Credibility and Legal Security

When your business begins texting customers it’s important to maintain compliance with industry best practices. An easy to overlook best practice is having both a privacy policy page and website terms & conditions page available on your website. These pages improve your business’s credibility and legal security with customers, partners, and vendors.

When creating your texting call to action (CTA), which is your invitation to customers to join your texting list, you’ll include links to both your privacy policy and your terms & conditions web pages. Checkout our tutorial on writing your texting CTA.

Your Privacy Policy

When your business starts using texting you’ll want to have a clear, easily accessible, up-to-date Privacy Policy that tells customers what kind of information you collect and what you do with it, whether you sell or share their personal information, and how they can contact you to make requests concerning their personal information.

  1. Legal Requirement
    1. In many jurisdictions, like the EU (GDPR) and California (CCPA), it’s mandatory for websites collecting personal information to have a Privacy Policy. Non-compliance can result in fines.
  2. Customer Trust
    1. Transparency is key to establishing trust. Your Privacy Policy tells visitors what data you’re collecting and how you’re using it.
  3. Facilitates Business Relationships
    1. If you aim to collaborate with other companies or participate in affiliate programs, most will require you to have a Privacy Policy.

Website Terms & Conditions

Your Terms & Conditions agreement is a document that outlines the rules your customers agree to abide by whenever they use your products, services, or website. If your business uses business texting, then you should make sure that your Terms & Conditions agreement includes clauses pertaining specifically to text messaging, such as opt-in and opt-out rules.

  1. Legal Safeguard
    1. While not legally required, Terms & Conditions act as a legal cushion. Should a dispute arise, this document will serve as a contract outlining the rules, terms, and guidelines agreed upon between you and the user.
  2. Content Ownership
    1. Your website is your property. The Terms & Conditions page helps protect your content against copyright infringement, ensuring that your hard work—be it articles, videos, or product designs—remains your intellectual property.
  3. Control Over User Behavior
    1. Sometimes, users may engage in activities that are harmful to your online community, like posting hateful comments. Your Terms & Conditions can include clauses that allow you to terminate accounts for such behavior, maintaining a positive environment on your site.

Online Policy Generators

While the idea of writing the legal language of a good privacy policy or website terms & conditions sounds daunting, never fear. There are several good online policy generators that will write these important documents for you.

Typically you’ll be guided through a series of questions that both gather the required information and customize the language for the topics needed by your business. Policies for SMS marketing, or business texting, will be included in the available options.

Here are three of the policy generators we recommend.

The Bottom Line

Don’t underestimate the power of a robust Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions page. These are not mere formalities but tools for risk management and credibility enhancement. For business texting, an accessible privacy policy and terms & conditions page is a requirement.

So, get your legal ducks in a row and add these essential pages to your website. Checkout the policy generating services we recommended or consult with a legal expert to create these documents for your business’s specific needs. Compliance is important and it’s better to be safe than sorry.

Texting Guides

Checkout our tutorials and guides on business text messaging, registration requirements, and toll-free number verification.

 

Additional policies, regulations, and laws may exist beyond those listed here. This is not legal advice. It is strongly recommended you consult your own legal advisor for help understanding legal obligations you may have, given the kind of messaging you wish to send.