Your Client Keeps Texting You Feedback. Here's How to Make It Stop.

Your phone buzzes at 9:14pm. It's a client: "hey quick thing, the button on the homepage looks weird on my phone, can u check?" No screenshot. No link. Just "the button."

You know exactly what's happening here, because it happens every week. A text today, a WhatsApp voice note tomorrow, a DM through Instagram because that's where they happened to be when they noticed. Nothing arrives the same way twice, and every single one interrupts whatever you were actually doing.

This isn't a client problem. It's an access problem — you're reachable everywhere, so feedback shows up everywhere.

Why This Keeps Happening

Texting you is the path of least resistance, and clients take the path of least resistance every time. You gave them your number to sort out a payment once, or texted them a launch date, and now that channel is open forever. There's no other option in their head, so anything that crosses their mind — a typo, a broken link, a "can we change this colour" — goes straight to your personal phone.

The result is entirely predictable:

No context arrives with the message. "The button looks weird" could mean five different things. You reply asking which button, which page, which phone. That's a whole exchange before you've even started fixing anything.
Nothing is timestamped or trackable. Three weeks later you can't remember if you actually fixed the thing from that Tuesday text, or if it's still sitting there.
It has no off switch. Email at least implies "I'll get to this during work hours." A text at 9pm implies you should be looking at your phone right now.
It doesn't scale past one client. The moment you have four or five clients all doing this, you're mentally reconstructing five separate conversation histories from memory, because none of them live anywhere organised.

The fix isn't asking clients to text you less — they won't, because you haven't given them anything better to do instead.

See how a client portal replaces the group chat →

What Actually Stops the Texts

Not a stern email asking clients to "please use email instead." That doesn't work because email has the exact same problems as texting — no structure, no status, easy to lose in a thread. What stops it is giving clients a single, dead-simple place that's specifically for this, and that's easier to use than texting you once they're in the habit.

For that to actually replace the group chat, it needs to clear a low bar:

It has to be a link, not an app. If a client has to download something or remember a password they set up eight months ago, they'll text you instead.
It has to be faster than a text. If filling in the form takes longer than typing "the button looks weird," you've lost.
It has to show them you got it. The reason clients re-send and follow up is they have no confirmation. A status they can check removes the reason to ping you "did you see this?"

This is the entire idea behind Lantern: every client gets their own private portal — one link, invite-only, nobody else can see it. They open it, type what's wrong (or record a 30-second screen recording instead of typing, which is often faster for them too), and it lands in your dashboard with the page, browser, and device already attached. No "which button" reply required.

Setting It Up Without Making It Feel Like a New System

You don't need to announce a big process change. The rollout that actually works for solo freelancers is quiet:

Send the portal link the next time a client texts you something. "Good catch — I've actually got a proper way to log this now, here's your link, it takes 20 seconds." No lecture, just a better option offered in the moment.
Reply to their next few texts with "can you pop that in your portal so I don't lose track of it?" instead of just fixing it silently. If you silently fix texted requests, you're training them that texting works fine.
Once two or three requests have gone through the portal, most clients switch over on their own, because it's genuinely less effort — they don't need you to reply, ask questions, or confirm anything.

The trick is that the portal has to actually be less work than texting you, or nobody switches. That's really it.

What This Costs You (and What Not Doing It Costs You)

Lantern's Individual plan is £12.50/month, covers up to 5 clients, unlimited items in your queue, and there's a 14-day free trial with no card required. If you're juggling more than 5 clients, the Team plan is £30/month flat — same price whether that's 6 clients or 30.

Compare that to the actual cost of the status quo: if a vague text costs you 15 minutes of back-and-forth to figure out what's even being asked, and you get 10 of those a month, that's two and a half hours of unpaid clarification admin. At any real freelance rate, £12.50 pays for itself before the second week is out.

The bigger cost is less obvious — it's the 9pm buzz that pulls your attention away from dinner, or the client's kid's birthday party, or literally anything else, because you haven't drawn a line between "reachable" and "on the clock." A portal draws that line for you. Clients can leave feedback any time they think of it; you see it when you're actually working.

Start your free trial — no card required →

Takes about five minutes to set up your first client. They don't need to do anything until you send them their portal link.