Appointment setting by text, for agencies and sales teams

Who sets appointments by text?

Appointment setting agencies booking calls for clients, lead generation agencies, and in-house SDR teams booking demos for account executives.

Agencies give each client a workspace with its own registration, numbers, campaigns and inbox, and switch between clients from one login. Sales teams run the same sequence for their own demo requests.

What does an appointment setting sequence look like?

A first text that offers two specific times, a follow-up that asks which part of the day suits, and a last text that leaves the door open.

• The Condition step reads a Call booked column. A Condition step reads the person’s row in your list at the moment it runs. Change a column by hand, or let your CRM’s sync change it, and the next Condition step sees the new value. Fill it in when the call is on the calendar and the follow-ups stop.
• Two times beat an open question. “11 or 3” can be answered in one word from a lock screen.
• No-shows go into a rebooking sequence the same day: a short check-in, then new times the next business day. The no-show guide has wording.

When should appointment setting texts go out?

As soon as the lead arrives, inside sending hours on the lead’s own clock, which matters when an agency in one time zone books for clients in another.

Send leads to the client’s campaign through the API, Zapier or Make, with Send new leads automatically on, and the first text goes out within minutes inside the hours you set.

Each campaign has its own sending days and hours. With Send in each lead’s local time on, those hours follow each person’s time zone, read from the area code of their number, and Textually never sends a campaign text before 8 AM or after 9 PM on their clock, the window US federal rules set for telephone solicitations (47 CFR 64.1200(c)(1)). A text that falls due outside the hours waits for the next allowed time. Waits count whole days, from 1 to 30, and Business days only skips Saturdays and Sundays. To start a batch at a set time, use Schedule on the Launch tab and pick the date and time.

Can an agency text leads for a client?

Yes, in the client’s name. The client’s business registers as the brand, the lead’s consent has to name the client, and each text says who is writing.

Carrier guidance says an opt-in applies only to the sender it was given to (CTIA, 2023), so a lead form should name the client. The agency texting guide covers whose brand registers, whose consent counts and what to agree in writing with the client. This is a summary of public rules as of October 2026, not legal advice.

In Textually each person needs a consent record, the source and the date they agreed, carried from columns on your list or your CRM, or you confirm consent for the whole campaign at launch. A text step skips anyone without one and saves the reason on the lead.

What happens when a lead replies or texts STOP?

A reply ends the sequence and lands in that client’s shared inbox, for the setter to book or the client’s team to answer. STOP or clear stop wording opts the lead out across that client’s workspace.

• A reply of any kind ends the sequence for that person, and no later step goes out. The thread lands in the shared inbox with a label such as Interested or Declined, and whoever answers sends from the number the person already knows.
• STOP, or clear wording such as “please stop texting me” or “remove me from your list”, opts the person out across your whole workspace: this campaign, every other campaign that holds their number, and any you run later. The inbox won’t send to them, and a later text from them does not undo it.

Every member of the workspace sees the reply in the bell inside Textually, and each person can turn on email or browser alerts. A thread that has waited more than 4 hours is marked overdue in Needs reply. Invite the client’s team to the workspace as Members if they answer their own leads, or as Viewers if they only want to read.

Webhooks can send each reply and opt-out to the client’s own tools within about a minute.

How do I connect each client’s CRM?

One connection per client workspace. The client’s contacts come into a list in their workspace, and replies and opt-outs go back on the record in their CRM.

HighLevel connects one sub-account at a time, so each client’s contacts land in their own list. HubSpot and Close work the same way for clients and sales teams on those CRMs.

Guides on this topic

• Agency texting for clients: brand, consent and replies9 min
• Missed meeting and no-show texts: a rebooking sequence9 min
• SMS for sales and customer follow-up: the complete guide11 min