Question
Scenario A
I receive one of the error messages below when I send an outbound Text message.
- We couldn't deliver this message
- We couldn't send the message
Scenario B
When I review the message details in my Text history, the status of my message is either Undelivered or Failed:
Why are my SMS messages failing?
Answer
There are multiple reasons why an SMS message can fail. Some common reasons why SMS messages may be failing to send:
- The destination handset is unreachable.
- The destination phone number does not support Text.
- The SMS message exceeds the 160 character limit.
- The end user sent an opt-out code to one of your messages. For more information on opt-outs, see the article: About opt-out keywords for Zendesk Text.
- The limit of 500 daily, 1000 weekly, or 2,000 monthly per number has been reached for outbound SMS sent by US and Canada toll-free numbers.
If SMS messages are still failing to send or if you need your US/CA toll-free numbers verified, contact Zendesk Customer Support with the ticket ID where the SMS message failed.
19 comments
Carl McDowell
Hi test,
The best way to get to the bottom of the issue will be working with the support team. I believe you have an existing ticket with them.
It is highly likely the issue is related to US phone numbers needing to be registered, this is covered in the article registering to use A2P 10DLC for text messaging (https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408837560730
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Brandon Tidd
Hello -
I noticed that this error seems to be occurring when more than one phone number is associated with the user profile. In this scenario, even if the SMS was created on the secondary phone number, Zendesk will attempt to reply to the primary number on the user profile.
To get around this, you can set the SMS number as the primary number by removing and readding the other phone number(s) on the user profile.
Alternatively, I published an app that can do this from directly inside of the ticket interface.
Hope this helps!
Brandon
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Jennifer Rozenberg
I have tried sending a text with two different numbers and each time I try to respond as an agent, it fails. A message appears that says we can't deliver to this number. What can I do to fix this? I need text set up this week and nothing is working. Thanks!
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Rolf Hayes
Thanks Christine Diego yes this would help.
Would there be a way of the trigger firing if the end user didn't have a phone number saved? How would I get this to refer or check this automatically? Also if a number was later added, I don't know that I could get this tag removed without manually checking the tickets that are attributed to this end user.
Bear in mind that the end user is linked to the ticket in a related field and not the requester for the ticket itself.
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Christine Diego
You can add a tag to those tickets either via macro or trigger, and then use the condition "Tag" "Contains none of the following" in your current trigger to exclude those tickets. You can check this article for details.
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Rolf Hayes
We've got a trigger that sends a text message to the end user for a ticket, however we occasionally get the "We couldn't deliver this message" typically when the customer doesn't have a number. This is not really an issue at the moment, however this system message changes the ticket to Open status. Is there any way of preventing this message from changing the status of the ticket?
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Carl McDowell
Hi Maria
To help find the reason why your messages are not being sent, I've created a ticket for you as there are multiple possibilities on the reasons. Some of the common reasons:
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Maria M.
Hey everyone! Whenever a team member tries to submit an SMS with a URL in the message, it will not be delivered. What is the solution?
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Shannon Kertis
Outgoing SMS messages from Zendesk can be replied to. I will create a ticket for us to continue troubleshooting! Talk to you there!
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Jahn Bronilla
Hi Shannon Pesta - that makes sense but can also confirm as to why the customers cannot reply to a text message from Zendesk?
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