New shops & customer texting: customer SMS is a shared platform service and is operational here. On a brand-new account, sending texts to your customers turns on only after your toll-free number clears verification — a carrier-compliance review every business that texts customers must pass, which can take up to two weeks. That's an external step, not an outage; your account will show "Texting: verification pending" until it clears. Email and internal texts work immediately.