Text Messaging

The Messages inbox (under Online) lets you text customers and see their replies in one place — a conversation per person, just like the messages app on your phone. No more one-way “we sent it and hope they got it.”

What you can do

• See every conversation in a list on the left, newest first, with an unread count.
• Open a conversation to read the full back-and-forth and reply right there.
• Replies come in automatically — when a customer texts your shop number back, it lands in the right conversation.
• Send and receive photos — attach a picture with the paperclip, and photos a customer sends you appear right in the conversation.
• Start a new conversation — search a customer at the top of the list and message them, even if they’ve never texted you first.
• See delivery status — every text you send shows Sent, Delivered, or Undelivered (with the reason), just like your phone.

Starting a conversation

Use the search box at the top of the conversation list to find any customer and start texting — you don’t have to wait for them to text first. JewelTrak texts the number set as their texting line on their contact record (see Communication Preferences); if they haven’t got one, set it there first.

A conversation is a phone number

Each conversation belongs to a phone number, not to a customer record — the same way it works on your own phone. That has a few consequences worth knowing:

• If a husband and wife are both on file with the same mobile, they share one conversation. The header tells you when a number belongs to more than one customer record.
• Permission to text, and any STOP, belong to the number too — so they cover everyone reachable at it. You can’t text one person on a phone whose owner has opted out.
• To text a customer’s other line, you start a separate conversation with that number. It’s a different handset, and it needs its own permission.

Delivery status

Each text you send shows its status under the bubble — Sent, Delivered, or Undelivered — just like the messages app on your phone. If a text can’t be delivered, the reason appears (for example “landline or unreachable carrier” or “number no longer in service”), so you can correct the number on the customer’s record. (Live delivery status requires your carrier A2P registration to be complete.)

Sending and receiving photos

Tap the paperclip next to the message box to attach a photo — say, a picture of a finished repair before the customer comes to pick it up. When a customer texts you a photo, it shows up inline in the conversation; tap it to view it full size.

Photo messages (called MMS) work just like texts, with two things to know: they cost a little more per message than a plain text, and — like any outgoing text — they need your A2P registration finished before they’ll deliver. Receiving photos works as soon as your number is connected.

What you need first

Texting runs on your own Twilio number:

1. Connect Twilio in Settings → Integrations (your account SID, auth token, and phone number).
2. Register for A2P 10DLC. US carriers require businesses to register before they’ll reliably deliver texts from a regular phone number. Until that’s done, messages may be filtered or blocked by the carriers — this is a carrier rule, not a JewelTrak limit.
3. Point your Twilio number’s “A message comes in” webhook at the address JewelTrak gives you, so replies flow into the inbox.

Until those are in place, the inbox still works — you just can’t reliably send or receive yet.

You need the customer’s permission before you can text them

This isn’t a JewelTrak preference — it’s the law (TCPA), and it’s what the phone carriers check before they’ll approve your business to send texts at all. A customer has to say yes before you can text them. Having their number on file is not permission.

Ask whenever the customer is in front of you. The same “Customer agrees to receive text updates” box — with the exact wording to read them printed underneath — appears everywhere you’d be standing with them:

• taking in a repair or custom job (the work-order intake form)
• taking in an appraisal
• on an existing work order, under Messages — for when the job was written up before the customer arrived
• on their contact record, under Communication — any customer, any time, no job needed

They’re all the same box and the same permission. Ask once; every screen then shows it as already agreed, so nobody gets asked twice. It’s recorded the moment you tick it — you don’t have to save the form afterwards for it to count.

It is optional, and it must stay optional — a customer can decline and still get exactly the same service; you just call them instead. Never tick the box for someone who didn’t agree: that’s the one thing that would put your shop (and your texting registration) at risk.

JewelTrak records each yes — who agreed, when, on which number, which staff member took it, and the exact words they were shown. That record is your evidence if the permission is ever questioned.

Permission belongs to the phone number. So if two customer records share a number, one yes covers both — the box tells you when that’s the case. And if you change a customer’s number, the new number needs its own permission: the old yes was about the old phone.

If they never agreed, JewelTrak won’t send. Trying to text a customer with no permission on file gives you a clear message instead of a text. The one exception: if the customer texts you first, you can reply — they started the conversation.

If they change their mind, Withdraw on the same box takes the permission away.

Opt-outs are handled for you

If a customer texts STOP (or UNSUBSCRIBE / CANCEL), JewelTrak blocks further texts to that number — this is legally required, and it’s recorded alongside their original permission. You’ll see the block if you try to message them.

Only the customer can undo a STOP, by texting START. Staff can’t tick it away, and JewelTrak won’t let you: the phone carriers keep their own opt-out list for that number and will refuse the message anyway, so pretending otherwise would only hide the problem. Call or email them instead.

Good to know

• A text from a number you don’t have on file still lands in the inbox, shown under that number — nothing is lost. Add them as a contact and the conversation attaches to them.
• This is for conversational, one-to-one texting. Bulk marketing blasts are a separate thing (and have their own consent rules).

See also

• Email Campaigns — the marketing-email side