Standing for “short message service,” SMS is a communication protocol used by mobile devices to send and receive text messages. However, a message sent from a computer is incompatible with short-message service technology. Here a short message service gateway allows other devices, like desktop computers, to communicate with devices that use SMS, such as smartphones. This may seem complicated, but it is a simple concept as the gateway translates the message sent from the computer language into a language the SMS service can read.
Gateways can function in either direction, allowing computers to read messages sent from mobile devices as well as send them. As a marketing function, this type of direct-to-consumer communication empowers businesses by allowing them to send out messages from their office computers. Because of the cross-platform capabilities, messages can be customized to specific recipients and used to reach out to individual consumers as well as target potential new customers.
Immediate and Reliable Web-to-Mobile Communication
Gateways allow your business to get a message to consumers in a timely and reliable manner. As an online version of text messaging, SMS gateways combines the detail of an email with the convenience of texting. Gateways are run on Tier 1 networks that employ the most secure and reliable routers that provide over 99 per cent uptime so you can send and receive messages instantaneously at any time. SMS gateway services also allow for sending text messages to consumers’ phones and their email inboxes simultaneously.
Personalize Individual Messages
Messages can be customized and tailored to each consumer to provide them with a more personalized experience that leads to higher response rates and increased customer retention. Customization can include the consumer’s name as well as recent account activity and purchases. Most SMS gateway services maintain an automated log of all messages that have been sent to each recipient to prevent the same message from beings sent twice to the same consumer.
Call Center Integration
Email-to-SMS solutions are simple to set up and easily integrated into most call-centre infrastructures without disruption, so agents can begin to use the messaging applications almost immediately. This provides employees with a seamless workflow on the same platform they use every day. This allows agents to quickly and efficiently send personally tailored messages to existing customers and allows your customers to reply to the message in real-time. Once a conversation is initiated through an online SMS gateway, agents can answer questions and work to resolve issues with multiple customers at once or while multitasking various projects. Agents can tell if a response was delivered and determine what type of additional action is necessary, if any, and follow up to close a sale. Additionally, agents can use list-segmentation techniques to send out messages to specific demographics or send bulk messages to reach a large target group.
Data Analysis
Marketing data helps provide call-center management with the information they need to make business decisions, and customer feedback is a critical component for companies to make advertising, marketing and sales decisions, as well as for implementing inventory control procedures. Email to SMS marketing systems can provide real-time data that offers insight into consumer behavior and buying habits. Marketing data helps provide call-center management with the information they need to make business decisions.
Advanced data collection tools gather information from multiple sources to provide a summary of various aspects of call center operations. One example is identifying which keywords in an SMS are trending, gaining the most responses and the most conversions. This helps to accurately locate any potential issues with the messaging and determine the reasons why customers are consistently reaching out or bailing out.
Conclusion
Companies looking to increase consumer interaction and customer retention should consider implementing an SMS gateway tool into their business tool kit. For advertising, sales and marketing, an SMS gateway is an effective way to maximize outbound campaign efforts while saving time and cutting costs. The SMS gateway can be an indispensable tool for businesses, especially for call centers, as it allows agents to provide customer service and support through a number of channels. Data collection tools allow customer service agents to maximize their efforts by not having to spend time repeating the same steps by both keeping track of the messages they send and allowing for sending messages to both the consumer’s phone and inbox at the same time.
