What Is Missed-Call Text-Back?

How it works, in three steps.

1. A customer calls your business and you do not answer (you are on a job, after-hours, on another call).
2. Your phone carrier or a webhook integration triggers an automated SMS to that caller within 15 to 30 seconds.
3. The SMS includes your business name, an acknowledgement, and a clear next step. Customer responds, conversation continues, lead is recovered.

Why service businesses use it.

The math is straightforward. A typical service business misses 30 to 50 percent of inbound calls (on a job, after-hours, while talking to another customer). Of those missed calls, a meaningful fraction goes straight to a competitor's voicemail or a competitor who answers. Even a one-line auto-reply within 30 seconds keeps that customer in your conversation long enough to recover the lead.

For trades especially (plumbing, roofing, HVAC, electrical), the missed call is often mid-emergency. The customer is anxious, the water is rising, and they are dialing the next number on Google within the minute. Text-back is the recovery channel.

The CASL angle (Canadian-specific).

Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL, S.C. 2010, c. 23) requires consent for commercial electronic messages. There are two forms of consent that matter here:

• Express consent — the recipient has explicitly opted in (e.g., checking a box at booking).
• Implied consent — the recipient initiated contact (placing a phone call) and the message directly relates to that inquiry. Valid up to six months from the call.

A missed call falls under implied consent. The follow-up text is compliant as long as:

• The message clearly identifies your business as the sender.
• The message includes a clear opt-out (reply STOP or ARRET).
• STOP requests are honoured immediately and permanently.
• The message relates directly to the customer's call (not a generic blast).

Crisp's Text Concierge Agent handles all four requirements automatically. US-based text-back tools (Enzak, GoHighLevel, Goodcall) do not provide native CASL framing — you would need to configure compliance manually.

Where basic text-back ends, and where the Text Concierge begins.

Most missed-call text-back tools send a single auto-reply template. The customer responds with a question (price? availability? scope?), and the tool stops. You have to take over manually, which means picking up your phone, reading the conversation, and replying — defeating much of the recovery benefit.

A multi-turn AI Text Concierge runs the entire SMS conversation: answers FAQs, gives ballpark quotes, books appointments, and forwards the live thread to your primary number on demand the moment you want to take it over. The first 30 seconds is the same in both products; everything that happens after is what separates them.