---
title: Two-way messaging with clients
slug: two-way-messaging-with-clients
category: Messages & Notifications
url: https://alaga.io/help/article/two-way-messaging-with-clients
audiences: business_owner, manager, staff
updated: 2026-09-11
source: Alaga Help Center
---

# 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.