Can I text my customers? PECR and the soft opt-in, plainly

Texting is one of the most effective tools a small business has, and one of the easiest to get wrong. The rules that govern it are the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003, usually shortened to PECR, which sit alongside UK GDPR and are enforced by the Information Commissioner’s Office. This guide explains the parts a small business needs, in plain English. It is general information, not legal advice; the ICO’s own guidance on direct marketing using electronic mail, which counts texts as electronic mail, is the authority.

Service texts and marketing texts

The first question is what the message is for. A service message is about something the customer has already arranged with you: a booking confirmation, a reminder the day before, a note that you are running late, a change to their appointment. These are not marketing, so the marketing rules do not apply to them, although they are still personal data and UK GDPR still applies.

A marketing message promotes something: a new service, an offer, a reopening, a gap in next week’s diary. Anything that tries to get the customer to buy or book something new is marketing, even when it is friendly and short. Mixing a promotion into a reminder makes the reminder a marketing message too.

Who the rules protect

The PECR rules on marketing texts and emails protect individual subscribers: people, sole traders and some partnerships. Messages to limited companies at their business numbers are treated differently, but most customers of a salon, a garage or a plumber are individuals, so assume the rules apply.

Consent, or the soft opt-in

To send a marketing text to an individual you need their consent, given freely and specifically, unless the soft opt-in in regulation 22 applies. It applies only when all of these are true:

• You got their contact details yourself, in the course of a sale, or negotiations for a sale, such as a booking or an enquiry.
• You are marketing your own similar products or services, not someone else’s and not something unrelated.
• You gave them a simple way to refuse marketing when you collected their details, and they did not refuse.
• Every marketing message since gives them a simple, free way to opt out.

Miss one and the soft opt-in does not apply. In practice that means saying, at the point of booking, that you may send news and offers and how to say no, and putting an opt-out in every message. The ICO sets out each condition in how to comply with the PECR electronic mail marketing rules.

What every marketing text must do

• Say clearly who it is from.
• Offer a free, simple way to opt out, such as “Reply STOP to opt out”.
• Stop when someone opts out, on every channel, not just the one they replied on.
• Go only to people who were offered the chance to say no, or who agreed.

Review requests

Is a text asking for a review marketing? It depends on what it says, and the cautious answer is to treat it as marketing: mention it at booking, give a way to refuse, and include an opt-out. Our guide on getting more Google reviews, legally covers the review rules themselves.

What to avoid

• Bought or borrowed lists of numbers
• Texting old customers who were never offered a way to say no
• Slipping offers into appointment reminders
• Keeping on texting someone who replied STOP

The ICO can and does fine businesses for unsolicited marketing texts, and most of those cases begin with complaints from the people who received them.

How Ringmere handles it

Ringmere is built around these rules, but the decision to send is always the business’s own, and so is the responsibility.

• Confirmations and reminders are service texts about the booking, on every plan.
• Review requests are treated as marketing: the booking confirmation tells the customer one text may follow and how to refuse it, only a customer whose confirmation carried that notice is asked, and every request ends with a way out.
• News texts, on Growth and Pro, go only to customers who booked using their own number after you switched the feature on, were told at booking that news may follow, and did not say no. Every text names your business and offers a way out.
• One opt-out list. A customer who replies STOP, on WhatsApp or by text, gets no more automated messages from your business on any channel until they reply START.

The features page shows each of these, and our privacy policy explains the records kept to show a customer was told.

Frequently asked questions