SMS Opt-in is the process of obtaining and documenting a candidate’s expressed consent to receive SMS from your business. The biggest benefit of implementing an SMS Opt-in process is reducing the risk of carrier filtering, which results from spam complaints and high opt-out rates.
Consent / Opt-in
What Is Proper Consent?
Consent can't be bought, sold, or exchanged. For example, you can't obtain the consent of message recipients by purchasing a phone list from another party.
Aside from two exceptions noted later in this section, you need to meet each of the consent requirements listed below.
Consent Requirements
Prior to sending the first message, you must obtain agreement from the message recipient to communicate with them - this is referred to as "consent", you must make clear to the individual they are agreeing to receive messages of the type you're going to send. You need to keep a record of the consent, such as a copy of the document or form that the message recipient signed, or a timestamp of when the customer completed a sign-up flow.
If you do not send an initial message to that individual within a reasonable period after receiving consent (or as set forth by local regulations or best practices), then you will need to reconfirm consent in the first message you send to that recipient.
The consent applies only to you, and to the specific use or campaign that the recipient has consented to. You can't treat it as blanket consent allowing you to send messages from other brands or companies you may have, or additional messages about other uses or campaigns.
Proof of opt-in consent should be retained as set forth by local regulation or best practices after the end user opts out of receiving messages.
Alternative Consent Requirements
While consent is always required and the consent requirements noted above are generally the safest path, there are two scenarios where consent can be received differently.
Contact initiated by an individual
If an individual sends a message to you, you are free to respond in an exchange with that individual. For example, if an individual texts your phone number asking for your hours of operation, you can respond directly to that individual, relaying your open hours. In such a case, the individual’s inbound message to you constitutes both consent and proof of consent. Remember that the consent is limited only to that particular conversation. Unless you obtain additional consent, don't send messages that are outside that conversation.
Informational content to an individual based on a prior relationship
You may send a message to an individual where you have a prior relationship, provided that individual provided their phone number to you, and has taken some action to trigger the potential communication, and has not expressed a preference to not receive messages from you. Actions can include a button press, alert setup, appointments, or order placements. Examples of acceptable messages in these scenarios include appointment reminders, receipts, one-time passwords, order/shipping/reservation confirmations, drivers coordinating pick up locations with riders, and repair persons confirming service call times.
The message can't attempt to promote a product, convince someone to buy something, or advocate for a social cause.
Periodic Messages and Ongoing Consent
If you intend to send messages to a recipient on an ongoing basis, you should confirm the recipient’s consent by offering them a clear reminder of how to unsubscribe from those messages using standard opt-out language (defined below). You must also respect the message recipient’s preferences in terms of frequency of contact. You also need to proactively ask individuals to reconfirm their consent as set forth by local regulations and best practices.
SMS Opt-In Options
The Job Application Opt-in
The most common form of opt in with our customers is to add it to the application. This way, when a candidate applies, they opt in to SMS communication upfront. Your opt-in rates on the application will vary widely depending on what you communicate to candidates. It’s all about making sure it’s clear what’s in it for them by opting in.
Best Practices:
Getting expressed consent is key – add a required opt-in question to your applications.
“Opt-in to receive text messages about jobs at _____? Please answer with Yes or No.”
“I would like to receive updates from a recruiter about this job via SMS. Please answer with Yes or No.”
“I would like to receive interview, timecard, or payment notifications and reminders via SMS. Please answer with Yes or No.”
Pro tip: add 2 opt-ins, first using a standard opt-in such as the ones outlined above, followed by a more general one like this:
“I would like to hear about other job opportunities or offers via SMS.”
“I would like to receive updates and reminders related to my job placement via SMS”
This way, you’re giving them multiple opportunities to opt in and they are far more likely to select at least one of the options, especially when they know exactly what the communication will be in regards to.
Inbound SMS Opt-In
Additionally, you can get candidate or employee opt-in via inbound SMS campaign. With this method, a candidate can opt-in to receive SMS communication by texting into your 5-digit short code via Grayscale’s Text-for-Jobs campaign. When a candidate texts you to start a conversation, this counts as expressed consent.
Once you receive an inbound from this candidate, they have consented to receive an SMS. You should confirm their consent by automatically sending a Welcome message confirming the type of information they will be receiving and additional information about how to opt-out.
IRL Opt-In
Your candidate can give verbal confirmation over the phone or in person in certain circumstances, but in the event that you are audited by carriers, you will need to provide detailed proof of the opt-in process, explain where and how you store the opt-in data, and records that are time stamped with opt-in date etc.
Here’s an example:
“We collected verbal opt-in consent at a job fair. Then we entered the opt-ins to our Applicant Tracking System.”
You may be asked to provide proof of how opt-in is being collected by your team. Contact your Customer Success Manager if you’d like support with this process.
Closing Thoughts
With the recent changes made to the industry standards for the A2P campaign creation process, expressed opt-in consent is now required. In most recruiting cases, the easiest way to achieve opt-in compliance is to add a required field to your applications with your preferred consent language (don’t take our word for it, check with your legal team!) – but it is important that candidates have the option to opt-in or not. Why? Because you’ll likely get carrier filtered if you don’t.