SMS opt-in workflow
Last updated August 8, 2026
Service Puffin is scheduling and invoicing software for small home-service businesses. This page documents how the customers of those businesses consent to receive text messages, and what they are told at the moment they consent. The live form described here is at servicepuffin.com/book.
Where consent is captured
- 1
The customer opens the business's booking page
Each business using Service Puffin has a booking page hosted by us, showing that business's name and the services it offers. - 2
They enter their own mobile number
The number is typed by the customer into the booking form. Numbers are never purchased, rented, appended from third parties, or imported from any list. - 3
They tick the consent box themselves
The box is unticked by default and the form submits whether or not it is ticked. Consent is not a condition of booking. The exact wording shown is reproduced below. - 4
Consent is stored with a timestamp
Ticking the box records the date, the time and the source of consent against that customer's record. Nothing is sent to a customer without such a record. - 5
The first message repeats the opt-out
The first text a customer ever receives ends with “Reply STOP to opt out.”
The exact consent language
This is a copy of the consent block as it appears on the booking form, immediately above the submit button.
- Message frequency:
- varies by how often you book — typically a few messages per appointment.
- Standard rates:
- message and data rates may apply depending on your mobile phone service plan.
- Help & stop:
- reply HELP for help or STOP to cancel any time.
Consent is not required to book. Your number is never sold or shared for marketing. Terms of Service | Privacy Policy
[Business Name] is replaced with the name of the business being booked — for example “Soho Clean”.
Consent given in person or by phone
A business may also record consent a customer gives verbally, for example an existing customer agreeing on the phone to be texted reminders. That is stored against the customer with the date and a “verbal” source, in the same record the booking form writes to. The send path checks for one of these records before every message and refuses to send without one, logging the refusal.
Opting out
Every recipient can stop messages at any time by replying STOP. This is handled automatically and takes effect immediately, blocking all further messages to that number until the recipient texts START. Replying HELP returns the business's name and phone number.
Any other reply receives one automated response per day explaining that the number is not monitored and giving the business's own phone number, so nobody is left texting into silence.
What is sent
Appointment confirmations, reminders, on-the-way notices, invoices and payment receipts — all of them transactional messages about work the recipient has booked. No marketing, promotional or sales messages are sent. Message frequency depends on how often the customer books, typically a few messages per appointment.
Every message begins with the name of the business it is sent on behalf of. That is enforced in application code rather than in editable templates, so a business cannot send an unbranded or misattributed message.