What the TCPA is
The Telephone Consumer Protection Act is a United States federal law from 1991 that was written for robocalls and later applied to text messages. It is enforced by the Federal Communications Commission and through private lawsuits, which is why it gets attention: a business that texts without consent can be sued per message.
The law draws a line between messages a customer asked for and messages a business wants to send. A confirmation of the appointment someone just booked sits on one side. A text about a spring whitening special sits on the other. The consent needed is different for each.
This page explains the concepts so you can ask the right questions. It is general information, not legal advice. Your attorney should review your forms and your message flows.
What express written consent means
For marketing texts, the TCPA requires prior express written consent. In practice that means a disclosure next to the checkbox or the form button that says the customer agrees to receive marketing texts from your business, that messages may be sent with automated technology, that consent is not a condition of purchase, that message and data rates may apply, and how to opt out. The customer takes a clear action to agree, and you keep a record of it.
Electronic signatures count, so a ticked box on a web form or a reply of a keyword to a number can qualify, as long as the disclosure was shown first and you can prove it later. A phone number scribbled on an intake sheet without that language does not.
Transactional messages, such as a confirmation, a reminder, a reschedule link or a message about a form the customer started, need consent too, but not the marketing disclosure. Giving you their number in the course of booking generally covers messages about that booking. It does not cover promotions, which is why the two consents stay separate on a well-built form.
STOP, HELP and the record
Every text program has to honor an opt-out. A reply of STOP must end that stream of messages, and the customer should get one confirmation that they are unsubscribed. A reply of HELP should return who is texting and how to reach you. Carriers require this on top of the law, and they will shut off a number that ignores it.
The record is your defense. Store the exact consent language the customer saw, the timestamp, the phone number and the source form. If a customer disputes a message two years later, you want to be able to show what they agreed to and when. If you change the form text, keep the old version with the date it was retired.
Common mistakes
Treating one consent as all consent. A customer who booked a visit agreed to hear about the visit, not to a monthly promotion. Texting old lists imported from a previous system with no record of how the numbers were collected. Sending from a personal phone, where STOP replies land in a thread nobody checks.
Forgetting that time matters. Many states restrict the hours promotional texts can be sent, and some add their own consent rules. A reminder at 7 a.m. for a 9 a.m. visit is a service. A promotion at 7 a.m. is a complaint.
How Ottimo handles it
Ottimo’s forms carry separate checkboxes for appointment messages and promotional messages, with the disclosure text beside each. The consent, its timestamp and the form it came from are stored on the customer record. Email and SMS follow-up reads those flags, so a reminder goes to anyone with a booking and a promotion goes only to people who opted in to promotions.
STOP and HELP are handled automatically on every number, and an opt-out updates the record so a person at the desk sees it too. The AI phone agent texts a confirmation after it books, under the appointment consent, and does not send promotions. We provide the language to your attorney for review before you go live.