The texting solution built for Large and Multi-Site Churches
Cell phone carriers continue to ratchet up their message filtering and threaten large fees. We want to make sure that you completely understand the issues and are fully aware of how Text In Church has your back. Technology is an ever-changing field, so we want you to have full confidence that we are navigating these changes and coming up with solutions that will keep connection with your communities effective and efficient.
To recap, a decision by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ensured US carriers’ text-messaging services would remain largely unregulated. This law was intended to protect consumers from spam. However, some of the largest phone carriers have leveraged this policy to increase profits. All in the name of “SPAM” prevention, they have threatened substantial fees and rolled out extreme filtering algorithms that have effectively stopped all text messages with links from being delivered. Worse yet, some carriers are falsely reporting to have delivered the messages successfully, when in fact they were not delivered.
Our priority is to make sure that your church’s messages are delivered. So, effective January 15th, we implemented an automated retry system to ensure the deliverability of your messages. This week, we released our enhanced “smart retry technology”. Now, when a message is filtered by the carrier and not delivered successfully, Text In Church will automatically resend that message from a shortcode; this maximizes deliverability. Unfortunately, a few carriers (T-mobile, Tellus) have begun falsely reporting messages as “delivered” even though they actually filtered the message and did not deliver it. When this occurs, we are not able to retry sending.
Additionally, when someone texts your keyword, we will now send your automated reply message (with the link to your church connection card) from the shortcode to ensure the highest possible deliverability. Delivering your digital connection card is just too important. We will not risk your connection cards failing to deliver because of the carrier’s faulty reporting.
If someone responds to a message of yours sent from a shortcode, we will automatically route that message into your Text In Church account’s inbox. The personal and conversational piece of our platform will not be lost with the use of a shortcode, don’t worry.
Know that we are committed to you and the work you do, and we will continue to stay on top of any changes that may continue. Please contact us if you have additional questions or concerns. You are our top priority!
