Use SMS to Engage Your Customers
What is SMS?
SMS stands for Short Message Service and is a more technical term for what we know as a text message. With SMS which does not need a data package, one can send a message of up to 160 characters to another device. Longer messages are normally split up into multiple messages. MMS stands for Multimedia Messaging Service and can send a message including pictures, video and audio content to another device. MMS does require a data package.
How to implement SMS technology?
SMS API technology has advanced a great deal, thanks to companies like Twilio. These APIs make it easier to implement web, mobile and desktop applications to include SMS technologies. As CreateAnAPI, specializing in API technology and implementation, we can help you incorporate SMS technology into your advanced email processing and monitoring and phone software applications.
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Why SMS?
Although it is not as popular as it is in South Korea or India, in the US, our use of texting (SMS, MMS, Whatsapp or other chat messaging channels) has become more and more an integral part of our days.
From a personal usage perspective, we have adopted texting as one of our most preferred methods of communication. To learn more about the differences between SMS and MMS visit here.
It may have started out as a type of message that could be sent now but did not need to be responded right away”, or “just letting you know” type of message when we let someone know what we are doing, and has evolved to be a type of communication that we can carry on in multiple dialogs with several people on completely unrelated subjects, simultaneously, instead of many many calls we would have to make.
It is also a method of communication acceptable even at odd hours of the day when we cannot call someone but can easily text them.
Texting is no longer a place where we feel violated to receive messages from people we know and sometimes even we do not know, but it has become an accepted place where we are getting messages and notifications from businesses as a reliable method of communication over many other available technologies.
A great tool for business communication
From a business perspective, utilized properly, texting has an incredible potential to communicate with the customers as a secure and fast, and an interactive bi-directional communication tool without violating their personal space.
“When it comes to notification messages, SMS is not only an accepted way of being communicated by the customers, but is also their preferred, expected, reliable and the trusted method of communication.”
- SMS is preferred, because our lives require fast interactions. We need to access our bank now and need to reset that password, or send a wire and need to be authenticated now, or need to know that our order being shipped today when they may be delivered even the same day, or our server is having an issue and we need to fix it as soon as possible.
- SMS is expected, because, now, many big companies use the technology to authorize, authenticate, alert, basically notify you using SMS. Therefore, they expect the same from others as the trusted way of being communicated.
- SMS is faster than email or phone communications, as emails may not be accessible at the moment as it depends on the internet while SMS does not, and phone communications require a private environment when we may not have it at that moment.
- SMS is secure, because it is communicated to our unique phone which is not as easy to hack as email accounts or spoofed with phone calls.
- SMS is reliable, because even in internet blackouts, SMS relies on mobile networks and gets delivered instantaneously when emails, phone calls or inline app notifications may not be available.
- SMS is universal, nearly everyone now has a mobile phone with an unlimited SMS package.
- SMS is engaging. As the leading SMS service provider Twilio put it “Unlike email, SMS hasn’t been over-used by spammers, and, unlike app notifications, an internet connection isn’t required to receive text messages. So it’s unsurprising that the open rate for SMS has been consistently reported as very high.”[1]
“The global average open rate of SMS is 94%.”[2]
- SMS is cheap. SMS is very well priced to send short messages.
- SMS is integrable. SMS technology can be integrated to all sorts of software applications to initiate 2 way messaging and process inbound and outbound messages via APIs.
- SMS is smart and bidirectional. We can have an automated two way SMS conversation and many of our questions can be answered via SMS, without having to visit many web pages to search and find the information, if the business is equipped with an SMS chatbot that has the artificial intelligence and sentiment processing capability.
The important difference is a few words in natural language being typed in SMS and getting an answer instead of being required to visit many login and web pages to get the same information. Some simple examples:
- Ask for delivery information
- Request an order confirmation
- Request help on a subject
- Ask any information on a subject related to the business
The requests can be processed via the receiving computer and a short answer or a link can be provided to the customer who just texted a simple, a few words, natural language question vs having to search and visit many web pages to get the same information.
“It is only a matter of time when it will be indispensable for the consumers using the natural language when searching for information v.s. the traditional way browsing to get what they want.
The habit is building everywhere with Alexa, Siri, Bixby, in our cars, etc., and they will soon expect the same from individual businesses. And if you are not part of this technology you will be considered outdated.”
SMS vs Push notifications
Unlike SMS, inline push notifications are messages that are sent from a backend of an application to a user and require internet connectivity. Push notifications and SMS may seem similar to a user as to how they both pop-up on a mobile device in a similar fashion, but they are different in terms of the technologies they use and how they are perceived statistically speaking. Push notifications seem to have less sense of urgency and engagement compared to SMS notifications. While SMS has a 94% open rate[1], push notifications have up to 65% open rate[3].
SMS is often used when communicating with a client who does not have an app, while push notifications are used in mobile applications.
Both push notifications and SMS messages are effective channels of direct communication with users of a mobile application. They are not incompatible or mutually exclusive and may be used in one app simultaneously to enrich the user experience. Every business decides for itself what best fits its goals.
SMS vs Email
While both technologies are used to deliver messages to the recipients, there are some key differences as to what, how and how urgently they are delivered. As displayed below in Twilio’s “Email vs SMS” graph below, emails are used when the content is larger and more informative, but not as timely, and SMS are used when messages are more urgent and important but short. However, both technologies used together, they become very effective.
SMS Compliance
Like any high tech communication tool, SMS is also bound to be abused. Words like opt-in, opt-out, P2P, A2P, TCPA, and the CTIA could sound like a technology being highly regulated. However, implemented correctly, SMS is a powerful technology welcomed by the users.
The purpose of both the U.S. regulatory and telecommunication industry is to ensure that people do not receive SMS communication that they do not want to receive. In other words, people should only receive SMS communications from businesses or organizations they want to receive.
As a business or organization, it should be your goal to send SMS communications to individuals who only want to receive them and unwanted SMS communications are a source of irritation and can result in potential damage to your business’ brand.
Luckily, this is where the best practices outlined in this white paper can help. Twilio’s best practices outline the industry-standard ways that organizations ensure that the messages they send are, in fact, wanted by the people receiving them, and in the process, ensure that they are in compliance with regulatory and industry requirements.
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References
[1], [2] What is the open rate for SMS in 2018?
[3] Push Notifications vs. SMS in Mobile Apps: Which Is More Effective?
[4] Guide to U.S. SMS Compliance
