Few things tank customer experience faster than missing SMS. If reminders, confirmations, or replies aren't going out, work through this checklist in order.
Step 1 — Confirm 10DLC status
The #1 cause: 10DLC campaign not approved. Settings → Messaging → 10DLC. Your campaign must show "Approved", not "Pending Review" or "Failed".
If pending: wait. Carrier review can take 1-7 business days. If failed: see the failure reason. Common causes — sample messages missing STOP language, or the brand info doesn't match your EIN.
Step 2 — Confirm your sending number is provisioned
Settings → Messaging → Phone numbers. You should see at least one number with status "Active".
If you see no number: provision one (10DLC walkthrough). If the number shows "Pending port": still in port process; can take 7-14 days. If the number shows "Suspended": billing issue. Check your card on file.
Step 3 — Test deliverability to your own phone
Settings → Messaging → Send test SMS → enter your personal phone → send. Should arrive within 10 seconds.
If it doesn't: - Check spam/blocked numbers on your phone — make sure the SalesThumb number isn't blocked - Try a different carrier (T-Mobile, Verizon, AT&T — sometimes one carrier flags you, others don't) - Reply STOP from a test phone in the past? You may be opted out yourself. Reply START to opt back in.
Step 4 — Confirm customer hasn't opted out
The single most common "missing SMS" reason: the customer replied STOP at some point. Customers page → click the customer → look for "Opted out: YES" badge.
If yes: they cannot receive marketing OR transactional SMS until they reply START. Email them and ask them to opt back in.
Step 5 — Confirm the customer's phone number is correct
Customers page → click the customer → verify phone number. Common issues:
- Missing area code (5551234567 vs (555) 123-4567)
- Wrong country code (we default to +1 US; if your customer's phone is Canadian, it should also be +1; international customers need their country code)
- Landline number — SMS won't deliver to landlines. Some carriers send a Text-to-Speech message; most just drop it.
Step 6 — Check the message template
If the customer's phone is right and they're not opted out, check the template that should be sending. Settings → Messaging → Templates.
Common issues: - Template is disabled (a manager turned off "appointment reminder" templates) - Template contains a merge field that didn't populate (e.g. `{shop_address}` empty because the shop address isn't set) → SalesThumb suppresses the send rather than send a broken message - Template exceeds 1,600 characters and split across multiple segments; sometimes carriers drop multi-segment messages
Step 7 — Check delivery logs
Settings → Messaging → Delivery log. Find the customer's name, look at the status:
- Delivered: it arrived. Customer just hasn't checked their phone.
- Sent: handed off to the carrier, but not yet confirmed delivered. Sometimes carriers don't return delivery receipts.
- Failed: returned an error. Hover the row for the failure reason.
- Filtered: carrier dropped it (usually because the recipient previously reported spam or the message tripped a filter).
Step 8 — Carrier-specific issues
Some patterns we see:
- T-Mobile filter on certain words — "free", "guaranteed", "click here", "$$$" can trigger filtering. Rewrite the template in plain language.
- Verizon strict on URLs — some Verizon prefixes block short-link URLs. Use full URLs (salesthumb.com/...) instead of bit.ly or short codes.
- AT&T case-sensitive opt-out — they accept "STOP" but not "stop". Our templates always uppercase.
When to escalate to support
If you've worked through all 8 steps and customers still aren't receiving SMS, contact info@roffik.com with:
- The customer name + phone
- The expected send time (e.g. "yesterday at 9 AM PT")
- The template name
- A screenshot of the delivery log row
We can pull carrier-level logs and find the failure.