Text messaging is dead. Long live text messaging: 10 reasons to start using SMS messaging in your business right now

You might think that SMS is already vanished as you are doing most of your messaging with messaging applications as Whatsapp, Facebook Messenger, LINE, Signal, Threema or with other hundreds of different messaging application available in the market. You are wrong.

Foto: FirmBee/pixabay/Lizenz: CC 1.0 Universal

SMS usage in business communications is still increasing and more and more companies have started to implement SMS to their communication procedures. Some of the companies have used SMS already for over 15 years and they have no intent to stop. Here below are several reasons listed, why the SMS is live and going strong.

Real time communication

When you start to communicate with SMS to your customers or to your other peers, you reach them almost real time. 98% of SMS-messages are read within 3-minutes. Imagine that. There is no other communication method where you reach practically whole your target group or in three minutes. Real time communication does not only mean that a person in your company communicates to your customers or peers. It can also mean that your IT-department has programmed an integration to an SMS gateway. Every time when for example a trigger activates in your CRM or in your ERP software, the SMS module sends a notification automatically to key personnel and informs real time regarding sales data or regarding other important information.

100% read-rate

When is the last time you have not read some of your SMS messages which you have received? That?s what I am talking about. SMS has practically 100% read-rate. Email Read-rate? Any guesses? Answer: 22 %

100% device compatibility.

Have you seen any mobile phone lately which does not support SMS? Ok, you have not. But maybe your grandparents have a mobile phone which does not support SMS? Nope. Maybe you have an old phone at home which does not support SMS? You don?t find any. I recollect my first mobile which was Motorola in 1994 which had only partial SMS function. After that all my mobile phones have supported SMS fully. Period. 100% device and manufacturer compatibility. And whatever the developments in the future are, SMS compatibility stays intact. It is just too valuable function for manufactures or for operators to be thrown away.

Affordable

SMS has its small cost but it is very affordable. Normally businesses are using SMS for sending some valuable information or notifications and the SMS cost is worth of this info. Just imagine costs for dentist, if there is a no-show of patient? (No-show percent can be around 10%) With a small cost of SMS, dentists are able to send notifications to patients automatically through their praxis software that their appointment is coming. No-shows have been almost eliminated totally after many dentists have started to use SMS. SMS functionality can be easily activated if a praxis software company has made so called SMS API integration to a SMS gateway as many software companies already have done

Better customer experience

If you send valuable information to your customers with a personalised SMS or with bulk SMS , they are happy to receive it and appreciate it. But remember, if you send non-sense, you get very negative response. Mobile phone is still personal device and nobody wants to receive non-sense. But if you send something which matters to the receiver , you get acknowledged.

Reach in any location

Business-partner is evaluating a Chinese factory in Chenzhou and you need to send a mobile phone number of another Chinese business partner to him. How do you do that reliable? Naturally with an SMS. With SMS you reach your customers, partners and peers in almost any location in the world. Ok, the peak of Mount Everest does not have SMS coverage but the Base-camp has!

Brand-awareness

If you use your brand name as an originator for example in the SMS marketing campaigns (maximum 11 characters), the receiver acknowledges immediately who is sending the message. If you send some valuable information (as you should), the receiver acknowledges your brand positively. Important to know: some of the networks are not supporting alphanumeric originator and the SMS-originator is then automatically changed to a numeric originator.

Almost Spam-free channel

As SMS (individual messages or bulk SMS for targeted customer groups) is not free of charge, it has stayed almost a spam-free channel. Spammers have no interest to pay a fee per SMS as they can send spam to email addresses free of charge so much they want. As SMS is a spam-free channel, it has stayed relevant for the users. If the SMS would be free of charge and would have same kind of spam-rate as emails, it would not be supported anymore by operators and manufacturers.

Possibilities for two-way dialogue

If you use so called Two-way number (virtual phone number) as an originator, you can have a two-way dialogue with your customers or partners. When they reply to the message, it will be delivered directly though http command to your web-application, to your software or to your Email-account and you can react to that or to program a module which interprets the answer and acts accordingly and automatic. Also all the SMS traffic (sent and received) can be saved by your application.

Collect of mobile numbers of your customer

If you haven?t already done that, you should start to collect mobile phone numbers from your customers and peers. This is very valuable data which you will anyway need in the future. All the fixed lines phones are vanishing quickly and everything merges to mobile. Through a mobile phone, you can reach your customers today and in the future. If you think you don?t need SMS in your business, you should still collect the numbers. Maybe you are developing a cool mobile app of your company which you would like to share to your customers. But how do you send the info and download link of your new shiny mobile app easiest to your every customer?? Certainly with an SMS!