Compliance and Best Practices Documentation

Chatitive bots are designed to keep you in compliance with industry best practices

Part of being a good messaging citizen is making it easy for your customers to STOP getting messages when they are no longer interested and to know how to get HELP. The CTIA is a trade association representing the wireless communications industry, and they have a set of guidelines for commercial messaging.
Here are a couple of documents we recommend detailing text messaging guidelines and best practices

• CTIA Text Messaging Guidelines
• Twilio Document on Industry Standards for US Short Code Opt-ins
• Twilio Short Code Monitoring Handbook

Chatitive's bot-based architecture automatically responds to compliance terms for you. For example, once a subscriber replies STOP, they will no longer receive automated messages such as campaigns or message series items.

Keywords:

The bot has three special keywords START, STOP, and HELP. By default the bot will automatically "subscribe" or "unsubscribe" the customer, and send back a helpful message letting them know what has happened. Keywords are case insenstive - STOP is the same as Stop.

START

When a bot receives the keyword START the default behavior is to add the phone number to our system, if not already present, to mark it as "subscribed" and to send back this message:

Welcome! Thank you for subscribing! Msg & data rates may apply. Text HELP for help or STOP to unsubscribe.

You can override this behavior by implementing your own START keyword, perhaps to customize the greeting message:

start: function(message, subscriber) {
  say("Welcome to MessageCo - we are so glad to have you with us.\n\n Msg & data rates may apply. Text HELP for help or STOP to unsubscribe.");
}

Or perhaps you want to implement double opt-in:

start: function(message, subscriber) {
  subscriber.unsubscribe(); // override the default start behavior
  say("Welcome to MessageCo - to Subscribe, reply GO");
},

go: function(message, subscriber) {
  subscriber.subscribe();
  say("Congrats! We are so glad to have you with us.\n\n Msg & data rates may apply. Text HELP for help or STOP to unsubscribe.");
},

STOP

STOP is one of the most important keywords. It is critical that we obey the subscriber's wishes to no longer receive commercial/marketing messages from you. The default behavior is to add the phone number to our system if not already present, to mark it as "unsubscribed", and to send back this message:

You are now unsubscribed. To subscribe again, text START

The keyword UNSUBSCRIBE is an alias for stop and has the same function. You may customize the final message, but you may not override the "unsubscribe" action.

stop: function(message, subscriber) {
  say("Sorry to see you go! reply START to join again");
}

HELP

When a bot receives the keyword HELP the default behavior is mark the subscriber as needing support and to send back this message:

Need help? Just ask a question. To unsubscribe, text STOP

You may customize the message:

help: function(message, subscriber) {
  if (subscriber.needsSupport()) {
    say("Don't worry - we will get back to you ASAP");
  } else {
    say("Need help? Just ask a question. To unsubscribe, text STOP");
  }
}

On being Unsubscribed:

Once a subscriber has been marked as "unsubscribed" - either via a bot action: (STOP or calling subscriber.unsubscribe()) or API call, the Chatitive system will no longer send automated messages to them. Automated messages are things like Campaigns, Welcome Series or Zendesk-initiated messages.

Subscribers will get messages in response to compliance keywords, and you may still message them via the API or the Inbox feature of the dashboard. This is done to allow you to provide a final message or in exceptional cases if you think ignoring their unsubscribed status is justified. If you are using the API, use the variant of message send API that does the checking for you (Subscribed subscribers message API) otherwise, you are responsible for querying the subscriber's status before sending them a message.