Overview
Chariot makes it easy to text customers directly — whether you're sending a quick manual message, using a saved template, or picking up a two-way conversation. All texts appear in the Messages Tab alongside emails, giving you a complete picture of every customer interaction in one place.
How to Send a Text
There are two ways to send a text in Chariot:
From the job page: Open the job, go to the Messages Tab, and click Send Text. Select a template or type a custom message and hit send.
From the Actions menu: On any job, click Actions and select Send Text to open the texting screen directly.
Choose from your saved text templates or write a message from scratch. Templates save time and help keep communication consistent across your team.
The Texts Screen
The Texts screen shows a list of customers on the left. Click any customer to open the full text conversation — it looks and works like a standard messaging app on your phone. You can scroll back through the full history and pick up right where you left off.
Two-Way Texting
When a customer replies to a text, their response shows up automatically in Chariot. You'll see a notification with an unread message count so you know something came in. Open the conversation to read and respond.
You can mark messages as unread if you need to come back to them later or flag them for a teammate to follow up on.
Finding Unread Texts
Unread texts are marked with a dot indicator in the customer list. To focus on conversations with new replies, use the Unread filter on the Texts screen — click Unread and Chariot will show only the customers who have replied and haven't been read yet. No more scrolling through every conversation to find what needs attention.
Seeing Texts in the Messages Tab
Every text you send or receive also appears in the Messages Tab on the job, alongside all emails. This gives you the full communication history for a customer in one unified view.
From the Messages Tab you can:
Search across all texts and emails by keyword
Filter by Channel — select Text to see only texts
Filter by Direction — select Received to see all inbound customer replies
Filter by Source — select Automated to see texts sent by Chariot automatically, or User Initiated to see manual ones
Tip: Use the Source filter before sending a manual text to confirm whether Chariot already sent an automated one — this helps you avoid reaching out twice about the same thing.
Message Length & Character Limits
Carriers cap how long a single text can be. To keep your messages delivering reliably, Chariot now handles this automatically:
If you write a custom text that's longer than your carrier's limit, Chariot will warn you before you send it.
Messages that run long are automatically capped to fit within carrier limits.
Special characters (like em dashes) are automatically swapped for SMS-safe characters, since some carriers reject or garble them.
If a text fails to deliver, it's flagged as undelivered in the conversation so you know to follow up another way.
Tips for Texting Customers Effectively
Check the Messages Tab before texting a customer to see everything that's already been sent — automated and manual
Use saved templates for common situations to save time and keep messaging consistent
Use the Unread filter daily to catch any customer replies that need a response
Mark messages as unread to flag them for follow-up if you're not ready to respond right away
Filter by Received in the Messages Tab to focus on inbound texts across all jobs