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Text customers without handing out your cell number

Customers text a BestMate number, and every reply lands in one inbox on your phone and your laptop, with their photos and their quotes, jobs and invoices on the same record.

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How it works

  1. Text from the customer's record

    Tap Message on a customer, or open the Messages inbox. Write a text or attach a photo. It arrives as a normal SMS, so the customer replies from the messaging app they already use.

  2. Get a push with their name

    When they text back, the reply drops into the same thread and your phone shows a notification with the customer's name, not a number you have to look up.

  3. Clear the unread before you leave

    The inbox shows an unread count on every conversation. Between jobs, or at the desk that evening, you can see who is still waiting and answer them from the phone or the web app.

Your cell number stays yours

Customers text a BestMate number, so your own cell doesn't have to be the number every customer has, and the 9pm 'quick question' doesn't land between the family chat and the soccer parents. Each thread shows up under the customer's name, next to their jobs, so you're never guessing which (913) number is the hallway job.

Every reply gets seen

A push notification with the customer's name arrives the moment they text back, and unread counts sit on each conversation until you open it. The customer who wrote 'yes, Tuesday works' at lunch gets an answer before you've packed up the truck, not after dinner when they've already called someone else.

What was agreed, beside the quote

When a homeowner says the hallway was supposed to be included, you don't scroll back through three weeks of personal messages. Their texts sit on the same record as the estimate they signed, so you can open both and settle it in a minute, standing in their kitchen.

Photos before you drive out

Ask for a photo of the snapped spring, the leaking valve or the ceiling stain, and the right part goes on the truck. Send back a picture of the finished job. Photos customers send are saved with the conversation, so they're still there when you write the estimate.

  • At the desk or in the driveway

    The same conversations are on your phone and on the web app. Start a thread in a customer's driveway, then pick it up on the laptop at night while you do the invoices, with nothing to forward or copy across.

How different trades use it

Messaging questions

Do my customers need to download an app?

No. Your texts reach them as a normal SMS, and they reply from whatever messaging app they already use. Photos they send come through to the conversation in BestMate and are saved there with the thread.

Which phone numbers can I text?

US and Canadian mobile numbers. If a customer only has a landline or a number outside those two countries, call or email them from their customer record instead.

Can I send estimates and invoices by text?

Yes. An estimate or invoice can go by text as a link the customer opens on their phone with no login, and they can sign or pay from that page. Sending documents by text is limited to 30 an hour.

Will I know when a customer replies?

Yes. You get a push notification with the customer's name when they text back, and the inbox shows an unread count on each conversation, on the phone and on the web app.

Is messaging on every plan?

Messaging is on paid plans. It works in the iOS, Android and web apps, and the same conversations show on all of them.

Take customer texts off your personal phone

Start a 14-day free trial with no credit card, and keep every conversation next to the job it's about.

14-day free trial · No credit card required · Cancel anytime