TCPA & SMS compliance for follow-up texts. Three rules every follow-up text has to clear before it goes out.

The TCPA's first cousin in the trade is the FCC's prior-express-written-consent rule: a recipient of marketing texts has to opt in, in writing, before any marketing-grade SMS goes out. For service-trade follow-ups the rule applies whether the SMS is sent one-to-one by the dispatcher or in bulk from a marketing list — the bar is the same.

What "express written consent" means in practice: a clear and conspicuous disclosure of what the recipient is opting into, the program name, the message frequency, the rates disclosure, and a signature (electronic is fine for most service-trade lead capture — a typed name and a captured timestamp is the typical shape). The consent has to be tied to a specific program, not to a generic "we may text you".

• Lead-capture forms (web, paid search, Angi / HomeAdvisor leads)Capture the disclosure + a typed-name signature at the same moment: 'I agree to receive appointment confirmations and service updates from {shop} at the number provided. Message frequency varies. Msg & data rates may apply. Reply STOP to opt out.' Tie the consent row to the lead record so the timestamp and form version are auditable.
• Phone-qualified leads (after-hours / overflow voice)On the call the agent reads the disclosure verbatim and records the acknowledgement on the call record. The call recording itself is the proof — the consent row on the lead gets a "captured on call, recording {call_id}" link, not a separate signature box.
• Post-job surveys and review asksSMS review requests to existing customers ride on the consent your shop already holds at the time of service. New post-job opt-ins are a separate row — never bolt them onto the service-completion consent.

The federal floor (TCPA + FCC rules) is 8 am — 9 pm in the recipient's local time. Service-trade follow-ups have to clear that floor on every send, and any narrower state window layered on top. The narrow windows are: Florida marketing-text overlays (8 am — 8 pm), Washington state and a handful of others for marketing-text categories — confirm per-state counsel before treating any of these as final.

The practical rule for a service-trade shop: text during the recipient's waking hours, default to 9 am — 7 pm local on the lead's address for any follow-up that isn't a confirmed appointment reminder, and treat 8 am — 9 pm as the outer envelope. Appointment reminders for a confirmed slot scheduled the same day or next day are the one carve-out the FCC made — they can fire outside the 9 pm cap — but they still have to clear the consent rule.

• After-hours voice recovery — the on-call nightIf a missed call is recovered at 11:30 pm, the SMS confirmation rides on the booking flow, not on a separate marketing send. Booking-confirmation and 'your tech is en route' pushes are exempt from quiet hours when tied to a confirmed appointment — anything else waits for the local 9 am.
• Maintenance-plan and rehash campaign sendsThese read as marketing and ride the standard 9 am — 7 pm window, recipient-local. Schedule the send to land at 10 am — 11 am local for the highest open-rate / lowest opt-out floor — and confirm the recipient list is in the right time zone before launching.

Every SMS has to carry the opt-out instructions. The TCPA / FCC "Reply STOP to opt out" wording is the standard; "Reply HELP for help" runs alongside it. The opt-out has to be honored across all programs the recipient has opted into, not just the one the SMS came from — updating the suppression list is a separate step from honoring the reply itself.

Practical rule: any opt-out captured on a one-to-one follow-up thread suppresses the recipient from the bulk list too. Suppression propagates within the same business day, and the opt-out itself is a free inbound — never bill the recipient for it, and never attach it to a per-message rate.

• On every SMS, without exception"Reply STOP to opt out · Reply HELP for help · Msg & data rates may apply" — appended to the bottom of every marketing and follow-up text, never cut for length, never moved behind a tap-to-expand accordion.
• In the dispatcher voice script tooIf a caller asks to be removed from texts, the voice agent confirms the opt-out on the call record, adds the suppression row, and sends a final 'you have been removed' SMS — never a marketing push on the same thread, never a 'we will leave your request' deflection.