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Papa John's faces $250 million spam lawsuit

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Piper

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For those that think it’s a good idea to blast text your list of non-opt-in phone numbers:

http://money.cnn.com/2012/11/13/technol … apa-johns/

This isn’t going to touch PJ’s corporate, only franchisee that participated.

The penalty is $500 per text, possibly $1,500 per text if it is ruled that the willfully broke the law (as in knowing it’s illegal and doing it anyway.)
 
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Bulk/mass texting has its place, but when you begin to read the details, you’ll see a service was used, sending dozens of texts to the same number in less than a 24 hour period…how stupid is that?

We blast out thousands of messages, maybe once per month and get less than a dozen ‘stop’ replies, which we do immediately!

We also get approx. the same # of ‘thanks’…

We’ll continue, but as always, cautiously…it’s been a boon for our operation and nearly free…

We’ve found a ‘secret’, perhaps, is to thank all new customers in the 1st text message, rather than to blast back with a new offer…makes a world of difference in future communications…

It’s all a matter of how you use your resources…IMHBCO…lol…
 
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We do not do texts at all and I do not think I ever will. I would personally hate to get advertising that way!

We do send emails. The addresses are from our online orders or a signup sheet in the store so our trail of “opt-in” is very clear. We also have an opt-out at the bottom of every email and that process is automatic. We generally have about 1-2 opt out on each email we send. Since we send over 1000 at a time that is low rate.
 
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I was/am a big proponent of email too, until I saw the ‘open’ rate vs texting…

Everyone reads their texts…not everyone reads/opens their email…sadly…

The open rate is less than 25% in our biz…so, sending out 1,000 perhaps only 200 or so will actually open/read the email, much less respond with an action…

I send out 1,000 texts, everyone at least ‘glances’ at it and I generally get a 8-12% response over 3 or 4 days…

Texting is not for every market, but in my market, it is the preferred method to reach college students…
 
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I have doing texts for about 6 months now. About 8 months ago others in my chain did it they way being sued over. They were told it was OK by the text company. Claiming that since they had done business with you they have opened the relationship and so long that you give them an opt out chance they are good to go.

I was preparring to do some since others had had really good results. The day before my initial blast was to go out the phones started ringing off the hook at my Campus store in Boulder, CO. 100 complaints at the store and 25 at my home office (including 2 death threats) later we knew something was wrong. Some employee at the text company sent out MY MESSAGE to the Ft Collins store’s list!

Long story short I dropped out of that method of texting and 2 months later I started an organic OPT IN ONLY version of the program. All the other stores in my chain continued to use the abusive method and even with an angry email telling them to stop as it was affecting my stores without them knowing it.

Part of me wants all them to get caught too…more so for me to tell them “I told you so” than anything else.

They are all freaked out now and the text company still believes what they did is OK.

I advetise on all my print media:
Join our VIP Text Club “2019pizza to 44555” and receive a FREE CheeseBread instantly.
 
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Building an opt-in list is the best method, but even then, abusing the relationship will cause a lot of churn…

When I discuss texting with my employees & customers, they all tell me horror stories of getting duplicate texts daily, multiple texts over a short period of time, etc.

Then the ask to be removed from those lists…

We never send out more than 1 text per any 2 week period to the same person, so our churn rate is minuscule…

I used to use a well known service…EZ Texting & was quite happy with them…never had any of the horror stories some have had…but @ 5¢/message it can get pricey…

Taking it in-house has saved money, but it is not as efficient as using a service…a trade-off for sure…
 
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