Stay connected: Complete your business registration for seamless texting with FUB
We all know the feeling: Your phone dings, you stop what you’re doing to fish it out of your pocket or purse, and instead of a nice message from someone you love, you’re greeted with an ad for weight loss pills, a donation request, or worse–a scheme to steal your personal info 😡
US mobile carriers like AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile are working hard to cut down on spam texting on their networks. Overall this is a good thing, but it also means that legitimate businesses like yours need to take a few steps to make sure texts keep getting delivered to your customers.
This guide will keep you up to date on these industry-wide changes, and show you how to take the steps needed to keep your texts flowing smoothly.
New industry-wide requirement for 2024: 10DLC registration
You’re going to hear a lot about “business registration” and “10DLC registration,” along with a bunch of other jargon, as carriers move to reduce spam texting on their networks. They’ve done a lot to make it sound complicated, but it’s actually pretty simple: think of it like identity verification for your business phone numbers.
Carriers want to confirm that you’re running a real business, and then link your phone numbers to that verified business, so they know text messages coming from those phone numbers are legitimate. They also want to know that the people you’re texting have agreed to receive texts from you.
To continue sending texts through FUB, or any other CRM or texting service, you are required to register your business. Later in 2024, carriers will begin blocking unregistered numbers from sending text messages through third-party services.
The mobile carriers have partnered with a third-party company called The Campaign Registry (TCR) to handle 10DLC registration. When you register your business, TCR facilitates a review of your business that will check for a few key things:
- A valid EIN (employer ID number, issued by the IRS)
- Your business’s legal name, address, and other details match those on file with your EIN
- The primary Contact Us form on your website has texting opt-in language
- Your website’s privacy policy clearly states that you don’t share phone numbers you collect for marketing or promotional purposes
10DLC registration will help get your messages delivered
Carriers want to know which senders they can trust. By registering your business, you’ll let the carriers know that you’re a real business, with customers who have opted into texting, so they’ll be less likely to block your messages or flag them as spam.
Plus, 10DLC registration will reduce the number of spam messages that we all have to deal with, so important messages (like yours!) won’t have to compete with junk for a customer’s attention.
10DLC registration is quick for you, but the review takes time. Submit your info by August 30, 2024
It’s not hard to register your business, but it’s important that you start now. That’s because TCR manually reviews your business prior to approval. Reviews take a minimum of four weeks, and can take longer if any information is missing or if they have additional questions.
To register your business, you’ll need to take a few simple steps:
- Make sure your website has texting opt-in language on the primary lead form, and a privacy policy that states that you won’t sell phone numbers that you collect
- Submit your business’s name, legal address and EIN, along with the phone numbers you plan to use for business communications (your FUB numbers)
- Wait for TCR to vet your business, and respond to any follow up questions they have
TCR will confirm that your business information is correct and that your website meets the opt-in and privacy policy requirements.
FUB makes registering your business easy
You can handle most of the 10DLC registration process right inside of Follow Up Boss. Here’s our detailed guide for how to do it.
What’s more, the FUB team will help you every step of the way. We’ll review your submission before sending it on to TCR. If your submission doesn’t meet their criteria, we’ll send it back to you with notes so you can make the necessary changes and resubmit it to us for another review. When your Follow Up Boss business registration meets TCR’s criteria, FUB will submit it on your behalf. We’ll also cover the registration fees at no additional cost to you.
FUB will help you keep your registration up to date
When you submit your 10DLC registration through Follow Up Boss, we’ll automatically register all current your FUB phone numbers, and any new ones you add in the future. Going forward, we will keep you informed of any changes in policies and rules, so you stay compliant without extra effort.