Many customers prefer to have messages and booking notifications sent directly to their phone rather than to their email. Sending messages in this way can help you notify customers that are on the go and perhaps unable to keep an eye on their email inbox. BusyPaws makes it easy to send SMS messages to your customers while keeping your clients' entire message history, email and text, in the same place. In this guide, we will take a closer look at how to set up SMS messaging through your BusyPaws account.

For more general information about messaging in BusyPaws, check out our guides on Sending & Receiving Messages and Customizable Automated Messaging.

SMS messaging is available for any paid Solo, Team, or Business level plan with a business phone number added to the account. It is not available for those accounts on a Starter level subscription. To get setup for sending text messages to clients through your BusyPaws account, you'll need to head to your SMS Settings page. Click the gear icon in the bottom-left corner of the page.

The select "SMS Messaging" under the "Business Settings" section.

This page includes information about how many messages you've sent as well as some settings for turning SMS messaging on and off.

To begin using SMS messaging (manual and/or automatic), turn the "SMS Active" toggle ON (purple). To be able to do this, you will need to be on a paid plan with BusyPaws and have a business phone number added.

If you have not yet added a business phone number to your account, you can do so from this page. Use the country code drop-down to select the country, type your phone number into the right-hand "Your Phone Number" field, then click the "Update" button.

Once you have added a phone number and turned the SMS messaging toggle on, a phone number will be added to your account. This is the number from which messages will be sent to your clients when you create new text/SMS threads in BusyPaws. Note that it can take about an hour or so after turning messaging on for this phone number to become available.

Manual messages are used to communicate any information that goes beyond those messages linked to specific client actions. This can include inquiries about pet information, quick updates on a pet's progress, instructions for homework, or any other messages with details or requests specific to a particular customer or booking. Manual message threads can be started from a few different places, including your Messages Index, a customer's profile, and any booking's information page.

When creating a new thread, whether from a customer's profile, a booking page, or your Messages Index, the message window will always default to email format. Click the "SMS" button to switch it to text message format. This will result in a New Thread form with a "To" field and a basic text field to which your message can be added. Use the "Select Clients" drop-down menu to add customers to the recipient list, add your message, then click the "Send Message" button.

Note that, when creating a message from a customer's profile, the message recipient will be set automatically. Only those clients with an SMS enabled phone number on their profile will have the SMS option available when starting new message threads. Those without phone numbers on their account and those with numbers not recognized as able to receive SMS messages will only have the option to send messages as emails.

If a message is created from a booking page, the "To" field will be preset with the customer or group of customers that are currently registered for that booking. Note that, even if SMS has been selected, any clients without a phone number associated with their account, or those with a phone number not recognized as SMS compatible will receive the message as an email.

Client notifications are used to provide customers with updates linked to specific actions, such as the creation or cancellation of a booking, or the payment of an invoice. Templates for these automated communications can be found on your Client Notifications page.

For a full list and description of each available notification type, please refer to our guide on Customizable Client Notifications. Note that the Welcome Message is available only as an email, and cannot be configured to go out as an SMS message. Also note that, unlike user-created message threads, automatic texts are not sent as an email should the recipient not have an SMS-enabled phone number on their account. To ensure all clients receive your notifications, we recommend keeping both the email and SMS versions of your notifications turned on.

Once a message thread has been started, whether by a manual message sent from your team or by an automated notification, any response made by the client will display in BusyPaws. So long as the customer responds directly to the message (rather than creating a new one), their response and any subsequent messages sent from your team will appear in the same thread. All replies sent by your clients, whether via text or email, will display in your Messages Index. This page does not however display any automated outgoing messages. Those messages will only appear in your Message Index when a customer replies to them. Unread messages will populate a red notification bubble next to the "Messages" icon in the left-hand menu.

Messages sent to customers regarding a specific booking, along with any responses to those threads, can also be found on the "Messages" tab of that booking's info page. This tab will only display once the booking has at least one message thread started.

Likewise, all outgoing messages sent to and replies from any given customer will be listed in the "Messages" tab on their Customer Profile page. This tab will only display once the client has received at least one message through BusyPaws, whether manual or automatic.

Regardless of where the messages are viewed, users can read and respond to messages easily from the message inbox and outbox.

Text message threads can be distinguished from email threads by the plain text box (rather than the rich text field with formatting options available for emails) at the bottom of the thread and the "Send Text" button located just below that field.

All messages in your inbox and outbox will also be marked with either a small SMS or mail icon to indicate whether they are text or email threads. Text messages will be listed with a short preview of the client's most recent message underneath the customer's name, rather than the subject line shown for emails.

To send a new message response, select the desired thread from the inbox or outbox on the left-hand side, then enter your message into the text field at the bottom of the thread. Clicking the "Send Text" or "Send Email" button will send the recipient your message. Threads always maintain the same format as that of the original message, so if the thread was started with an SMS message, your response will likewise be sent as a text.

Once messages have been sent, you can check their status. Each SMS/text message will indicate whether or not it has been delivered. Successfully sent messages will list "Sent - Delivered", while failed messages will indicate "Sent - Failed". This information will be listed directly under each sent message, beside the information about the date on which the message was sent. Note that this does not indicate whether or not the client has read the message, just whether it was delivered.

SMS messaging is available for any account with a paid Solo, Team, or Business level plan and to which a business phone number has been added. Messages are purchased monthly in blocks of 500. You can easily track how many messages you have sent by checking your SMS Settings page. The "Billing" section includes a tally of messages sent in the previous period (i.e. previous month) as well as the count for the current period (i.e. current month). These tallies include messages you send out and any message replies you receive from your clients.

Note that longer messages (i.e. those with more than 153 characters) will be sent in multiple segments. When you reach the end of a block of messages, the first segment sent over that will prompt the purchase of another block of 500. This will occur automatically. For exact pricing and the most up to date pricing details, please see our guide on SMS Pricing.

It is important to be able to contact your clients using a variety of different methods. BusyPaws makes it easy to keep track of any communications you need to send to your clients over email or via text. If you have any questions or concerns about sending text messages in BusyPaws, feel free to reach out to our team for assistance!