Your texts are not reaching customers, and nobody told you

You sent the reminder. "Hi Sarah, your appointment is tomorrow at 2pm." Sarah did not show up. She never got it. Nothing bounced. No error. The message just stopped somewhere between your number and her phone, and the first you heard about it was an empty chair. This is A2P registration. Carriers now require a business to be registered before its number can send texts to customers. It exists to cut spam, and it does that by blocking anything unregistered by default. If you have never applied, your messages may not be going through. The process is not hard. It is just picky about things nobody warns you about. Here is what gets checked, and where applications get rejected. ## 1. Your business details have to match your paperwork exactly The business name and address on your application must match your official government documents. Not close. The same. Different spelling, an abbreviated street, a trading name instead of the registered one: any of these can get the application rejected. You also need a real registered business number. ## 2. Your website has to look like a real business owns it Reviewers open your site. They are looking for: - Your logo - A Privacy Policy page - A Terms of Service page - A contact page - A form where someone can opt in on their own A half-finished site, a template with placeholder text, a page with no way to contact you. These read as fake, and fake gets rejected. ## 3. Your sign-up form needs two separate checkboxes When someone gives you their phone number, they have to choose what they are agreeing to receive. Two checkboxes, not one: - One for service messages: reminders, appointment updates, order status - One for marketing messages: offers, promotions, campaigns They tick each box themselves. You cannot pre-tick them. The phone number field also cannot be required. Giving you a number has to be a choice, not a condition of submitting the form. ## 4. Your privacy policy has to say you do not share or sell phone numbers This is the one that catches most people, because most privacy policies are generic templates and most generic templates mention sharing data with third parties. Your policy must state plainly that you do not share or sell customers' phone numbers. If it says anything about sharing or selling that information, the registration is rejected and you have to fix the policy before you can reapply. ## 5. You have to show the actual messages you will send Not a description of them. Samples: > "Hi Sarah, your appointment is tomorrow at 2:00 pm. Reply STOP to cancel." > "Hi Mike, here is your estimate. Reply STOP to unsubscribe." Every sample needs clear instructions for how to stop receiving messages. Leave that out and the sample fails. ## 6. Write the application in plain words Say what the business does. Say why you send messages: reminders, updates, offers. Keep it short and keep it true. A real person reviews this, not a computer. Jargon does not help you and exaggeration hurts you, because they can open your website and check. ## The part that is genuinely annoying Registration is not instant, and a rejection sends you back to the start. That is why the privacy policy and the two checkboxes are worth fixing before you apply rather than after. Those two are the most common reasons an application comes back, and both are edits you can make in an afternoon. Nothing here requires a specialist. It requires someone to go through the six items above and actually check each one against what is live on your site right now.