Why didn't a customer receive SMS?

If a customer says they have not received an SMS, there are a few possible explanations...

1. The SMS was not sent.
2. The SMS was sent, but to the wrong phone number.
3. The SMS was sent, but did not reach the customer's phone.
4. The SMS was sent, and received on the customer's phone.  They are mistaken.

1. Was the SMS sent?

The first thing you should check is whether the SMS was actually sent.  You can do this quickly and easily by running the SMS Detail Report...

1. Log in to BizDiary as a Manager or Admin user.
2. Go to Reports > Run Report.
3. Select the SMS messages: Details report.
4. Select a From Date and To Date, for the date-range when the SMS should have been sent.
5.  Choose the Customer (optional).
   
6. Click the [Run] button.

You will either see a report showing the SMS messages that were sent to the customer in the date range, or a message saying "No results returned".

If the message was not sent, read the Why didn't SMS reminder(s) get sent? article.

If the message was sent, check the number and then consider the possibilities below.

2. Was the number correct?

Ask the customer to confirm their mobile number, and then check that the number displayed in the SMS report matches.

If not you should update the Customer record with the correct mobile number.

3. Other problems

If the SMS shows as having been sent, and the number matches, then it may be that there was a glitch on the mobile phone network.  Although these are very rare they do happen.  Messages can become corrupted in transmission, and either appear garbled or do not even reach the recipient.

Unfortunately there is very little that can be done about these instances.  If BizDiary says the message was sent, then it has been handed over to the mobile phone network, but we have no way to trace it further than that.

Luckily, as noted, these circumstances are rare.

The other possibility is that the customer has accidentally deleted the message, or may simply be mistaken.

see also...

• Why didn't SMS reminders get sent?