Two-way messaging with clients

Sidebar: Messages.

Each client has one conversation thread holding everything either side has sent. Anyone on your team with access sees the same history, which is the entire point — messages on one person's phone are invisible to whoever is on shift tomorrow.

Three ways to send

When you send, you choose how it goes out:

• Portal message — appears in the client's portal. Free, no character limit, no consent needed.
• Text message — goes to their phone. Immediate, but needs their consent and uses your monthly allowance.
• Both — portal and text together, for something that genuinely cannot wait.

Default to the portal. Use text for time-critical things: a pet ready earlier than expected, a delay, something that needs an answer today.

Replies come back to the same thread

Client replies land in the conversation, whether they answered in the portal or by text. There is no second inbox to check.

Photos

Attach photos to a message. This is the feature clients react to most — a picture of their dog mid-groom is the single cheapest piece of goodwill available to a pet business, and it costs you fifteen seconds.

Text messages need consent

You cannot text a client who has not agreed to be texted, and there is no override. If the text option is unavailable for someone, that is why — see Text messages: consent, compliance and what gets sent.

A client who replies STOP to any of your texts is opted out immediately and permanently until they reply START. That happens automatically and cannot be undone from your side.

What messaging is not

• Not a marketing channel. Sending an offer to fifty clients belongs in Marketing, which handles unsubscribes and consent properly. Using conversations for promotion is how businesses get their number blocked.
• Not a record of care. Notes about a pet belong on the pet record where the next person will find them, not buried in a thread.
• Not monitored out of hours. Clients will message at 11pm. Set expectations about response times somewhere they will see them.

Practical advice

• Answer from Alaga, not your personal phone. A conversation that moves to someone's mobile is lost to the business.
• Keep it in one thread per client. Everything about that household in one place is worth more than tidy categorisation.
• Check it daily. An unanswered client message is worse than not offering messaging at all — they can see it was delivered.