Texting customers

  • Updated

Additional information is available to FareHarbor employees.

In addition to automatic reminder text messages, you can also send text messages to customers from a booking or availability. If messaging multiple customers at once from an availability, keep in mind that:

  • Texts will only be sent to customers who have opted in to receive text messages.
  • SMS messages from FareHarbor are only sent to verified phone numbers associated with a booking. This security measure prevents unauthorized changes to phone numbers and reduces the risk of phishing attacks.

Don’t see the option to send text messages? Your permission group may not allow it, or you may not have texting enabled on your Dashboard. Get in touch with FareHarbor Support to update your settings.

Note: Every text message sent through FareHarbor is appended with a short link to the customer’s confirmation page, so they can easily see the details of their reservation.

Click into the sections below for more information on how to text customers.

Sending text messages

You can send text messages to all participants associated with a booking.

To send a text message from a single booking:

  1. Open the customer’s booking and click Send email or text.
  2. Choose Text message.
  3. If the customer has a phone number on file, it will automatically be filled in. If not, enter their number.

  4. Type your message (maximum of 130 characters): 

  5. Click Send text.

You can also send a text using a canned text message.

To send a text message to multiple recipients from an availability:

  1. Open the availability overview containing the recipients you want to text.
  2. Click Actions & Settings in the top-right, and select Send email or text.

  3. Select Text message. 

  4. By default, all customers for this availability who have opted in to receiving text messages are selected. To exclude a customer from the list, deselect the check box next to their name:

  5. Enter your message in the content box, or click the icon to select a canned message:

  6. Click Send text messages. The text message is sent to all selected recipients.

Only customers who have specifically opted in to receiving text messages can be contacted using this method. To view contacts who have not opted in, click the Show contacts link. You can then send them an email instead.

Opting in to text messages

Not everyone has a text message plan on their phone, especially if they are traveling from another country. Many times these customers are still able to receive a text message, but it could cost them extra.

When a customer is booking online, they can opt in to text message notifications about their booking:

When you are creating bookings in your Dashboard, you’ll see a check box that does the same thing:

This allows FareHarbor to send automatic text reminders to the customer, if you have them enabled. You can also send individual texts directly from the customer’s booking.

If a customer booked online but did not opt in to receiving text messages, you are still able to send them individual messages. However, be cautious of sending messages to these customers for the reasons mentioned above.

Note: In some countries, there may be laws surrounding how and when businesses can communicate with customers via SMS (text) messaging. Busines.com has a good discussion about this issue.

Tracking the status of a text message

An activity will be logged at the bottom of the booking where you can track the status of your message. The following is a list of possible statuses and their meanings:

  • Pending(or Queued): The message is being processed and will be sent.
  • Rejected: Request to send the message was rejected by the processing server.
  • Sending: The message is in the process of being dispatched to the network carrier.
  • Sent: Message has been successfully sent to the recipient(s).
  • Delivered: Message has been successfully delivered to the recipient(s).
  • Undelivered: Message could not be delivered to the recipient(s). For example, if a customer’s phone is turned off or otherwise unavailable.
  • Failed: Message could not be sent. This status could possibly be due to to an overflow of queued messages and other media errors.
  • Invalid: Phone number is invalid.

Tip: You can easily track the status of reminder texts from your Manifest. When viewing your Manifest, navigate to Columns Basic columns, and check the box for “Reminder text message status”.

If you want to view the phone numbers currently in a given status, click the link to the right of the color-coded status indicator, as shown in this example:

Preventing texts from being marked as spam

Occasionally, text messages you send your customers may get flagged as spam and blocked by a cell service provider. However, there are things you can do to prevent this and ensure your texts are sent successfully.

Avoid these most common mistakes that cause text messages to get marked as spam:

  • Using all caps
  • Using a lot of symbols (for example, #, !, @)
  • Sending a text when your customer did not opt into receiving text messaging

  • Including external links, especially if they’ve been shortened using a public URL shortener (like bit.ly)

    Tip: We recommend putting all information that requires a link in the confirmation page.

  • Using these commonly flagged words:
    • From
    • For
    • Hate
    • Rate
    • Free
  • Using odd sentence structure or grammar

Note: Abbreviations, initials, and shorthand are all allowed, as long as they don’t fall under any of the previously aforementioned situations.

FAQs

Why is there a 130 character limit?

The standard maximum length for a single text message is 160 characters. FareHarbor has a 130 character limit to allow space for a shortened link to the customer’s confirmation page at the end of each text.

Although most phone networks support messages longer than 160 characters, they will automatically break up these longer texts into multiple messages. Since many people who are traveling may be on a limited data plan, the character limit exists to reduce the number of text messages sent from FareHarbor to opted-in customers.

When texting from an availability, why do I not see a specific customer’s name in the list from which to choose text message recipients?

Customers must specifically opt in to receiving text messages in order for them to be texted from an availability. They can still be contacted via email using the link provided below the list of users who have opted in.

Can I edit a canned text message before sending it?

Yes. You can make any edits to a canned message prior to sending the message, provided you stay within the 130-character limit.

What about international numbers?

By default, FareHarbor allows sending texts to international phone numbers. Keep in mind that customers traveling internationally may have a limited data plan while abroad, or may be charged extra for text messaging.

Can a customer text me back?

Texts from FareHarbor are send-only. If a customer replies to a text sent from FareHarbor, they will get an automatic response that the number does not accept replies and to contact you another way.