Four parts every first text carries.
You're holding a phone that just logged a missed call, and you want something better to send than "call us back." Every first text below has four parts: your business name, a plain statement that it's automated, one useful thing (an answer, a question, or a booking link), and "Reply STOP to opt out." at the end. Drop the name, the automated line, or the STOP line and carriers and callers can treat it as spam.
Each template shows its length and segment count. Plain characters fit 160 to a segment; past that the text splits into 153-character pieces, each billed. Under 300 characters it never runs past two. One curly apostrophe or emoji cuts the segment to 70, so paste into a plain-text field. The names, links, and numbers are made up, and your edits move the counts, so recount.
Six moments after the phone stops ringing.
One made-up company across six situations. The first two open a thread, the third and fifth answer a caller's reply, and the fourth and sixth hand the caller to you: the agent sends them, then alerts you to call back.
Open hours, nothing to go on
200 characters · 2 segments · first text
A missed call arrives with no message attached. So the text asks one open question and offers the booking page; the caller picks whichever is less work.
After closing, before quiet hours
236 characters · 2 segments · first text
A 6 pm caller wants to know if anyone will get back to them. Saying when you reopen answers that, and "first in line" is a reason to stop dialing.
The caller's reply asks a price
106 characters · 1 segment · later text
Answer the question they texted, from your own price list. "Starts at" is honest about a range without becoming a quote.
The reply sounds urgent (the agent sends it and alerts you)
69 characters · 1 segment · later text, you're alerted
A text thread is the wrong place for an emergency, so the agent doesn't try to solve it there. It says someone will call, and gives your emergency line if you keep one. It never says "call us": that's the line that just missed them. You get an urgent Slack alert with what it sent, and the call is yours to make.
Second text, after the caller replies
155 characters · 1 segment · later text
Later texts drop the business name and the opt-out footer. Repeating what they said shows it was read.
A question it shouldn't answer (the agent sends it and alerts you)
109 characters · 1 segment · later text, you're alerted
Warranty terms, insurance, anything not in your material: the agent doesn't guess. It sends a holding reply like this one, and your Slack alert shows the question, what was sent, and that the caller needs a call back.
One qualifying question per trade.
What changes by trade is the question you'd ask first if you had picked up: today job, this-week job, or not yours.
Plumbers
Qualify the leak first
Active water is a different job from a dripping faucet. The answer tells you which caller to ring back first, and the drip can book itself.
255 characters · 2 segments · first text
HVAC
Dead, or struggling?
"No heat" in January and "a bit warm upstairs" are different calls. The zip code settles your service area up front.
243 characters · 2 segments · first text
Roofers
Leak now, or an estimate?
After a storm both kinds of caller ring at once. Splitting them lets you tarp the leak today and schedule the estimate this week.
224 characters · 2 segments · first text
Contractors
Scope and start date
A remodel inquiry is worth more than a service call and rarely urgent. Scope and timing tell you if it fits your calendar before you drive out.
221 characters · 2 segments · first text
Salons
Service and day
A salon caller has usually decided and just needs a chair. The booking page does the work; the warmer opening suits a business where tone is the service.
196 characters · 2 segments · first text
Law firms
Book the consult, hold the details
A firm's text moves the caller to a consultation and nothing else, and keeps facts out of the thread until conflicts are checked.
230 characters · 2 segments · first text
A note on the law firm text. The ABA's rules on solicitation (Model Rule 7.3) and duties to prospective clients (Model Rule 1.18) are why that template is so short. Your state's version governs, so run the wording past your own ethics counsel.
Three texts that look fine. Each one costs you the caller.
The kind of auto-reply that ships with phone systems and marketing platforms, or gets typed in a hurry.
99 characters · 2 segments
Why not: A discount makes the reply promotional, which needs consent the caller never gave. No business name, no automated line, no opt-out, and the emoji makes a short text bill as two segments.
48 characters · 1 segment
Why not: No name, no next step, and "soon" has no time on it. A caller with a burst pipe reads it as "try the next number."
105 characters · 1 segment
Why not: It invites the facts of a legal problem into a text thread, reads like an offer to evaluate the matter, and never says it's automated.
When a fixed text is all you need.
If your phone system or CRM has a missed-call auto-reply, paste in the closest scenario template with your name and link. It costs nothing, and if callers mostly want the booking page, it may be all you need.
What a fixed text can't do is choose: the leak template goes to the water heater quote, the after-hours one at 2 pm. The Missed-Call Text Back agent writes each first text fresh from your hours and what it knows of the caller, answers the reply from your price list, and runs every draft past a second check against your configured details. It enforces quiet hours and STOP in code. What that costs is on the pricing page. Whether it pays is worked out in does it work.
Either way, carriers expect a business sender to say who it is and to honor STOP, as Twilio's messaging policy lays out, and the FCC's consumer guide on unwanted texts covers what callers are protected from. This isn't legal advice; confirm how it applies to you with your own counsel.
