Organizations might want to use SMS communication more actively as a part of their communication strategy. However, the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) requires recipients' explicit opt-in to send SMS to personal devices. To comply with this TCPA and offer additional privacy options, Zelo now provides a solution.

SMS consent is a feature that prevents users within the organizations from receiving SMSes until consent is given. It is an optional feature that the administrators of the organization can enable. While this feature is based on the regulations issued within the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), it offers an extra layer of privacy, as users can choose not to receive SMS if they so wish.

The SMS Consent feature is available to customers who have SMS enabled as a channel. If you want to use our SMS channel, please get in touch with the Zelo Team. Once SMS is activated, an admin can turn on SMS consent from the settings page "Integrations."

Users have to give their consent through the user preference page. The checkbox related to SMS Consent will not be visible in those instances where administrators have not enabled this feature.

Suppose SMS consent is active and users are not giving the necessary consent. In that case, Zelo will use the preferred channel for the users instead. Suppose neither SMS Consent nor user-preferred channel is configured. In that case, Zelo will direct messages to the organization's default channel or the user's registered email addresses.

You can read more about the user's preferred channels of communication here.

While SMS is an excellent choice for quickly distributing information across your organization, we advise being a bit careful not to overuse it. Many users relate to SMS being important short messages reserved for critical information. To ensure the best possible impact and effectiveness in your communications, save SMS information for those points in time where you want to ensure that everyone receives and reads that particular message.