Known Issue with sending Square Messages (11/29/22 - 12/14/22)

[Mtbresnan]

The title of this thread has been edited by a Square Moderator from the original: "Square Messages is currently experiencing issues sending text messages."

Is anyone also having problems with text messages failing to send. And receiving this message:

“Square Messages is currently experiencing issues sending text messages. Messages may not send as expected.”

[_Violet · Accepted solution]

Hi @Mtbresnan, @Zeuspmu, and @allisonlrhoades - Thank you all for posting here in the Seller Community. I'm sorry to hear that you are being impacted by the ongoing issue with Square Messages.

This particular issue has been taking a little longer because we are working alongside a third party in order to resolve it. Our engineers and our Square Messaging Product Team are aware of this issue and are currently investigating a solution with third-party mobile carriers. 

In the meantime, we will continue to update issquareup.com with the latest details. Sorry that we have not been posting updates as often on this one. We don't have new information at this time, but this issue is certainly prioritized by our engineers and they are still working on it. We thoroughly appreciate your patience and understanding until this is fully resolved.

I hope this information is helpful but please do let me know if you have any additional questions by replying to this thread. 

[TheNailShoppe]

I still cannot message my clients!

[jackyff8]

no its not fixed. I still can't send my clients text using square's text messaging. The system asks the client send us a text first in order to unblock for us to text them back. This means I have to proactively text or ask the client face to face to say "hey, reply to that text real quick so I can text you in the future!". This is really lame.

[Amandaholistic]

But it isn’t fully operational, I can’t message my clients, there is no message line, and it says I can only reply to their messages, which I also can’t. I pay for square appointments and I’m. It receiving one of the most important features. This is ridiculous.

[lauranadeau14]

The message hasn't been resolved. I've been using the text message with clients for years and now whatever change or 'fix" has taken place has caused clients to not opt in for messages.  

This is a big problem and my communication with clients is suffering. 

Email is not great to use because of filters and the abundance of emails people receive.

Something needs to be done.

[pjd]

This is ABSOLUTELY NOT fixed. Today, I am still unable to send text messages to clients. I have the option to send an email. However, this is NOT an efficient form of communication in 2023. This issue started in December 2022. It should be fixed by now. This is ridiculous.  

[LexiLynn]

I am still unable to send messages through Square. Online I am getting an error message saying "Text messages can be sent as a reply to your customer's message.", but on the app the error message says "The customer has unsubscribed from receiving text messages."

Either way, I cannot send messages and none of my clients have unsubscribed.

[Tpowell]

It has not been fixed for my business.  Can someone contact us to see what can be done.  This feature is important to the growth of our business.

[Trumanbarberco]

The feature is not coming back, as confirmed by my rep yesterday.  It is not something they view as broken that requires fixing.  She stated:

• The ability to text customers from a business falls under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act which is Federal law requiring businesses to get expressed written consent from consumers using mobile devices before sending them text messages. Messages in breach of TCPA compliance may result in fines up to thousands of dollars. 
• Due to TCPA compliance, sellers moving forward will only be able to text customers if that customer replies to a text, opting them in to receive text messages.  
• Once a customer replies however, you should be able to communicate freely with that customer moving forward. 
• To help initiate customer replies to appointment reminders, we would suggest customizing email reminders to say something along the lines of "please reply 'Y' to text message reminder to confirm your appointment time". In the meantime, the team is working on the ability to customize automated text message reminders for appointments, however we don't have a timeline for that feature launch. 
• Another way to help get customers to opt into text messages would be to enable text message marketing. It's my understanding from the Marketing Team that if a customer opts into text message marketing, that will also opt them in to receive text messages through appointments. I know this feature comes at an additional cost however, I'm happy to extend an additional month free on top of the free 30 day trial you get when signing up to decide if this may be a solution/ give you some additional time to help opt more customers into text messages. Square Text Message Marketing FAQ

Why Square can't simply have the customer opt in to receiving text messages at the time of booking is beyond me (a simple check the box that is required to book would suffice).  In fact, I believe they already do this.

[beautifyme]

Hi. My messaging is all messed up. Can't send texts

[JJ_]

Hey there @beautifyme and welcome to the Seller Community 👋

Square has made a few updates to Square Messages to minimize potential disruptions in the future, and we’re happy to share that we’ve restored chat functionality with your customers who reach out to you via SMS. These communications will now be dependent on your customers starting the conversation by replying to service messages, like a receipt, appointment reminder, or order update, just to name a few. Square is also working to re-enable unrestricted outbound messaging capabilities early next year. 
 

[BriaMayMassage]

We know it is dependent on our clients now to reach out to us. But that is not what we are asking for. Hopefully that last comment of "re-enable unrestricted outbound messaging early next year" means January 2023. Please listen to your users and bring back the functions that we enjoyed about this service. I will start paying for the monthly square+ subscription once this messaging issue is back to the way it was.

[IndigoSkin]

The fix is very easy.

We cannot alter the automated text confirmation that is sent from square… but SQUARE can ! Please change the automated text message to read “ reply yes to this text to enable communication “.

EASY. That way, at least some people will reply to the text to initiate us being able to text message.

@BriaMayMassage @Mtbresnan @beautifyme @gbc8 @_Violet 

[CountryHearth]

Still can not message my customers. We know it is dependent on our clients now to reach out to us. But that is not what we are asking for. We want to initiate via text messages.

[jackyff8]

hi @JJ_  what is the timeline to re-enable unrestricted outbound messaging capabilities? Many customers of Square is really having a big issue with this feature. I'm astounded this fix doesn't seem to be an important item for the support team to fix, is it because the team doesn't feel it is important? I'm trying to get some insights and maybe you can lay some information for those of us scrabbling as well. This has definitely lead me to start to look for alternatives and potentially switching to other pos including "appointments" which I also pay a subscription fee for. If I can't message my clients and am being restricting to do so, I just don't see any use of all this.

[IndigoSkin]

@_Violet 

 The fix is very easy.

We cannot alter the automated text confirmation that is sent from square… but SQUARE can ! Please change the automated text message to read “ reply yes to this text to enable communication “.

EASY. That way, at least some people will reply to the text to initiate us being able to text message.

[Tsweeney23]

This service is still not functioning a month later!! 😡

[Tsweeney23]

Has anyone found an alternative to square? Unfortunately this has severely dampened my business and I’m now being forced to look for other processing and ways to communicate. If they won’t listen to concerns, I’m not giving them anymore money. It’s ridiculous. We’ve signed up with another processor already but looking for alternatives to send messages besides adding an additional phone line for texting capabilities 

[Christinahutch]

I’ve had issues with the system just unsubscribing clients that didn’t do it themselves and others that accidentally unsubscribe from text messages. Is there way to get them re subscribe to receive text messages. 

[JJ_]

Hello @Christinahutch

After the recent disruptions related to Square SMS Seller will need to re-subscribe to your messages by replying to a receipt text message or an automated reminder message. The product team will share more information about this change soon. Be on the lookout for an email.

[LusterSalon]

Your reply is 3 weeks old at this point but I'm checking to see if this email has gone out?  This SMS disruption has been a HUGE pain for all of us in the beauty industry.  While I appreciate clients can still get texts about their appointments, not being able to further communicate with them via text has me and my salon mates looking for a new software option.

[Trumanbarberco]

Are you suggesting that, moving forward, the only way I will re-gain the ability to initiate messaging ability via Messages with a customer is if they reach out to me first? From there, they will automatically be re-subscribed?

That will be a very small percentage of my customer base and I don’t understand why Square can’t retroactively re-subscribe all customers who opted in to Messaging in the first place and have not subsequently taken the affirmative action of opting out of receiving messages.