PAST CUSTOMERS
Texting old customers without annoying them
Somewhere in your dispatch software or a shoebox is every customer you have had since you started. You paid to get each one, in ads or in time. A Fontainebleau homeowner whose water heater you replaced in 2019 has a seven-year-old water heater now and does not remember your name. That is the list, and there is a right way to text it.
A note on what this is. It is not a claim about how much work an old list brings back. It is the rules for texting people who hired you once, and the difference between that and a list you bought.
Permission you have versus a list you bought
A past customer called you, hired you, paid you and gave you her number to do it. That is a relationship, and a message about the work you did for her fits inside it. A list bought from a data company is strangers. Texting strangers about your services is how companies get fined. The system is set up for the first list and will not load the second.
The rules
- A human pace. Twenty or thirty a day, so the office can answer every reply the same day.
- Quiet hours. Nothing between 8 PM and 8 AM.
- A stop word in every message: STOP, ALTO, PARE. One reply and she is out for good.
- One message and one reminder ten days later. Then the list is done for the season.
- In her language. The record knows it from the last job.
WHAT TO SAY
What not to say
No "special offer." No "limited time." No emoji. No price. Nothing that reads like the texts she already ignores. The message works because it is from a company that did real work at her house and remembers.
What happens to replies
They land in the inbox. Someone books; she goes on the board with the 2019 job attached. Someone says "not now"; the office notes it and she is skipped next season. Someone says STOP; she is marked and never included again.
Your number has to be registered with the phone carriers before a list this size goes out. That is done during setup. Without it, the messages are filtered and you never know.
Questions we get asked about this
How old is too old?
If you cannot say what work you did for her, do not text her. Most companies go back five to seven years and stop.
Can I text everyone at once?
You can, and it is the fastest way to a pile of angry replies nobody can answer. The pace setting is there for a reason.
What if she never gave me her cell?
Then she is not on the list. A number you looked up somewhere else is not permission.
Related
Count the list
How many customers have you had since you started? If you do not know, book a 30-minute call and we will find out from your own records.