SMS: The Versatile Communication Channel

The Widespread Medium Of SMS

SMS is the most widespread medium which can effectively target mass recipients. While the world has become mobile with the evolution of technology, there has been 1.15 billion mobile phone users as of February 2018 in India itself. As per the reports from TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India), India has a mobile usage of 89.12% of its total population. This means the medium of SMS can target 89.12% of the country’s population making it the communication medium with the widest reach. 

While the other channels of communication are restricted only to the internet users, SMS works even for the basic phone users. Thereby covering the basic phones users as well, which are not covered by other communication channels. The simplicity of usage acts as a plus point to reach out the section of society which is not so tech-savvy such as the senior citizens or the rural population. 

SMS: Much More Than Just Carrying Messages

SMS is not as conventional as it is assumed to be carrying only the messages. But with the passing time SMS has proved itself much more with its high usability in different use cases across the business cycle. It has played a vital role in building a rapport with the customers and ensuring a constant contact with them. Here are a few use cases where SMS has been useful to different businesses:

This has been the most conventional use of the SMS, where updates are send to the customers via SMS. But over the period of time the updates have evolved to a wide range than mere information about the product. In today’s era of e-commerce, customers are given every single update regarding their order and delivery to keep them informed. This had made the operations more transparent, and has helped in gaining the customers’ trust. Apart from these customers are updated about upcoming events, arrival of new collection and their service complaint progress if they have logged any. 

Even the educational institutes send the updates regarding attendance, homework, upcoming events, fees reminder or any other important information over SMS to ensure a constant connection with the parents and maintaining utmost transparency. 

With the evolving technology, the threats related to online security breach have also increased with time. In order to overcome this One Time Passwords and Verification Codes have helped which form the other step of the Two Factor Authentication (2FA) other than the passwords.

These codes are sent to the registered mobile numbers to ensure only the right person in logging in by putting them before login. 2FA uses SMS because of its wide reach and higher immediate response rate. This has helped in safeguarding online accounts from being hacked and other security breaches.

SMS has been very useful in scheduling the appointments by sending the details over SMS. This has ensured a better management. On the other hand sending reminders has reduced the default and has ensured a higher rate of presence at the time of appointment. 

Customers are informed about the ongoing offers and discounts via SMS, which has helped in getting a higher turn around at such events. As a result not only the sales have increased but customers have a better bond with the brand.

Making the customer’s realize they are valuable to the brand is the key behind maintaining a good customer relationship. With greetings and wishes SMS on birthdays, anniversaries and festivals make the customers feel more valued, building up a better rapport.

With these use cases and many more you can establish a viable and robust communication system with you customers, which would help your business grow by many folds.

Establish A Strong Communication With Customers Via SMS

By sending SMS at different occasions and events the businesses can connect better with the customers. This helps in forming a fan base with loyal customers, thereby resulting in the growth of the business. 

Keeping the customers informed of every update and event makes it even better. The above use cases give a proof how the customer communication can be strengthened to the behest of the business. 

SMS APIs and plugins: The game changers 

The technology makes this even better with the SMS APIs which could be easily integrated with the apps and websites of the business. This automates the whole process of sending SMS intelligently. With APIs the SMS could be sent even at the trigger of an event by the user. 

Let’s understand this by an example. Say, if a user clicks on the “Locate Us” button, they automatically get the SMS triggered via API containing the address and location details. 

This has made SMS a much smarter channel of communication. Now your customers get birthday or anniversary greetings on SMS without you actually having to send them each manually. The APIs detect them from the information in the databases and act accordingly.

Take another case where you want more customers to visit your website or a specific page of your website. This can easily be done via SMS, where you can send the URLs to a large number of people using APIs. In case, the URL is long enough to be able to fit in a 160 character SMS, you can use various URL shorteners to successfully send them via SMS. As the number of recipients are large enough, with a higher rate of response, you would get the desired result.

With the available add-on plugins such as Magento, Wordpress, SMSheets, Woocommerce, BUSY and many more you can connect SMS APIs with different interfaces and trigger emails via them using these plugins. 

This will make the communication process intelligent and efficient.

The Bottom Line

SMS is not mere a conventional text message sending medium but has transformed into a smart media which is versatile to be used at different stages of business cycle. SMS communication is useful for every kind of business be it a startup or corporates, whichever is willing to establish a strong and robust communication with their customers. 

With the APIs and plugins SMS has been very successful in backing business growths by maintaining a seamless communication channel which is widespread at the same time. 

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