Why Is GoHighLevel Sending Texts From the Wrong Number?
Customers replying to a text and landing nowhere is almost always a number pool, a workflow override or a calendar setting. Here is where to look, in order.
Learn moreWhy Google LSA Texts Don't Show Up in Your GoHighLevel Pipeline
Calls from your Google Local Services Ads land in the pipeline fine. Texts to the same number often vanish, and it is a settings problem, not a broken CRM.
Short answer: Google Local Services Ads forwards calls and texts through two separate settings in the Google Ads dashboard, and GoHighLevel workflows fire on two separate trigger types to match. A workflow built on Incoming Call will never see a text message, even one sent to the exact same LSA number. Turn on text forwarding in Google, then build a second workflow on a Customer Replied trigger so the text has a path into your pipeline.
Why calls and texts use different triggers in GoHighLevel
GoHighLevel treats a phone call and a text message as two different event types, not two flavors of the same thing. An Incoming Call trigger listens for a call connecting on a specific number or any number. A Customer Replied trigger listens for a message arriving in Conversations, whether that message is SMS, a Facebook DM, an Instagram DM or a Yelp message depending on which channels are connected. If your intake workflow was built around the call, because that is how most LSA leads used to arrive, the trigger was never set up to also catch the text version of the same lead.
This is the same pattern we see with duplicate text messages in GoHighLevel, where the root cause is usually a mismatch between what a workflow was built to catch and what actually happens on a real phone. The fix there is filtering. The fix here is adding a trigger that does not exist yet.
Check Google's forwarding setting before you touch GoHighLevel
Before you rebuild anything in GoHighLevel, log into the Google Ads dashboard for the Local Services Ads account and confirm text forwarding is actually turned on. Call forwarding and text forwarding for LSA leads live as separate settings, and it is common for an account to have call forwarding enabled from day one while text forwarding was never touched. If text forwarding is off, no workflow, trigger or webhook inside GoHighLevel will ever see the message, because it never leaves Google.
If forwarding is confirmed on and the text still is not showing up anywhere in GoHighLevel, the next place to look is the phone number itself. LSA leads sometimes forward to a tracking number that is different from the main business line connected to your GoHighLevel account, which means the text arrives at a number GoHighLevel is not listening to at all.
Build the second workflow: Customer Replied, not Incoming Call
Once forwarding is confirmed, the GoHighLevel side is a small build, not a rebuild. Create a new workflow with a Customer Replied trigger, filter it to the phone number that receives forwarded LSA messages (or to a tag or custom field you already use to mark LSA leads), and route it into the same pipeline stage your call workflow already uses. Keep the actions simple: move the stage, notify the assigned staff member, and send an acknowledgment text back to the customer within the first minute.
Do not try to merge this into the existing call workflow by adding a second trigger condition. GoHighLevel workflows run cleaner and are easier to debug later when each trigger type has its own workflow with a clear name, something like "LSA Text Intake" sitting next to "LSA Call Intake." If you inherited an account with dozens of workflows already stacked on top of each other, this is exactly the kind of untangling covered in the GoHighLevel automation service page, and it is worth a look before you add a tenth workflow to an account that already has ninety.
Where A2P 10DLC fits, and where it does not
A2P 10DLC registration is the carrier approval process that lets your GoHighLevel number send outbound marketing and transactional texts without getting filtered or blocked. It has nothing to do with a customer's text arriving in your inbox. If your account has an A2P problem, it shows up as your own texts failing to send out, not as a customer's message failing to come in. We wrote a full breakdown of that process in our A2P 10DLC approval guide if outbound texts are the real issue in your account, but it is a different problem from a missing LSA text.
The one place A2P status does matter here is your reply. If your acknowledgment text back to the LSA lead is stuck because the sending number is not approved, the customer gets your message hours late even after the trigger fires correctly, which looks the same as a missing message from their side of the conversation.
How to test it without waiting for a real customer
Test with a phone number that has never texted the account before, ideally a personal cell that is not already a contact record. Send a text to the LSA number, then watch three things in order: does the message appear in the Conversations tab at all, does a new contact get created or matched, and does the pipeline stage change. If the message shows up in Conversations but the stage never moves, the workflow trigger is the problem. If nothing shows up in Conversations at all, the problem is upstream in Google's forwarding setting, not in GoHighLevel.
Run this test after every change to LSA settings on the Google side, since Google occasionally resets forwarding preferences during account reviews or when a new phone number is assigned to the listing. A quiet failure here costs a service business the same way a missed call does: a customer who texted once and moved on to the next result on the page.
What we would do first
We would start by confirming Google's text forwarding setting is actually on, then check whether the existing intake workflow is trigger-typed for calls only. If the account is also missing a fast, correct first reply to those texts, that is a slow follow-up problem end to end, and it is exactly what the Speed to Lead Sprint is built to fix, starting at $1,950. If the account has grown into something bigger than one missing trigger, a short call is faster than guessing: book a free 30-minute discovery call.
Yaakov (Koby) Oranski, Founder and CEO of Yotomations
Certified GoHighLevel Admin and Partner. Koby designs CRM migrations, two-way integrations, billing systems and AI agents for service businesses, and writes from the engagements described on this site.
Frequently asked
Does Google Local Services Ads support text messages?
Yes. A customer can text the phone number shown on your LSA listing and Google can forward that message to your business, but text forwarding is a separate toggle from call forwarding inside the Google Ads dashboard. Many accounts only ever enabled call forwarding when they set up LSA, so texts silently go nowhere.
Why does my GoHighLevel workflow only catch LSA calls and not texts?
Because the workflow trigger is Incoming Call, which only listens for phone calls on that number. A text message is a different event type inside GoHighLevel and needs its own trigger, usually Customer Replied, to start a workflow.
Can one workflow handle both LSA calls and LSA texts?
Not with a single trigger. You can build two workflows, one on Incoming Call and one on Customer Replied, that both check the same phone number and move the contact into the same pipeline stage, so the outcome looks identical to the office staff even though two separate triggers do the work.
Do I need A2P 10DLC approval for LSA texts to work?
No, not for the inbound side. A2P 10DLC governs the marketing texts you send out from GoHighLevel, not a customer's text coming in from Google. If an inbound LSA text is missing, check Google's forwarding setting and your workflow trigger before you look at A2P status.
How do I test that LSA texts are reaching GoHighLevel?
Text your own LSA number from a phone number that has never messaged that account before, then watch the Conversations tab and the pipeline in real time. If the message shows up in Conversations but the contact never moves stage, the problem is the workflow trigger, not the forwarding.
Keep reading
Why a GoHighLevel Workflow Can Say It Worked and Still Send the Wrong Message
Green checkmarks in the workflow history do not mean the customer got the right text. Here is the exact spot where a wait step lets stale data through, and the fix.
Learn moreHow do I delete unused custom fields in GoHighLevel without breaking anything?
GoHighLevel has no bulk delete for custom fields yet. Here is the routine we use on inherited accounts to remove dead fields without breaking workflows.
Learn moreIs this happening in your account?
Book a 30-minute call. We look at the account live and tell you what is broken, what we would fix first and what it would cost.
No pitch deck. We look at your current setup and tell you what we would do and what it would cost.Need more than GoHighLevel? Yotomations, our parent company, also builds AI agents, custom software and websites.