Why Do I Need to Update My Contact Form?
The Campaign Registry, the organization that approves A2P applications, will look at your website contact form to see:
If you have any contact forms with required phone number fields.
If you do and you do not have opt-in language, your application will be denied.
You will also need information in your Privacy Policy to disclose how phone numbers are used.
You have two options if your contact form has a required phone number field:
Either add in opt-in language to that form that says something like this; "By submitting your phone number, you are authorizing us (opting in) to send you text messages and notifications. Message/data rates apply. Reply STOP to unsubscribe to messages sent from us." AND add language to your Privacy Policy (here is a link to example language you can use).
Or, make the phone number field optional and not required.
Either of these needs to be done before we can submit your application.
If you need to update your contact form, it's like that you need to update your Privacy Policy. Here is an article on why you would need to.
I never use the phone number on my contact form to message people via SMS. Why do I need to add the opt-in language?
Yes, we totally understand, but since we can't prove that to Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) the safest path is to add opt-in language to any form with a required phone number on your website. Unfortunately, due to many other bad actors in the past that abuse text messaging, reviewers have become incredibly skeptical of any potential unauthorized usage of phone numbers collected online and will automatically deny a campaign if it doesn't meet the opt-in requirements.
This process is frustrating, can I just go to a different text message service provider?
All text message service providers/software like TextSpot are required to collect the exact same information and go through the same verification process. You'll have to do this in order to send text messages from applications regardless of whether you are on TextSpot.