And businesses are realizing that SMS is not just for teenagers anymore. SMS has been around for 15 years, and SMS usage is expected to continue to grow for at least the next 3 years. It’s a simple technology – a maximum of 160 characters, cheap, and immediate. In the US alone, we are sending 80 billion text messages a month. Mobile phones are typically near a person and are often the most reliable method of contact. With 25% of the 18-34 year old population in the US living in mobile-only households, businesses cannot afford to ignore the reach of text messaging.
Some debt collection operations are seeing a significant bump in response rates using SMS, especially in conjunction with a multi-channel program including inbound call routing and IVR. Contact centers are beginning to enable the routing of SMS messages as yet another inbound communication path including 2-way conversations with agents. Opt-in/out advertising via SMS is on the rise in conjunction with a contact center ready to handle the inbound calls and other contacts that those SMS messages will generate.
The best way to contact me is my cell phone via text message. I can often read and respond to a text message sooner than I can listen to a voice mail. Is the same true for you?
How is your organization leveraging or planning to leverage this simple yet powerful technology?
Matt “Don’t text while driving” Taylor
As an example, My cell phone carrier send me an SMS whenever i arrive to a different country to let me know about the rates i have there. Really nice to have and useful too.
The most important thing is for operations people to have a nice an easy interface to set up how, when, what content and who may receive their company-originated SMS and powerful means to interface with back-end company information systems.