Texting customers from your business landline: what Ontario trades need to know

Why text at all

A homeowner at work often can't take a call, but can answer a text in a spare minute. Texting lets them reply when it suits them, and it leaves a written record of the address, the time you agreed and the photo of the leak.

For your side, it means fewer rounds of phone tag and fewer interruptions on the job.

Why not just text from your cell?

Many trades start by texting customers from a personal mobile. It works, until it doesn't.

• Your personal number gets around. Customers save it and call it on Sunday night, for years.
• The history lives on one phone. If the owner is on holiday, nobody else can see what was agreed.
• People leave. When an employee moves on, their customer conversations go with them.
• It's not the number customers know. The number on your truck, invoices and Google profile is your business line.

How a landline learns to text

Most business landlines can be text-enabled without changing anything about your phone service. It's often called hosted SMS. A messaging provider adds texting to your existing number, while your phone company keeps carrying your calls exactly as before.

• You authorize it. You confirm you control the number and sign a letter of authorization.
• Your carrier checks it. Activation typically takes 1 to 5 business days from a complete submission.
• Some numbers don't qualify. Mobile numbers aren't eligible, and a number that already texts through another provider has to be released from that service first.

Once it's live, texts to your business number arrive in a shared inbox, and your replies go out from that same number. Our Hosted SMS guide covers the details.

The rules: CASL in plain English

Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation, known as CASL, covers commercial electronic messages, and that includes texts. It has three basic requirements.

1. Consent. You need the person's permission. It can be express, where they agreed to hear from you, or implied. Implied consent usually comes from an existing business relationship: a purchase from you in the past two years, or an inquiry in the past six months.
2. Identification. Each message has to say who it's from and how to reach you.
3. An easy way to unsubscribe. Replying STOP is the usual way, and ARRET, its French equivalent, is worth honouring too. CASL requires you to act on an unsubscribe request within 10 business days at most. Most texting systems stop messages at once.

Some messages, such as a quote the customer asked for or a booking confirmation, don't need consent, but they still have to identify you and offer a way to opt out. Promotional texts, like a spring tune-up offer sent to past customers, are where consent matters most.

The penalties are real: up to $10 million per violation for a business. The CRTC's CASL guidance is the place to check anything you're unsure about.

Good texting habits

• Text during business hours. Save evenings for urgent updates, like running late for tomorrow's first call.
• Start with who you are. "Hi, it's Sam from [your business]."
• Keep it short. One clear message beats three.
• Sign with a name. People like knowing who they're talking to.
• Never ask for card numbers by text. Send a secure payment link or take payment by phone.
• Keep it in a shared inbox. So anyone on the team can pick up where someone else left off.

Texting from your business number also opens up the rest: asking for Google reviews, texting back missed callers and turning website questions into text conversations.

This article is general information for business owners, not legal advice. Survey figures are US consumer research where noted; we are not aware of equivalent published Canadian surveys and do not present them as Canadian data.