SMS compliance: what we send and why it’s allowed

DispatchLine sends text messages on your behalf from one shared DispatchLine messaging number, not from your own line and not from the number we assign you for calls. All of them are transactional: they relate directly to a call the customer made or an appointment they booked. That is what keeps them permitted under the TCPA without separate written consent, and the agent still asks each caller before it texts, in the words shown in what the agent says.

What gets sent

• Appointment confirmations, right after booking, only to callers who agreed to a text on the call (SMS confirmations shows what one contains)
• Follow-ups you send from the Leads page
• Emergency alerts to team members who opted in to text alerts, once those are enabled

What never gets sent

Marketing: promotions, seasonal offers, review requests to people who didn’t just book. Those need prior express written consent and a different sending setup. If you want to run them, use your own marketing tool, not the DispatchLine number. The TCPA compliance checklist covers the consent and records they need.

Carrier registration

US carriers block business texts until the sending number and its use case are registered with them. Our messaging number is a toll-free number, and we register it once, for the whole platform, through carrier toll-free verification, which is a separate process from the A2P 10DLC registration that covers local 10-digit numbers. You file nothing and there is nothing to register in your own name. That verification is approved, so texting works on every account from day one. If you switch confirmation texts off, your agent confirms bookings by voice only and never mentions a text. Emergency alerts to your own team go out by email; text alerts to team members are optional, need their opt-in and a mobile number, and go out only once they are enabled.

STOP

Any reply of STOP (or STOPALL, unsubscribe, cancel, quit, end) blocks further texts to that number, and it is enforced automatically at send time. Because one number serves the whole platform, that block covers texts we send on behalf of every DispatchLine business, not only yours. A reply of START turns them back on. A reply of HELP gets a message naming DispatchLine and our support address; it does not name your business, because the shared number cannot tell us which of our customers the caller means.

Your responsibilities

• Keep your business name accurate in Settings. It is what identifies you to the recipient, because the shared number does not: we put it at the start of every appointment confirmation, and it is in the follow-up template on the Leads page.
• Don’t paste marketing into the lead follow-up template.
• Link the SMS terms from your own website if you advertise texting.