" and "why didn't my customer get a text" on one page. It works without a business number — in that state the call tiles and the inbox link are left off and the page is just the automated-text log.

• "Last 30 days" stat tiles: Texts received (with "N sent" underneath; shown only once texting is live), Calls answered (with "of N calls" when some went unanswered), and Avg response time ("customer message → your reply").
• A "Every call in the inbox" link beside the heading — calls have no separate log, because the inbox is the call log; the link opens the inbox pre-filtered to calls.
• Below the tiles, the Automated texts log — every automated text of the last 30 days, including the ones that never went out, with the reason. It is the same log described under "Automated texts" below.
• Texts that went out on the shared toll-free number (before your own number is texting) are in this log too — a sent one reads Sent with "From the shared number" underneath; one the carrier rejected reads Failed with the carrier's reason.

Text thread controls

• Assistant mode dropdown (top right of the thread): "Assistant replies automatically", "Assistant drafts, you approve", or "Take over (assistant off)". Changing this needs the "Manage phone & AI front desk" permission.
• Draft approval: when the assistant drafts a reply, a "Your assistant drafted a reply" card appears above the composer — edit the text if needed, then Send or Dismiss.
• The composer always texts the customer directly — there is no separate "coach" mode on the web. To change how the assistant behaves, add a rule under Phone → Settings → Assistant → Standing instructions instead.
• A thread you switch by hand keeps its own mode. The mode every new conversation starts in is Reply style on Phone → Settings → Texts.
• Replying and approving or dismissing drafts needs the "Respond to customer inquiries" permission — so office managers can reply. Reading the inbox needs inbox read access.

Photos and attachments (MMS)

• Photos customers text in appear inside the conversation — click to enlarge.
• Other attachment types — contact cards, audio, video, PDFs — appear as labeled chips that open in a new tab.
• To send photos, use the image button next to the composer in Reply mode — up to 3 photos per text, compressed automatically. The technician app's Comms tab works the same (attach via camera or photo library).
• Video sending is not supported (carrier size limits).

The Settings tab

Settings is a real page with a section rail down the left (a scrolling chip row on a narrow screen). Nothing is hidden behind an accordion — clicking a rail entry scrolls to that section and puts it in the URL as <code>?section=</code>, so you can bookmark or share it. The five sections are:

• Assistant — "Who answers for you, what it sounds like, and what it knows about your business." The three tiles Answer phone calls, Answer texts and Automated texts, then Identity and greeting, Voice, Existing customers, Website knowledge, and Standing instructions. Covered in detail in the AI phone assistant.
• Calls — "What happens when someone dials your line. Calls are answered the same way around the clock — your assistant never keeps office hours." Holds Ring my phone first (with the "If you can't answer" choice) and Test a call.
• Texts — "Your assistant replies to inbound texts — the ones your customers and leads start." See below.
• Phone line — "The number your assistant answers on, and how calls get to it." Your number (titled "Your assistant's line" on the forwarding path), Call forwarding with the carrier dial codes (forwarding path only), the "Make this your business number" upgrade, and an Advanced group holding Turn off call forwarding for companies that upgraded.
• Notifications — "When your team hears about something your assistant handled." Holds Text notifications.

Settings → Texts

• The texting registration card, shown until texting is live — this is the surface that turns texting on (see below).
• "Who it texts back" — two switches, New leads ("Someone texting from a number that isn't one of your customers") and Existing customers ("Someone already in your customer list"). Both on by default. "Turn either side off and those texts wait for a person — you still get notified about every one."
• "Reply style" — Send right away ("Answers in seconds, day or night — how most owners run it") or Draft and wait for me ("Nothing goes out until you approve it in the inbox"). This sets the starting mode of every new conversation; a thread you switch by hand keeps its own.
• Business hours — day chips (Mon–Sun) and a start/end time, with Save business hours. Texting only: calls are answered the same way at every hour, so business hours never affect a phone call.
• After-hours message — guidance, not a script, for texters who reach you outside those hours; the assistant works it into its reply. Leave it blank and it says the team will follow up.
• A Customer notifications link through to the Automated texts tab — "On-the-way texts, invoice texts, visit reminders and the rest are texts you send."

What texting requires: a business line + free carrier registration

This applies to two-way texting: the inbox, replies, the assistant answering texts, broadcasts, and the automated texts other than On the way and Invoice ready (those two go out on Pool Founder's shared toll-free number without any of this — see "Automated texts" below). Texting can only run on a line Pool Founder provides — it can never work on the free call-forwarding path. On top of the line, US carriers legally require every texting business to register first (10DLC registration). Registration is free — Pool Founder covers the carrier fees and files the paperwork automatically — and it's self-serve: the form (legal business name exactly as on IRS records, EIN, business address, contact info) is collected as the first step of business-line setup, before anything is billed.

• Business verification usually clears within minutes; full carrier approval usually takes a few days. Phone → Settings → Texts shows a live progress timeline until it clears: Payment → Business verified with the IRS → Carrier approval → Number activated. The section header also carries the short version — Live / Pending carrier approval / Not registered — on every Phone page.
• Texting turns on by itself when the carriers approve — nothing to do. Until approval, the "Answer texts" tile stays locked ("Carrier review in progress — this switch unlocks on its own when it clears") and text conversations don't appear in the inbox; phone calls need no registration and work from day one.
• If the carriers can't verify the business (usually a legal-name spelling mismatch), the card reopens the form so you can fix it and resubmit — the retry is free.
• Sole proprietors without an EIN can't register — the form steers them to the free forwarding path before any billing; companies already on a business line in that spot should contact support at support@poolfounder.com.

Automated texts

Automated texts are the messages Pool Founder sends your customers for you — "Texts Pool Founder sends your customers for you". They are the Automated texts tab of the Phone section: Communication → Phone → Automated texts, at <code>/dashboard/comms/phone/texting</code> (also Cmd+K → "Automated texts", and the Automated texts tile at the top of Phone → Settings → Assistant). Anyone who can open the Phone inbox can read the page; changing anything needs the manage-phone permission.

If you had turned texting on for some jobs or customers before these company-wide switches existed, those settings carried over: a company that never turned texting on stays off, and a company that had it on for some jobs came over with the switch on and those customers still included.

The status strip

Four readouts across the top: Business number (or "Not set up yet"), Texting — Live, Pending carrier approval, or Not registered — Today's texts ("12 of 1000" with a small bar), and Quiet hours. Under them is the master switch, "Send automated texts" ("Master switch — with this off, nothing below sends").

The six automations

Each one is a row under Automations with a switch and a one-line summary (when it fires, and how many of your customers can actually receive it). Click a row to expand the message editor. All six send today — as of 2026-09-02 there is no "Coming soon" badge anywhere on this page (the only locked switches are the ones that wait for your own business number, above). Four of the six are off by default, so turning one on is your decision.

The row switch is the bulk switch; a single pool can still be turned off

Turning a row's switch on turns that text on for every customer at once — you never have to go job by job to turn texts on. Three things can keep someone out of a text that is switched on: that customer's own Texts preference (see "Turning texts off for one customer" below), consent or a STOP reply, and — for On the way only — the On the way texts switch on an individual job's page (see "Turning on-the-way texts off for one pool" below). That per-job switch can only turn a job off; it never turns a job on when the customer or the company switch is off. There is no per-job control in the route builder or the technician app.

The summary line under each row that is on tells you exactly how far the switch reaches:

• "42 customers get this" — the customers with a phone number, consent on file, and no preference against it.
• "42 customers get this · 149 turned off individually" — the switch is on, but 149 customers have this one text switched off on their own page (their Texts pill reads Custom). This is common for a company that had texting on for only some jobs before the company-wide switches existed: those customers were carried over as individually off. Next to it, managers see a Turn on for everyone link.
• "No one can get this yet · 1 customer has no consent on file" (or "has no phone number", "opted out", "has all texts off") — the switch is on but nobody can receive it, with the biggest reason. The reason is a link that scrolls to Who's reachable.

Turn on for everyone is the one-click fix for customers who were switched off individually. It appears as a link on the row summary (when someone is individually off) and as a button in the expanded row next to Save / Reset to default (whenever the row is off or someone is individually off; managers only, and never on a row that is locked waiting for your own business number). It opens a confirmation — "Turn on for everyone?" — that says exactly what will happen: "Turns On the way on for everyone, including the 149 customers who had it switched off individually. Customers who opted out or have all texts turned off are not affected." Confirming turns the row's switch on and removes only that one text's "off" from each of those customers' Custom preferences. It does not touch a customer whose Texts pill reads Off (all automated texts off — that is a stronger choice, and the confirmation says they are skipped), it does not change any other text a customer switched off, and it never changes consent or an opt-out. The toast afterwards reads e.g. "On the way is on for everyone — 149 customers updated", with a second line such as "3 customers with all texts off were left alone" when that applies. The Custom preferences count under Who's reachable drops accordingly.

• On the way — "When a technician starts driving to the stop". Sends today, on by default. This is a company-wide switch, and the old "Turn on for all jobs" button is gone because the switch itself is the bulk on. To stop it for one customer, use the Texts pill on their page; to stop it for one pool of a customer who has several, use the On the way texts switch on that job's page (it can only turn a job off — see "Turning on-the-way texts off for one pool" below); to bring back customers who were switched off individually, use Turn on for everyone (below).
• Invoice ready — "When an invoice is created" (maintenance, work orders, and deposits). Sends today, on by default. Also company-wide; the old per-customer "Text when invoices are created" checkbox is gone.
• Visit reminder — "Before a scheduled visit". Sends today, but OFF by default — turn it on yourself. Details below.
• Service report ready — "After each service report is sent". Sends today, but OFF by default. Details below.
• Review request — "After a thumbs-up on a service report". Sends today, but OFF by default. Details below.
• Lead follow-up — "When a new lead goes quiet". Sends today, but OFF by default. It is a four-step sequence aimed at leads, not customers, so its summary reads e.g. "4 steps on · Assistant writes it" rather than a customer count. Details below.

Visit reminder

• Off by default. Turn the row's switch on, then set "When it sends": Evening before (the default, 6:00 PM, and the text says "tomorrow") or Morning of (8:00 AM, and the text says "today"). The at time box next to the choice takes any time; both controls save as soon as you change them, so there is no Save button here. Switching between the two moves an obviously-wrong time across for you ("Send time moved to 8:00 AM").
• The time is your company's local time, and quiet hours still apply — an early send waits for the quiet-hours window to open rather than waking anyone up.
• One text per customer per service day, no matter how many stops or routes they appear on that day.
• A stop the technician already completed or skipped is not reminded about, and archived routes are ignored.
• A reminder that still cannot send by the end of the day it is for is dropped rather than sent late — it shows in the Activity log as skipped, "Quiet hours ended before it could send".
• Default wording: "Hi, this is {companyName}. Your next service visit is scheduled for {visitDay}. Reply here with any questions." Variables available: <code>{firstName}</code>, <code>{companyName}</code>, <code>{visitDay}</code>.

Service report ready

• Off by default. Once on, it goes out right after the service report email does — it is hooked to the email, not to job completion, so the text can never promise a report the customer cannot open.
• A manual resend re-emails the report but does not re-text. The text is deduplicated per visit, so resending a report as many times as you like sends exactly one text.
• It needs your company to have a customer portal address, because the whole payload is the portal link. Without one, nothing is sent and nothing is recorded.
• Default wording: "{companyName}: your pool service visit is complete. View your service report in your customer portal: {portalLink}". Variables available: <code>{firstName}</code>, <code>{companyName}</code>, <code>{portalLink}</code>, <code>{techName}</code> — <code>{techName}</code> comes from the technician on the completion and renders empty on a visit logged with no technician, so word it to read either way.
• It is a separate thing from the service report email, which is unchanged — see service reports.

Review request

• Off by default. The only thing that triggers it is a customer tapping thumbs-up on a service report — a thumbs-down never triggers anything, ever. The row's helper line says so: "Only a thumbs-up on a service report triggers this. Quiet hours still apply, so a late-night rating waits until morning."
• When it sends is one sentence you fill in: "Wait [1] hours after a thumbs-up, then at most one every [90] days per customer". The wait defaults to 1 hour and takes 0–72 hours; the cooldown defaults to 90 days and takes 7–365. Both save when you click out of the box.
• The cooldown is what stops a weekly-service customer who is delighted every week from being asked every week. Only requests that actually went out count against it — one that was skipped never reached anyone, so it does not start the clock.
• Customers who already reviewed you are skipped. A customer marked Reviewed on Google on their customer page (set by hand with Mark as reviewed, or matched by name from a synced Google review — see Google reviews) never gets the request; the activity log shows it as "Customer already left a review". Clear or Undo match on the customer page makes them eligible again.
• One text per thumbs-up: the same vote can never produce two texts.
• Where the link comes from. The expanded row has a Review link block that says it in one line: "Review request texts send the Google link from your review links list. If there's no Google link, the first link on the list is used. This is the same list your service report emails use." That list is Communication → Email → Service reports → Review Links (the "Manage all review links" link in the block goes there) — the same buttons the service report email shows. There is no separate texting-only link. See service reports.
• Add or change it right on the row. With nothing on file, the block shows an amber "No review link yet — nothing will send. Add one below to start." line, a box that says Paste your Google review link, and Save. It must start with https://. A google.com / g.page / goo.gl address (or anything containing "writereview") is saved as the Google entry, replacing the old URL if there was one — never stacking a second. Any other address is saved as an Other entry labelled "Review link", but only while there is no Google entry; after that the row refuses a non-Google paste, because the text would keep sending the Google one anyway. Under the box: "Where do I find it? In Google Business Profile, open Ask for reviews and copy the link."
• Use my Google Business Profile link — if your profile is connected and returned a ready-made address, this button sits under the paste box and adds it in one click (what the Profile page's "Add link to service reports" task does). It never overwrites an entry you already saved.
• With something on file the block shows a platform badge (Google, Facebook, Yelp, Nextdoor, Thumbtack, or Other), the URL (opens in a new tab), and a Change button that turns it into the same paste box, pre-filled, with Save / Cancel. If the entry in use is not a Google one, a hint reads "Texts work best with a Google review link. Paste one to use it instead." The Preview bubble shows the real URL once one is saved. Read-only users (without the manage-phone permission) see it but get no boxes or buttons.
• With no review link, nothing sends and nothing appears in Activity. A row that is on but has nowhere to point reads "Add a review link to start sending" in its summary instead of a customer count. Saving one here or under Service reports → Review Links clears that either way — it is one list.
• Default wording: "Thanks for the great feedback, {firstName}! If you have a minute, a review really helps {companyName}: {reviewLink}". Variables available: <code>{firstName}</code>, <code>{companyName}</code>, <code>{reviewLink}</code>.

Lead follow-up

The one automation that texts leads rather than customers, and the only one that is a sequence — four independent steps, each with its own switch, that only ever fire while the lead is still cold. Off by default. Its collapsed summary reads "4 steps on · Assistant writes it" (or "Your template", or "No steps on") instead of a customer count, because lead follow-ups never go to your customer book.

• Who writes it — two choices. Assistant writes it (the default): "The assistant writes each follow-up in the thread it already has with that lead. If your texts wait for approval, follow-ups wait too." Use my template: "Every step sends the same message, with the lead's name filled in." In assistant mode the message box below is relabeled Backup message — "Only used if the assistant can't write one."
• Lead never contacted — "After [2] business hours". Hint: "Only if nobody has marked them contacted." The wait takes 1–72 hours.
• Walkthrough reminder — "The evening before the walkthrough." No timing box; it aims at the evening before the booked walkthrough date.
• After the walkthrough — "[1] days after the walkthrough". Hint: "Only while they're still marked walkthrough scheduled." Takes 1–30 days.
• Gone quiet — "After [14] days with no activity". Hint: "One check-in, then the lead is archived if they stay silent for another 7 days." Takes 3–120 days.
• All four steps are armed out of the box, so turning the automation on starts all four unless you switch some off. Timings save when you click out of the box; switches save immediately.

The footnote under the steps states who actually gets texted: "A lead who texts back, converts, or is archived stops getting follow-ups. Leads from a web form are only texted if they ticked your consent box; leads who called or texted you always count."

• Consent: a lead who called or texted you is always eligible. A lead from your website form or the API is texted only if it arrived with <code>smsConsent: true</code> — see the Leads API for the field and the recommended checkbox wording.
• What cancels the rest of a sequence: the lead texts back, someone changes the lead's status (including marking them contacted), you pause follow-ups on the lead page, the lead converts or is archived, you switch the automation or that step off, or the lead turns out not to be text-eligible. Every one of those is written to the lead's timeline with the reason.
• Draft-and-wait applies. If your Reply style is "Draft and wait for me", an assistant-written follow-up waits in the inbox for your approval exactly like an inbound reply — the lead's timeline records it as "waiting for your approval".
• Each lead has its own Follow-ups card with Pause / Resume and a full timeline of what was sent or skipped — that is where you stop follow-ups for one lead without touching the company switch. See Leads.
• There is no per-customer switch for lead follow-ups on the customer Texts pill, because they go to leads, not customers.

Editing the message

• The Message box holds the wording. Under it, an Insert: row of variable chips shows only the variables that text can actually fill — for example on-the-way offers <code>{firstName}</code>, <code>{companyName}</code>, and <code>{techName}</code>; invoice ready offers <code>{firstName}</code>, <code>{companyName}</code>, and <code>{amount}</code>. Clicking a chip appends it. A variable the message cannot fill is rejected when you save.
• A counter reads e.g. "118 characters · 1 segment · GSM-7", and a note that it is counted with the "Reply STOP to opt out." line carriers require. Longer than four segments and it will not save — carriers filter those.
• Preview shows the message as a text bubble, filled in with sample values (Jamie, Chris, $120.00, Thursday morning, and so on).
• Save stores your wording. Reset to default puts back the wording Pool Founder ships. Send test to my phone texts it to the number on your own account — it is disabled with an explanation until you verify a phone number on your account.

Quiet hours and limits

• Quiet hours — a Start and End time, in your company's time zone, with a Save quiet hours button. Default 8:00 AM to 9:00 PM. Texts held by quiet hours go out when the window opens. Carriers allow 8:00 AM to 9:00 PM. On-the-way texts ignore quiet hours — the technician is already driving.
• Most texts per customer per day — 1 to 10, default 3, with a Save limit button. A safety net so one busy day never turns into a flood. Replies you send by hand do not count against it.
• Your sending limits — how many texts a minute and a day your carrier registration allows, shown read-only. Contact support at support@poolfounder.com if you need more.

Who's reachable

Six counts of your active customers: Can get texts, No phone number, No consent on file, Opted out, Texts turned off, and Custom preferences. Each tile is a link: it opens the Customers page filtered to exactly the customers it counted (a Texting: … chip shows the active bucket, and the same filter is available any time from the Texting status dropdown next to the tag filter). The line under each tile says what moves a customer out of that bucket — add a phone number, tick the consent box or share the portal, or change the Texts pill; an opted-out customer can only come back by texting START. Below the counts, Customers with custom preferences lists everyone who differs from the switches above, each with a Reset to default button (one customer at a time, all of their texts). There is no "reset all" button here; to clear one text's exceptions for everyone in one go, use Turn on for everyone on that text's row.

The activity log: why a text did not send

This is the answer to "why didn't my customer get a text?". It lives on the section's Activity tab (Communication → Phone → Activity), under the 30-day stats. It lists every automated text from the last 30 days — including the ones that never went out — with filter chips by type (All texts, On the way, Invoice ready, Visit reminder, Service report ready, Review request, Lead follow-up, Lead first reply, Broadcast, Test text) and by status (Any status, Sent, Skipped, Failed, Waiting). Each row shows the time, the customer, which text it was, and what happened: Delivered, Sent, Not delivered, Failed, Waiting to send, Sending, or Skipped with the reason.

Every skip reason, in plain English:

• No texting consent on file — the customer has no SMS consent recorded, so nothing automated can go to them.
• Customer replied STOP — they opted out. Only they can undo it, by texting START.
• This automation is turned off — that automation's switch is off company-wide.
• Automated texts are turned off — the master switch on the Automated texts tab is off.
• Texting isn't live on your number yet — no business number, or the carrier registration hasn't cleared.
• Quiet hours ended before it could send — the text waited for the quiet-hours window and expired first (an on-the-way text only stays useful for 30 minutes; a visit reminder expires at the end of the day it is for).
• Customer hit their daily text limit — they already got as many automated texts today as "Most texts per customer per day" allows.
• Your daily text limit was full — the company ran out of its daily carrier allowance before this one could go.
• Already sent — this was a duplicate — the same text for the same job/day had already gone out (this is what a service-report resend records).
• No phone number on file — nothing to text.
• The account owner's phone isn't verified — texting is blocked company-wide until the owner verifies. See verify your phone or email.
• Turned off for this customer — their Texts preference excludes this one.
• Turned off for this job — on-the-way only: the On the way texts switch on that job's page is off, even though the customer and the company are on.
• Canceled before it sent — the text was pulled back before it reached the carrier. This is what a canceled broadcast records, and what a lead follow-up records when the lead replies or converts first.
• Sent one recently — waiting out the cooldown — a review request inside that customer's cooldown window (90 days by default). The skipped row never starts the clock itself; only requests that actually went out do.

• Once your texting registration is live on your business number, automated texts send from that number and appear in the customer's conversation in the Phone inbox — customers can reply, and the reply lands in that thread.
• Before registration, they send from a shared toll-free number with no reply thread. They still leave a record: each one appears in the Phone inbox feed and on the customer's page as a read-only "Automated text" row (Sent / Failed), and in the Activity log as Sent — "From the shared number". Only the On the way and Invoice ready automations use the shared number; visit reminders, service-report texts, review requests, lead follow-ups, and broadcasts wait until your own number is texting and show in Activity as "Texting isn't live on your number yet". The same company switches, customer Texts preferences, consent, quiet hours, and daily caps apply on the shared number as on your own.
• Pool Founder appends "Reply STOP to opt out." for you on the carrier's cadence — do not write it into your own message or it will appear twice.

Turning texts off for one customer

Company switches set the default; a single customer can hold an exception. On their customer page, next to the click-to-copy pills, is a "Texts: Default" / "Texts: Off" / "Texts: Custom" pill. It opens Text preferences: their consent status (or the date they replied STOP), an Automated texts switch ("Off means this customer gets no automated texts at all" — and that includes broadcasts), and a switch each for On the way, Invoice ready, Visit reminder, Service report ready, and Review request. There is no sixth switch: lead follow-ups go to leads, not customers, so they are paused per lead on the lead's own Follow-ups card instead. Reset to default puts the customer back on your company settings. Editing needs the update-customers permission.

Turning on-the-way texts off for one pool

A customer with several pools — a property manager, an HOA, a homeowner with a spa on a separate job — may want the "on the way" heads-up for some of them and not others. That is what the On the way texts row on each job page is for. Open the job (Jobs → click the job, or from the customer's page), and look in the green rate card at the top, under Service emails: the row has a small switch and a one-line note that tells you where the text's state is really coming from.

• "Follows customer (on)" — the switch is on and this job texts like any other. Turn the switch off and the note changes to "Off for this job": this one pool is skipped while the customer's other jobs keep texting. Turn it back on and the job goes back to following the customer.
• "Customer has texts off — change it on the customer page" — the switch is locked off. This customer's Texts preference excludes on-the-way, and a job can't override that; the link takes you to the customer page.
• "Company automation is off — turn it on under Communication → Phone → Automated texts" — the switch is locked off because the company-wide On the way row is off. A job can't turn on something the company has off.
• "No phone number", "No texting consent", "Opted out" — every switch is on but nobody at this job can receive the text. Fix the customer's phone, consent, or opt-out on their page.

The per-job switch only ever subtracts: the order is company switch, then the customer's Texts preference, then the job. A job that is off shows a small Texts off badge on the Jobs list, and a text that was skipped because of it appears in the Activity log as "Turned off for this job". Editing it needs the same permission as editing the job. The technician app's stop card simply hides its On the Way button for a job that is off.

If your company had on-the-way texts on for only some of a customer's jobs before the company-wide switch existed (September 2026), those per-job choices were carried over: the jobs you had on still text, and the rest show "Off for this job". Nothing was turned on for a customer that had every job off — they were carried over as individually off on their Texts pill instead.

STOP and START (opt-outs)

Anyone who texts STOP — existing customers and new leads alike — is opted out, and neither the assistant nor your staff can text them until they text START.

The mobile Comms tab

The technician mobile app's Comms tab (bottom bar, visible to anyone with the "View customer inbox" permission — owners, admins, office managers, and viewers by default) shows portal service requests and sent emails for every company. Once the company has a business number it also shows texts and assistant-answered calls, with the business number at the top of the feed. Filter chips along the top are All, Messages (texts + portal threads), Calls (only shown when you have a business number), and Email. Sent emails are read-only rows — the customer, what was sent ("Invoice sent", "Service report sent", and so on), the recipient address, and a Sent / Delivered / Opened / Bounced status; tapping one opens the customer's page. Opening the email itself, replying, and email blasts are web-only.

• Tap a text conversation for the full SMS thread — reply, assistant mode, and draft approval, for companies with texting unlocked. A phone icon in the thread header calls the customer — companies with a business number and the "Call customers as the business" permission get a choice of "Call as [business number]" (rings your phone, press 1, connects the customer with the business caller ID) or "Call from my phone"; everyone else dials directly. Tapping the customer's name opens their profile.
• Start a new text with the compose button (bottom-right of the Comms feed, shown to users with a business number and the "Respond to customer inquiries" permission). Search to pick any customer, pick a lead (tagged "LEAD"), or type a brand-new phone number to text someone not in your book. It opens the conversation on your business line, then you type and send.
• The "Text" button on a customer or job screen opens the in-app Comms conversation with that person (on your business line) rather than your phone's own Messages app. Without a business number it falls back to your phone's native texting, as before.
• The feed has a search box to find a conversation by customer name or message text.
• Tap a portal thread to reply or leave an internal note; tap a call for its summary and transcript. Its call-back button offers the same business-number choice where available.
• A "bookings need your approval" banner at the top of the feed opens the Approvals screen, where users with the "Approve scheduling" permission Approve or Decline each proposed time.
• Push notifications for assistant events open the exact conversation, call, or the Approvals screen.
• When the Comms tab is visible, Account moves out of the bottom bar — it becomes the person icon in the top header.
• Automated texts are configured on the web only — there is no automated-texts screen in the technician app.

Frequently asked questions

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