Every message you send a client goes out on one of three channels: SMS, Email or WhatsApp. They are not interchangeable. A text arrives in seconds but is short and costs per message; an email carries a subject, a copy to a colleague and attachments; WhatsApp is read more often but is governed by rules set by WhatsApp itself, not by Joy.

This guide explains how the channel gets chosen, why a channel is sometimes missing, and what each one can and cannot carry. It is worth reading once, because the send dialog makes a choice for you and that choice surprises people.

The same send dialog opens from every place you can contact a client: New message on the Outreach tab, the contact action in the client header, the reply box in Messages, and the WhatsApp shortcut in the inbox. It always describes itself the same way:

Choose how to contact this client — SMS, email or WhatsApp. Delivery is tracked and replies can be enabled per message.

There are no other channels in this dialog. A phone call or a face-to-face visit is not a message: log it as a record on the Client record tab.

The dialog opens on the channel this client was last contacted on, so you carry on in the conversation the client already recognises rather than starting a new one somewhere else. If you opened the dialog from an action that implies a channel — replying to a WhatsApp thread, for example — that channel wins instead.

You can always change it. Select a different channel before you type, and the fields change with it.

Under the channel picker sits a quiet line of evidence — what this client has actually responded to before, and a warning if the address you are about to use is known to be bad. It never changes your selection or blocks the send; you know things the app does not.

Whichever you pick, the body is pre-filled with Hello [first name], and your sender name, and anything you have already typed is left alone.

A channel you cannot use stays visible with the reason written after its name — for example SMS — no phone number on file. The reasons are:

The same fact is repeated as an amber line above the message box, in plain words: This client has no email address on file. Fix the underlying thing — add the number, record consent, ask an Owner to enable texting — and the channel becomes available.

WhatsApp is different: if your organisation does not have WhatsApp switched on, it is removed from the list rather than greyed out. Do not read its absence as a fault. WhatsApp needs two organisation settings on at once — text messaging, and WhatsApp itself — and only an Owner can turn them on.

If the setting changes between opening the dialog and sending, the server refuses the send and tells you which one:

Where a client has more than one number or address, pick the one to use in the dialog. If the chosen number does not look like a UK mobile, the app warns rather than blocks: +... doesn't look like a valid UK mobile number (expected +447 followed by 9 digits). The message may never be delivered — and, when there is more than one to choose from, — consider picking a different number. A landline will accept an SMS in the app and never arrive on the phone, so take the warning seriously.

Let the evidence decide rather than habit. The How this person engages panel at the top of the Outreach tab shows the channel this client has demonstrably replied on, and the per-channel breakdown of what has been sent, opened and answered. If someone answers on SMS and has never opened an email, send the SMS.