For an introduction to this series, see Writing SMS Help Messages. Today, I’m going to cover mandatory opt-out workflow, which is about as much fun as it sounds; like the procedural bits of the Ken Starr report (topical!). I’m focusing here on Standard Rate Messaging.
From the MMA Best Practices, the source of all the pull quotes in this post:
It is fundamental to the concept of control that a subscriber maintains the ability to stop participating and receiving messages from a shortcode program when desired.
As soon as a user subscribes to your program, you must explicitly tell them how to opt-out, and they must be able to do so at any time. It’s an important measure against abuse, as any ethical marketer would agree.
That said, consider the well-intentioned, but rigidly applied opt-out workflow within a complex chat application. How do we discount the false positives?
The notable stipulation is that “Shortcode programs should support mixed case opt-out commands and ignore subsequent non-keyword text.” Consider the challenges of adhering to these restrictions while building innovative applications.
The CTIA seems to believe that SMS is strictly for coupons, as evinced by their dated use of ‘campaign’ as a catchall term to represent any SMS-driven program. For those of us building real, robust SMS applications (and who consequently take opt-outs more seriously than marketers because it reflects not mere attrition, but a failure of service), it’s an anachronism, if not an insult. A topic for another day.
Keywords you’re required to respond to with an opt-out:
- STOP – this alone must be included in your message copy and advertising
- END
- CANCEL
- UNSUBSCRIBE
- QUIT
You’re allowed to initiate opt-outs based on other keywords of your choice, but must respond to at least the five keywords above. And, apparently for consistency, you must send an opt-out confirmation message in response to any of these keywords, even if the user isn’t subscribed to any program at all. For instance, a user may text in STOP as their first message to your system and you must send back a proper opt-out response, pretending that everything is normal. The same applies to users texting into a programs that sends only one-time messages. If they text in STOP after that (even though there’s no subscription to end), you must pretend to opt them out. It’s all very Victorian.
Needless to say, but they say it anyway, “The STOP command should never result in an error being sent back to the subscriber.”
A STOP request should result in a message (MT) sent to the subscriber:
…This should not be a premium message. This message should reference the specific program the subscriber has opted-out from. No further messages should be sent to the subscriber from this program, including marketing messages for any related or unrelated programs.
Opt-out confirmation message
Multiple choice menus
For subscribers who’ve opted into multiple programs, a simple STOP request isn’t sufficiently descriptive. Rather than opting them out of all programs at once, you need to present a multiple choice menu.
You are required to present STOP ALL as the final choice in the menu, and respond to STOP ALL at any time by opting users out of all subscribed programs (even if it’s only one, or, as we learned above, none).
The menu need not include:
- “Msg&Data Rates May Apply” – by the way, this copy changes every once in a while, rarely becoming more elegant; classic committee-generated results. At least it’s now standardized across the carriers. It used to be worse.
- Pricing
- Sponsor contact information
Much like the Help menu, this could look like:
Subscribed to multiple programs. Rply w one of the following to stop:
A) First program
B) Second program
C) Another program
or STOP ALL
More, recessmobile.com
A reply with one of the options would return the appropriate opt-out confirmation message. I would suggest accepting anything from “A” followed by any text as well as the words “First program.” If users are going to the trouble of calling up a menu and replying to it, it’s clear that they want out, so make it easy for them. Subscribers who don’t want to be there will cost you more in the long-term and it’s in yours and your users’ best interest to do more than merely follow the letter of the law here.
This isn’t a common worfklow, though. Most systems aren’t sophisticated enough to pick up on these types of open-ended responses, so you’re typically stuck with something that more closely resembles the example in the MMA handbook:
Farm League Baseball: which service to stop?
4 Sports txt STOP SPORT or
4 Horoscope txt STOP HORO
And subscribers would reply with “STOP HORO” to end the Horoscope program. This is just lazy user experience design and engineering, not worthy of being a canonical example. Not to mention that they ignore their own requirement of including STOP ALL as the final option. Quod licet Iovi, non licet bovi.
Additional notes
For those doing IVR (those automated phone trees) opt-ins:
Any IVR system that offers the possibility to opt-in to a mobile service must also offer the possibility to opt-out. This should be available through the IVR, customer service, a web site, or SMS.
And be aware that users will try to opt-out by non-standard means (so much for the universality of STOP). Users text in crazy, crazy things.
Content providers should periodically scan their MO logs for subscribers that are clearly trying to unsubscribe to a service, but are not following the programmed rules. And then take the action to end their subscription based on those MO logs.
Log everything:
The content provider (or the aggregator) should record and store all opt-out transactions.
…
Independent of method of entry (SMS, MMS, Web, WAP, IVR) opt-in and opt-out records – including single, double and triple opt-in records – should be retained from the time the subscriber opts-in until a minimum of six months after the subscriber has opted-out of the program (minimum opt-in archiving period is one calendar year). These records should be made available to the aggregator or carrier upon request.
Dry information mabye, but very useful to those of us who are novices at mobile marketing.
Thank you for providing clear information and great examples on how to use (and not misuse) marketing practices using SMS texting services.
All the best, Julia
Julia, thanks! Let me know (here or yury@recessmobile.com) if there are any other topics you think we should cover. The rest of this series will address other workflow questions, like the opt-in process.
Perhaps what the MMA and CTIA organizations are and how these rules are enforced by the carriers via audits? I’m also considering adding carrier-specific requirements to the mix, but that’d be even more boring than this post
Writing SMS Opt-Out (STOP) Messages…
As soon as a user subscribes to your SMS program, you must explicitly tell them how to opt-out, and they must be able to do so at any time. It’s an important measure against abuse, as any ethical marketer would agree….
SMS, guidelines, information, how-to, text message, short message service, mobile marketing, opt-out, procedures…
As soon as a user subscribes to your SMS program, you must explicitly tell them how to opt-out, and they must be able to do so at any time. It’s an important measure against abuse, as any ethical marketer would agree….
Writing SMS Opt-Out (STOP) Messages…
As soon as a user subscribes to your SMS program, you must explicitly tell them how to opt-out, and they must be able to do so at any time. It’s an important measure against abuse, as any ethical marketer would agree….
How to Write SMS Opt-Out Messages…
As soon as a user subscribes to your SMS program, you must explicitly tell them how to opt-out, and they must be able to do so at any time. It’s an important measure against abuse, as any ethical marketer would agree….
How to Write SMS Opt-Out Messages…
As soon as a user subscribes to your SMS program, you must explicitly tell them how to opt-out, and they must be able to do so at any time. It’s an important measure against abuse, as any ethical marketer would agree….
How to Write SMS Opt-Out Messages…
As soon as a user subscribes to your SMS program, you must explicitly tell them how to opt-out, and they must be able to do so at any time. It’s an important measure against abuse, as any ethical marketer would agree….
Writing SMS Opt-Out (STOP) Messages…
As soon as a user subscribes to your SMS program, you must explicitly tell them how to opt-out, and they must be able to do so at any time. It’s an important measure against abuse, as any ethical marketer would agree….
Writing SMS Opt-Out (STOP) Messages…
As soon as a user subscribes to your SMS program, you must explicitly tell them how to opt-out, and they must be able to do so at any time. It’s an important measure against abuse, as any ethical marketer would agree….
Writing SMS Opt-Out (STOP) Messages…
As soon as a user subscribes to your SMS program, you must explicitly tell them how to opt-out, and they must be able to do so at any time. It’s an important measure against abuse, as any ethical marketer would agree….
Writing SMS Opt-Out (STOP) Messages…
As soon as a user subscribes to your SMS program, you must explicitly tell them how to opt-out, and they must be able to do so at any time. It’s an important measure against abuse, as any ethical marketer would agree….
great blog … we are implementing some SMS stuff — more status and alerting, not marketing — and there’s not much info out there
RE: it’s an anachronism, if not an insult. A topic for another day.
when? I am very interested!
Thomas,
Thanks!
I agree, the SMS world, at least as defined by the carriers, is built on marketing or selling ringtones.
We work mostly on utility applications (though often with some marketing aspects) and usually feel like we’re going against the tide while maneuvering around the regulations.
Glad to hear you’re interested in the topic. I’ll push it up the list of potential blog posts, though it’s dubiously wise of me to go after our auditors
Let me know if you have any questions or run into any issues in setting up your program. Yury @ this domain.
Thanks again for all the great info.
This is probably a dumb question, but … if a subscriber is subscribed to multiple programs, and we send out an SMS under one of those programs, and they reply STOP, is there any way to know which program they want to STOP, or do we have to go thru the whole menu thing?
The MMA Best Practices have been updated, but the opt-out workflow remains the same:
–
If the subscriber is participating in multiple programs on the shortcode, there are two options for the content provider when a subscriber sends an opt-out request:
• The content provider sends a menu of the programs the subscriber is subscribed to and the subscriber has the responsibility to reply with the specific keyword to the specific program they would like to be opted out of. To ensure subscribers also have a way to opt-out of all programs within this menu, STOP ALL must be added to the menu choices. The stop menu message does NOT need to contain
i) “Msg&Data Rates May Apply”
ii) Pricing
iii) Sponsor contact information.
• Or if the subscriber sent STOP ALL to the shortcode, they are opted-out of all programs they were enrolled in on that shortcode.
–
So whether or not what you’re suggesting is technically feasible (it’s generally not, since SMS isn’t threaded by nature – we’re not told which message a user is replying to), this is how they want you to do it.
Hope that answers your question.
For a FTEU SMS does opt out need to be on any or every text? If so how often? Does it also have to say “standard rates may apply”?
Thanks,
Jack
FTEU is still largely limited to AT&T and T-Mobile among the Tier-1s and is typically several times more expensive per message than typical standard rate. The typical use-case is in collections, where the sender is under a legal obligation to not charge the recipient.
The opt-in process is the same as for standard rate.
You have to prepend every outgoing FTEU text with “Free msg:” and on any CTA, inform the user that standard carrier charges do not apply. “Free msg” takes the place of ‘standard rates’ in informing users of potential charges (none, in this case).
Incidentally, the required copy generally has changed from “standard rates…” to “Msg&Data Rates May Apply.” Ugly copy.
Hope that helps!
[...] at Recess Mobile’s Writing SMS Opt-Out (STOP) Messages is also an excellent primer in the mandatory opt-out workflow, and geared a little more toward [...]