This article recaps the troubleshooting segment of our Customer Journeys & Drip Campaigns webinar (AppFront Growth Series, Campaigns 201).
Check the channel was actually selected
It sounds basic, but it's one of the most common issues: a journey step gets fully built out, but the channel (SMS, push, or email) that message was supposed to go out on was never selected.
Check your delay values
Double-check the delay entered for each touch. It's possible to accidentally set a delay of hundreds of days instead of hours — which looks identical to "nothing sent" from the guest's side, since the message is technically just scheduled far in the future.
Item-based rewards can break silently
If a reward is tied to one specific menu item and that item gets removed or disabled on your POS/menu, the reward stops working with no obvious warning — it just becomes unredeemable.
Category-based rewards are more resilient
If you're on Toast, you can build a reward around an entire menu category instead of a single item. Category-based rewards stay valid automatically as items are added to or removed from that category — the tradeoff today is that everything in the category is eligible (you can't yet exclude specific items within it), though a cap can be applied. This is also a cleaner way to message the offer to guests, since there's no ambiguity about what qualifies.
Confirm the guest is actually reachable
If a guest hasn't enabled push notifications or hasn't downloaded the app yet, any touch tied to those channels simply can't reach them. Lead your earliest journeys (welcome, 2nd/3rd purchase) with SMS, and use your messaging to encourage guests to turn on push over time, since it's a free channel once they're opted in.
Next up: the debate over birthday journey timing, and how to structure the redemption window.