# Texting your customers Source: https://help.mucka.ai/clients/texting-your-customers Category: Clients Last updated: 2026-09-08 > When Mucka texts your customers, what those texts say, and who they come from. Mucka can text your customers for you. Nothing goes out on its own — you always see the exact words first and tap once to send. ## When Mucka texts **Running late.** If the On Time Tracker spots that an engineer won't make a job on time, it writes a short "running late" text for the customer. You read it, tap **Send**, and it goes. If you'd rather send it from your own phone, the card still gives you a link that opens your Messages app with the text ready. **Review nudge.** After a completed job, the review request goes out by email as usual. Mucka also texts the customer to say it's waiting in their inbox — a text gets read, an email often doesn't. **Booking confirmations and appointment reminders.** A text when the job goes in the diary, and another before you turn up. These are the exception to "nothing goes without your tap" — you switch them on once and they send on their own. Both are off to start with. Full detail in [Booking confirmations and appointment reminders](/help/schedule/booking-confirmations-and-reminders). **On my way.** When an engineer presses **On my way**, the customer can be told as well as the office. Off until you switch it on, and unlike the two above it goes the moment the button is pressed rather than waiting for office hours — see [Text the customer when you set off](/help/schedule/text-the-customer-when-you-set-off). **Anything you ask for.** Tell Mucka "text Mrs Jones to say we're on our way" or "let Dave know the part's arrived" and it'll write it, show you, and send once you approve. ## Who the text comes from **If you have the AI receptionist**, texts come from your own Mucka number. That's the number customers already ring, so if they reply or call back, your receptionist picks it up. **If you don't**, texts come from a shared Mucka number. Anyone who replies to it, or rings it, gets an automatic message telling them to contact you directly — with your business name in it, so they know who to look for. It won't ring out to you and nobody sits on the other end of it. Either way, every text starts with your business name, so the customer knows who it's from before they open it. ## How the customer gets back to you Every text ends with a way to reach you, added automatically. You don't have to ask for it and you don't have to dictate a number. Which number goes on is simple: - **If you have the AI receptionist**, it's your receptionist line, so a callback gets answered in your business's name. - **If you don't**, it's your business phone, spelled out: "01709 123456". That's the number saved in [**Settings → Business → Details**](/settings/business/details), so it's worth checking it's the one you want customers ringing. - **If you've got neither on file**, the text goes out without a contact line at all. Mucka won't point a customer at the shared number, because nobody answers it. Add your number in Settings and it'll start appearing. ### How it's worded depends on the text **A heads-up gets a safety valve.** "Running about 20 minutes behind for your boiler service. Any problems, give us a ring on 01709 123456." You're doing the customer a favour by telling them, and they don't need to do anything about it. Asking them to call you back would hand them a job at the exact moment you saved them one, and on a delay text it reads like something's gone wrong. **A text that wants an answer asks for one.** "Your boiler service is due. Call us on 01709 123456." Here getting a call back is the whole point, so it says so plainly. Two more things worth knowing: - **If you tell Mucka to use a different number** ("text her and say to ring the office on 01709 …"), that's the number that goes in, and Mucka won't add a second one on top. - **Review nudges don't get a contact line.** That text is already telling the customer to check their email, and a second instruction just muddies it. ## Wording them yourself The messages Mucka sends on its own — the booking confirmation, the appointment reminder, the on-my-way, the review nudge — are yours to word, in [**Settings → Customers → Automatic messages**](/settings/customers/customer-messages). Tap a message to open it: the wording sits under the switches that send it, one box per channel, so a message going out as both a text and an email is worded separately for each. So is the service due email. Rewrite them to sound like you, drop in the bits that change per customer, and watch the finished message and its cost update as you type. There's a reset if you change your mind. The parts covered on this page stay put whatever you write: your name on the front, the contact number on the end, no links. Those are what get a text delivered and answered, so they're not up for editing. Anything Mucka drafts for you in the moment — a running-late text, a one-off you ask for — isn't a template. Mucka writes those per job and shows you the wording before it goes. ## Why texts never contain links UK mobile networks block a lot of texts containing web addresses, because that's what scam texts look like. A blocked text isn't marked as failed anywhere obvious — it simply never arrives, and the customer never knows you tried. So Mucka keeps links out of texts entirely. Anything that needs one goes by email, and the text tells the customer to check their inbox. If you ask Mucka to put a link in a text, it'll say no and offer to email it instead. ## If a customer replies STOP Texting STOP opts that number out. Mucka won't text them again, and if you ask it to, it'll tell you they've opted out so you can ring or email instead. That's a legal requirement, not a setting — it can't be switched off. The same goes for CANCEL, END, QUIT and UNSUBSCRIBE. Those are the words the mobile networks treat as opting out, so a customer who replies "Cancel" meaning "cancel my appointment" has opted out of your texts without realising. Worth knowing if someone suddenly stops getting them. It only stops **your** texts. If that customer also uses another business that runs on Mucka, they'll still hear from them. If they want your texts back, they text START to the same number and Mucka starts again. You can't do it for them — the opt-out is theirs to lift. ## When a text doesn't send Mucka tells you plainly and says why. The usual reasons: - **No mobile on file** — add one to the client's record and try again. - **The number isn't a mobile** — landlines and 03 numbers can't receive texts. Mucka checks before it sends, so nothing goes out that was never going to arrive. - **They've opted out** — see above. If a text can't go, ring the customer. Mucka will never tell you a message was sent when it wasn't. ## When a text sends but doesn't arrive Sometimes a number is a real mobile that isn't in use any more — an old number, or one that's been typed in wrong and happens to be a valid one. The text leaves, the network can't find a phone, and it bounces. Mucka shows that on the client's record, under their history: **"Didn't reach them, check the number."** That line means the text left us and never got there, so the number is the thing to fix, not the message. Nothing else in that list needs reading. A text with no note under it arrived. You also get a heads-up card when it happens, so you don't have to go looking. It names the customer and the number, and it's telling you rather than asking you: Mucka can't work out what the right number is, only they can. Give them a ring and put the new one on their record. ## What it costs Nothing at the moment. Texting your customers is included while we get a feel for how much it gets used. If that changes, you'll hear it from us first — we won't quietly start charging.