HELP and STOP SMS Keywords

Your Compliance Settings keep you in compliance with federal laws surrounding text messaging. This includes your HELP and STOP keywords.

Josh avatar
Written by Josh
Updated over a week ago

By law, all businesses that leverage SMS must have automatic replies set up for the keywords STOP and HELP.

By default, every MessageDesk customer is compliant with these requirements.

Continue reading if you're curious how the HELP and STOP keywords work.


Manage STOP and HELP Keyword

The STOP and HELP keyword are already in your MessageDesk account when you sign up!

Navigate to your Settings menu, then click on Compliance Settings

STOP Keyword

If a contact texts the keyword STOP to your MessageDesk number, they will be automatically Opted-Out of future messaging.

Opted-out contacts cannot receive messages from MessageDesk.

The carriers may process the STOP keyword before it reaches MessageDesk which will also prevent you from sending messages to them.

🚨 You cannot remove a contact from your Opted-Out Group. They will need to text your MessageDesk number again to be automatically removed from the group. They can text any message to your MessageDesk Number to be removed.

HELP Keyword

Your HELP keyword helps your contacts find out how to contact the message sender (you 😎).

By default, your HELP keyword will include the email of the Admin on your MessageDesk account and your Organization Name.

Compliance Message

Your Compliance Message is only sent to contacts the first time you send a Broadcast to that particular contact.

It's appended to the end of the message that you are already sending to them, it won't be sent separately as another message.

By default, your Compliance Message reads as follows: Reply STOP to Opt-Out

Append to All Setting

You can also enable the Compliance Message to be sent to all new messages instead of just Broadcast.

To select, use the "Append to All" toggle at the top right of the Compliance Message. If the toggle is selected, the Compliance Message will be appended to all messages, not just Broadcasts.

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