Customers may not be seeing your texts due to recent iOS and Android updates.

Learn, Update

Recent updates to Apple’s iOS (and similar behavior on Android devices) are changing how business text messages are delivered and displayed. These changes can affect whether your customers see your messages in their main inbox — even if they’ve opted in to receive them.

To make sure your messages reach customers reliably, we strongly recommend sending your business contact card (.vcf file) to your customers via text.

What’s Changing

With messaging updates from both iOS and Android, there is likely an “Unknown Senders” message filter that automatically separates messages from numbers not saved in the recipient’s contacts. Messages from unsaved business numbers may:

  • Appear in the Unknown Senders folder (not the main inbox)

  • Deliver without a notification

  • Look less trustworthy or appear like spam

These changes mean that even if your customers have opted in to receive messages from your business, they might not see them unless your phone number is saved in their contacts.

Why Sending a Contact Card Helps

By sending a .vcf (vCard) file, you make it effortless for your customers to save your business information directly into their phone’s contacts.

Once your number is saved:

  • Your messages appear in the main inbox (not “Unknown Senders”)

  • Customers receive notifications normally

  • Your messages look more professional and trusted

  • It helps protect your deliverability and customer engagement

How to send a contact card via Captivated

Your administrator (has the gear icon in the bottom left hand side of Captivated above the headphone icon) of Captivated will want to head to the administration section > Account Contact card and ensure that all the company information is correct. 

They may also want to turn off “personalization” so that the contact card sent is the generic company information.  

Once the account contact card information is correct, send yourself the contact card to ensure you the information is correct. Simply click on the link in the thread in Captivated to save it as a .vcf file. 
 
Then, head to your templates section to attach the .vcf file to the template you’d like to send to your customers.  
 
 Here’s an example template: “{{salutation}}, hello! This is {{organization_name}}. Due to recent iOS and Android updates, business messages may be filtered into “Unknown Senders.” Please save our contact card below so you don’t miss any important updates or reminders from us.” 

Watch this video below to learn how: 

 

Best Practices

  • Send your contact card to all new customers during onboarding or first contact.

  • Periodically resend it to long-time customers to ensure your info is up to date.

  • Use a friendly, branded contact name so your messages are instantly recognizable.

  • Encourage staff to use the same business contact when messaging customers.