When a customer stops all contact

Summary

A customer can tell your garage to stop contacting them. When they do, Torqueflow puts them into a “contact stopped” state and holds back every automated message on every channel. No reminders, no booking texts, no quote or invoice emails, and no login codes go out while a customer is stopped.

This is a safeguarding feature, not just a marketing opt-out. Some people need a garage to go quiet because a message about where and when their car is being serviced could put them at risk. Treat a stopped customer as exactly that: nothing leaves the building until the genuine customer asks you to turn contact back on, in person or on the phone.

This article explains how a customer stops contact, what staff see, what still works, and the verified process for re-enabling contact.

Prerequisites

• To see a customer’s contact status: any staff role.
• To re-enable a stopped customer: the Re-enable contact capability (customers.contact.reenable), which is granted to Owner and Manager only. Service advisors and technicians cannot re-enable contact.
• The genuine customer present in person or on the phone before you start a re-enable. Possession of their phone is not enough.

How a customer stops contact

There are three ways to put a customer into the contact-stopped state:

• The customer replies STOP to any text or WhatsApp message, or sends STOP by email. The keyword is recognised on every messaging channel, not just SMS.
• The customer uses the portal. In their portal preferences there is a separate Safety section with a “stop all contact” control. This matters for anyone who cannot safely send a STOP text from their own phone. It takes effect instantly and quietly, with no message sent back.
• Staff stop it for them. If a customer phones the counter and asks to be left alone, a staff member can stop all contact from the customer record. This needs the Stop all contact permission and asks for a clear confirmation first, because it switches off every message.

The moment any of these happens, the customer is marked contact stopped across the whole system. From that point:

• No reminders go out (MOT, service, follow-ups) on any channel.
• No booking confirmations, payment links, quote emails, invoice emails, or portal links are sent.
• The AI assistant stops replying to that customer on chat, SMS, and WhatsApp.
• Even one-time login codes are withheld. A stopped customer cannot log in to the portal with a code. They reach their records through you instead (see the re-enable steps below).

There are no exceptions to this. A withheld login code is deliberate, because a leaked code is still a message that lands on the customer’s phone.

Steps

Recognise a stopped customer

1. Open the customer record. A stopped customer shows a clear banner at the top: “Contact stopped - this customer has opted out of all messages.”
2. In the messaging inbox, stopped customers carry the same label on their conversation row and at the top of the thread.
3. If you try to send a message to a stopped customer, Torqueflow blocks the send and tells you why. The send never fails silently. You will see the neutral reason and a pointer to the re-enable process.

Keep the language neutral. The badge states the mechanical fact only. Never add a note to the record about why a customer stopped contact. The reason belongs in your own safeguarding training, never on the customer record where anyone with access could read it.

Understand a shared number

1. If two or more customers share a phone number (for example, a couple or a family), a STOP from that number stops all of them. This is deliberate. It is safer to stop everyone on a shared number than to risk a message reaching the wrong person.
2. The banner notes how many customers were affected by a shared-number STOP.
3. Re-enabling is always done one customer at a time. Turning contact back on for one person on a shared number leaves the others stopped.

Re-enable a stopped customer (Owner or Manager)

Only start this when the genuine customer has asked you to, and is with you in person or on the phone.

1. Open the customer record. On the contact-stopped banner, select Re-enable contact. The button only appears for Owners and Managers.
2. Work through the on-screen confirmations. You confirm that:
   • You understand that wrongly re-enabling a customer is a serious matter that can carry a fine.
   • The customer is with you, in person or on the phone.
   • You have explained that this step is needed because they sent STOP.
   • You are satisfied this is the actual customer, not someone holding their phone.
   • The customer is expecting this and wants contact turned back on.
3. Choose a channel you can confirm the customer controls right now (text, email, or voice). Torqueflow sends a short code to that channel.
4. Ask the customer to read the code back to you. Type the code they read out.
5. When the code matches, contact is re-enabled. The banner disappears and normal messaging resumes.

The session is time-limited. If it takes longer than about 10 minutes, it expires and you start again. You can try a different channel if the first code does not arrive (for example, switch from text to email), but you cannot extend the time limit by doing so.

When a re-enable completes, the account Owner is sent a confirmation email automatically. This is a deliberate check, so that no single person can quietly re-enable a customer without the Owner knowing.

Expected Outcome

• A stopped customer receives no automated messages of any kind, on any channel, including login codes.
• Every staff member can see at a glance that a customer is stopped, and any attempt to message them is blocked with a clear reason.
• An Owner or Manager can re-enable a customer through a verified, code-confirmed session, and the Owner is notified when they do.
• Re-enabling one customer on a shared number does not re-enable the others.

Notes

• Texting START does not turn contact back on. Replying START may lift the phone network’s own block on texts, but it does not change anything in Torqueflow. The only thing that re-enables a customer is a completed verified re-enable session done by an Owner or Manager. This is what keeps a customer safe even if someone else gets hold of their phone and texts START.
• Staff notifications are not affected. A customer stopping contact never stops messages that go to your team, such as billing notices, call notifications, or daily digests. Only messages aimed at the stopped customer are held back.
• Stopping contact is separate from marketing preferences. Re-enabling a customer turns their contact state back on. It does not silently switch their marketing texts back on. Marketing consent stays exactly as the customer last set it.
• “Stop all contact” is not the same as turning off a reminder type. Customers and staff can already switch individual reminder types on or off in the normal preferences. That is an everyday choice. “Stop all contact” is the safety switch that silences everything, including login codes. Use the granular preferences when a customer just wants fewer of one kind of message. A common mix-up is a customer texting STOP expecting to mute one reminder and accidentally going fully dark. If you spot that, you can re-enable them and set the specific preference they actually wanted.
• Connected services are covered too. If your garage uses GoHighLevel, stopping a customer also sets their GoHighLevel contact to Do Not Disturb, so messages cannot leak out through that route either.

Troubleshooting

Problem: A customer says they are not getting any reminders, confirmations, or emails. Cause: They are in the contact-stopped state, usually because a STOP was received from their number (which may be shared with someone else). Fix: Open their record and check for the contact-stopped banner. If they want contact back on and are with you, follow the re-enable steps. Never re-enable on someone else’s say-so.

Problem: A customer cannot log in to the portal with a code. Cause: Login codes are withheld for stopped customers, by design. Fix: Confirm whether they are stopped. If they want access back, complete the verified re-enable process. Until then, look up the information they need on their behalf.

Problem: I cannot see the Re-enable contact button. Cause: Re-enabling is limited to Owners and Managers. Fix: Ask an Owner or Manager to run the re-enable, or ask an Owner to review your role.

Problem: The re-enable session expired before I finished. Cause: Sessions time out after about 10 minutes for security. Fix: Start the re-enable again. Have the customer ready to read the code back before you begin.

Problem: The code did not arrive on the customer’s phone. Cause: Text delivery to a number that has been stopped is not always reliable. Fix: Choose a different channel in the same session, such as email, which avoids the text-message block entirely.

Problem: A STOP from one phone stopped more than one customer. Cause: Those customers share that phone number, so the STOP applied to all of them. Fix: This is expected. Re-enable each customer individually, only when each one asks.

Permissions

• View contact status: any role. The banner and inbox labels are visible to all staff.
• Stop all contact (customers.contact.stop): Owner, Manager, and Service Advisor. The service advisor is included on purpose, because they are the one who answers the counter phone when a customer rings in to ask for it.
• Re-enable contact (customers.contact.reenable): Owner and Manager only. Service advisors, technicians, and kiosk users cannot re-enable a stopped customer.

Stopping is the safe, wide direction, so more roles can do it. Re-enabling is the sensitive one, so it is held to Owner and Manager and the verified session above. That asymmetry is deliberate.