Docs / Setup
Messaging rules
Consent, quiet hours, daily limits and opt-outs — what the agents follow for messages your business starts.
Replies to someone who just wrote are always allowed. Messages your business starts (reminders, follow-ups, recalls, bill reminders) follow your region's rules. Your settings can make these stricter, never looser.
Consent
A message about someone's visit needs their agreement to be messaged about it.
- Booking themselves counts. Someone who books their own visit on WhatsApp or SMS has asked to be messaged about it there, so reminders and changes for that visit can go to the same channel. This never covers marketing.
- Asked on a call. On the phone, the agent asks whether it's OK to text about appointments and records the answer, with when and how it was given.
- An opt-out always wins. Someone who replied STOP, or asked not to be messaged, is never messaged again by an agent, whatever else they agreed to earlier.
Quiet hours and limits
| United States | India | |
|---|---|---|
| No messages started by the business | 9 PM – 8 AM, local time | 9 PM – 9 AM, local time |
| Visit messages (reminders, changes) | at most 1 a day, 3 a week per person | at most 3 a day, 10 a week per person |
| Marketing (recalls, review requests) | at most 1 a day, 2 a week | at most 1 a day, 3 a week |
| Opt-out words | STOP, STOPALL, UNSUBSCRIBE, CANCEL, END, QUIT, REVOKE, OPTOUT | STOP, UNSUBSCRIBE |
A message due during quiet hours waits until morning. A reminder that's no longer needed by then (the visit was cancelled overnight) is dropped.
The US rules follow the TCPA and carrier requirements; the India rules follow TRAI's calling windows and the DPDP Act's consent requirements.
Reminders
The Clinic Front Desk reminds each patient 24 hours before their visit. If they reply "yes", the visit is marked
confirmed (and a no_show.prevented event is sent). "Cancel" cancels it. Anything else, like "can I come at 5
instead?", is answered by the front desk like any other message.
Reminders never ask people to reply CANCEL or STOP: in the US those are carrier opt-out words and would unsubscribe them from all your texts.
When a message can't be sent
If a message can't go out (no consent, an opt-out, no approved WhatsApp template outside the 24-hour window, or a provider error), it's never dropped silently. Your team gets one Message not sent item in the Inbox saying what it was and why, so someone can call instead.
Something missing or unclear? Ask in the chat at the bottom right, or talk to the Saient team.