Texting: Collecting Text Message Consent and Opt Out Status

Before you begin texting your respective audience (prospective students, current students, alumni etc..), whether you're a For-Profit or Non-Profit institution, consent to text must be established before sending the contact any messages.

To help you with what is needed to gain consent, we've put together a simple Cadence Texting Compliance Checklist.

Obtaining Consent

In order to obtain proper consent to send the recipient relevant text messages, the collection method must include the following:

A clear explanation of what types of messages the recipient–if agreeing to opt-in–can expect to receive
An indication of the planned frequency of messages
A place to provide a valid mobile number

An example of acceptable consent language and data collection would be:

Mongoose University requests your consent to text you about events, important deadlines, your academic program, and other relevant information related your enrollment and success at the university. You can typically expect texts no more than twice per week.

You can also reply to texts to get a response from our advising staff. We recommend that you do not include sensitive personal information (e.g. your Social Security number) in your texts. You can unsubscribe from receiving text messages at any time by replying to a text with the word STOP.

Please fill out the information below to opt into our texting program. Thank you!

I agree to opt-in to receive texts from Mongoose University:

Student ID

First Name

Last Name

Mobile Number

How Can Contacts Opt Out of Receiving Text Messages

Once texting consent has been collected and contacts are opted in, as a best practice, every message you send should clearly identify you (your institution’s name and department) as the sender, except in follow-up messages of an ongoing conversation. The initial message that you send to an individual needs to include instructions for opting out at the end of the message such as “Reply STOP to unsubscribe”.

There are two ways that they can be opted out of receiving texts from Cadence:

1. Automatic opt out

Contacts can opt out by replying to a text sent from Cadence with one of these trigger words: STOP, STOPALL, UNSUBSCRIBE, CANCEL, END, or QUIT. This type of Opt-Out is maintained at the carrier level and the contact will receive one final automated message confirming that the opt out has occurred.

The contact will be opted-out of receiving texts from anyone in that Cadence team. Additionally, if that user/phone number exists in another team, the contact will be opted-out of receiving texts from that person.

Note: The trigger word can be any capitalization, however, the text message must only contain the word itself.

2. User-initiated opt out

Within Cadence, any user/admin can go into the contact's conversation view (or Contacts > Search) and click OPT-OUT.

The contact will be opted-out of receiving texts from anyone in that team.

Note: A few words to keep in mind when texting contacts:

Contacts will also be prompted with an automated message from their carrier about how to Opt Out should they use one of these carrier trigger words, "HELP" and "INFO". If contacts reply with either of these two words, the carrier will intercept the message and prompt them with an automatic response letting them know how to Opt Out.

Opting Contacts Back In

Contacts can be opted back into receiving text messages, and the process varies depending on how the contact initially opted out.

1. If the contact opted out via automatic opt out

The contact can text the word START, YES, or UNSTOP (just the word; any capitalization is accepted) to the virtual number he/she initially opted out of. This opts the contact back into receiving text messages within the team and the user can begin texting the contact once again.

Note: The contact will receive the following confirmation message: “You have successfully been re-subscribed to messages from this number. Reply HELP for help. Reply STOP to unsubscribe. Msg&Data Rates May Apply.”

2. If the contact opted out via user-initiated opt out

A user can go into the contact's conversation view and click "Contact Details" then use the toggle next to “OPTED-OUT” to opt the contact back in.

Note: If the contact opted out via user-initiated opt out, the contact can also be opted back in by an Admin via import if the “OptedOut” column value is set to “no”, “false”, "n", or "0".

Notifications

Mongoose offers a built-in notification process to help you manage opt out status changes. Based on your institution’s opt out notification settings (configured by Admin users under " Team Name" > Notifications), the platform can send an email to a specific person or multiple people each time a contact's opt out status changes.

Note: If your institution manually imports contact data into Cadence, please update your information system when opt out changes occur to ensure that accurate information is imported. If your institution utilizes the API connection, notifications can be enabled via webhook so opt out status is automatically updated on the contact's record.

Carrier Trigger Words

There are some words that you'll want to make sure you are strategic in using when sending text messages. There are words that carriers have identified as trigger words that can result in contacts "Opting Out" or being flagged by the carrier. These words are "STOP", "CANCEL", "END", "QUIT", "UNSUBSCRIBE", "HELP" and "INFO".

"STOP", "CANCEL", "END", "QUIT", "UNSUBSCRIBE" are carrier "Opt Out" words, meaning, contacts will be opted out of receiving messages automatically if they send any of these words (the word by itself) in a message. Only include these words in your text messages if the intent is for students to opt out of receiving messages as noted above.
- When a contact replies with one of the valid "Opt Out" words, one final message to confirm the opt-out will be delivered. The only way that the contact can be opted back in is if the contact sends an opt-in keyword to the same number (UNSTOP, START, YES, etc.).
"HELP" and "INFO" are words that the carriers will intercept and prompt contacts with an auto reply letting them know how to opt out of messages. These two words are flagged and looked at by carriers as messages that are questionable. If a contact replies with "HELP" or "INFO", you will not see the reply in Cadence.

Example:

What you should say-"Hello <FIRST NAME>, this is Ashley at MU. We saw you started your application but haven't finished. Do you have any questions about your application?"

Avoid messages like this- "Hello <FIRST NAME>, this is Ashley at MU. We saw you started your application but haven't finished. If you need help or have questions, reply HELP"

Additional Notes

Cadence stores opt out information on a team-by-team basis.
There is not a way to automatically opt a contact out across all users and all teams. The easiest way would be to find the contact in each team and opt the contact out.
If your institution imports a contact for the first time and does not include the OptedOut column, Cadence will automatically opt the contact in.
Unless you include the OptedOut column in your imports, the opt-out status of an existing contact in Cadence will be preserved and will only change if an automatic or user-initiated opt-out occurs in the platform.
A contact who has automatically opted-out cannot be changed back to opted-in via import; that contact would need to text one of the accepted trigger words in order to opt back in.