Online SMS

Following on from our last blog where we looked at Smartphone apps versus SMS, we are pleased to see that ITV has re-introduced SMS voting on the X Factor for the first time since the infamous phone-in debacle of 2007.

We will certainly be voting for our favorite acts via SMS and not making any complaints to the regulators!

We are also pleased to see that SMS is also playing an increasingly important role in major TV fund raisers. This year’s Comic Relief raised over £15million via SMS donations, representing more than 20% of the total amount raised.

Even in our digital age, donating via SMS remains the most popular choice because it provides consumers with the simplest, most spontaneous donation experience. They are not required to download an app, neither are they required to register their contact details or input any credit card information on a website – a process susceptible to fraud if not managed properly.

The re-introduction of SMS for reality TV and its widespread adoption by the charity sector further highlights its importance as a viable communications medium.

Below are just some of the reasons why SMS remains a popular choice for businesses and individuals:

• It is cheap – Campaign executors can purchase SMS messages in bulk and consumers can
• send and receive predefined numbers of messages as part of their contracts
• It’s quick – text messages are delivered almost instantaneously over all networks
• It has a wide marketing reach – all phones support SMS
• It is widely understood – which results in a positive user experience
• It provides an easy response mechanism – allowing for spontaneous decisions
• SMS is direct – SMS pushes itself directly into the site of the consumer
• SMS integrates seamlessly with other e/marketing activities
• SMS works – unlike other forms of communications people do read text messages when they get them and it is easy to unsubscribe to a service – you simply text stop

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While social media and web-based projects are all the rage with regards to current-day marketing activities, the whole process can be very “hit and miss” because you have no control over who will follow you on Twitter (or similar) or visit your website.

Direct marketing campaigns allow you to be much more targeted.  Having said that; email, once the most popular medium for carrying out direct marketing campaigns, has also been used to excess, so much so that the majority of us tend to delete emails we do not recognise without even bothering to read the message.

SMS on the other hand, another mechanism for carrying out direct marketing campaigns and for generating sales leads, is not always used as widely as it could be. SMS-based marketing campaigns are by far the most cost-effective and reliable way to send targeted messages to your customers and prospects, particularly if you want to target large demographic areas. Furthermore, if you regularly send out more than 100 messages per day, you will also benefit from wholesale pricing.

Unlike other forms of mobile-based advertising, SMS does not rely on the user having to click on a link to activate the service or access the message. It is very direct and pushes itself in front of your customers, who can respond if they are interested, or text “stop” (or something similar) if they want their details removed from the database.

What are the other advantages of SMS?

1. Well for starters, it’s got a wider marketing reach than any other marketing medium. With more handsets than people in many western countries, cost effective direct marketing campaigns can be carried out on an international scale.
2. It is extremely cost effective. It is much more economical, both in terms of time and money, to send text messages to a large group of people than to make a phone call.
3. It’s easy. SMS-based marketing campaigns can be carried out online via a password-protected interface, or they can be integrated with your email system. This means that your staff can manage all their contacts from a single, centralised point.
4. SMS is not dependant on 3G and messages are delivered almost instantaneously. What’s more, unlike other forms of communication, the majority of your messages will be read by your customers.
5. SMS is unobtrusive because it provides users with a subtle way of making an enquiry without needing to enter into dialogue with a pushy sales person.
6. Bulk SMS services include comprehensive reporting facilities, allowing you to analyse the success of different campaigns and your ROI.
7. SMS is a great way to improve your after sales service – why not send a quick text messages to customers informing them when their order will be delivered, or to remind them of an appointment or meeting?
8. Finally, SMS provides users with an easy response mechanism and it can be used to complement other forms of marketing, such TV or radio- based advertising.

Click here to find out more about who we are and what we do.

Mobile giant, Orange, in partnership with Barclaycard, is due to launch what it claims to be the UK’s first true mobile payment service that will allow you to purchase items like your lunchtime sandwiches, your newspaper, a cup of coffee, or anything at all, so long as the value is £15 or less, simply by waving your mobile phone at a locally installed scanning machine.

This type of contactless payment could have a significant impact on our shopping habits in the not so distant future, but do mobile payments really need to be limited to sophisticated handsets? They may well be growing in popularity, but by enlarge, their penetration is still low in relative terms, so you could potentially be alienating a large portion of the population. Retailers want to take full advantage of mobile phones as a payment mechanism for the forthcoming Olympics – which are only 12 months away. Will everyone have a Smartphone in time?

According to recent research, SMS still forms a major part of mobile advertising campaigns because, unlike other e-campaigns, you dependant on a reliable 3G signal or interaction from the user. SMS messages are delivered as soon as they are sent and push themselves directly at consumers, who are not required to do anything, other than read the message.

Retailers wanting to embrace mobile technology and contactless payments should perhaps take this into account when they are introducing new marketing initiatives in order to boost sales.

Vodafone and London Taxis have certainly recognised an immediate opportunity by allowing customers who have run out of cash to send a text with the vehicle’s license number to a central code and the amount owed is charged to their phone account.

SMS-based wallets have certainly come into their own in Kenya, where almost half of the adult population uses an SMS-based payment and transfer mechanism (known as M-Pesa) to transfer money to relatives, to pay for their shopping or simply to pay their utility bills. Users don’t even need to have a bank account – which is very costly in Kenya. All they need is normal mobile phone and an M-Pesa account.

SMS also plays an important part in mobile advertising campaigns because it can be used for sending vouchers or promotional codes that consumers can redeem while they are shopping.

What does SMS have to offer?

• It is cheap
• It is direct
• It has enormous marketing reach
• It allows for easy interaction
• It complements many other marketing campaigns
• It allows you to be targeted

At toText.net we have been providing online SMS applications to a variety of different industries in the UK for the last 5 years. Our online SMS gateway can be seamlessly integrated with many back- office infrastructures via a developers API, allowing you to take advantage of this new trend.

We pride ourselves in developing applications for niche requirements, so if our standard services are not what you’re looking for, please get in touch so we can work with you to develop a solution that meets your exact needs.

Running an e/commerce site for automotive spares is a highly competitive business. Companies operating in this sector receive thousands of enquiries on a daily basis and if they want to be successful, they must have the facilities in place to be able to respond to customer requirements quickly and provide good customer care.
Online Automotive, a leading supplier of standard and specialist components, understands the importance of good customer service and has taken the decision to incorporate SMS into its overall enquiry management process to further improve their customers’ overall purchasing experience.

After carrying out some initial market research, Online Automotive decided to integrate the toText.net email to SMS service into the company’s order management system and Terry Dorney, Managing director of the company explains the reasons why:

“First and foremost it offers value for money, an important factor if you are involved in the automotive industry.

In addition, the service is really easy to use and by following simple guidelines on maximum message length we have been able to incorporate SMS as an alternative communications method without creating additional work for our busy customer services department.”

The toText.net email to SMS service integrates seamlessly with Online Automotive’s email system and all messages are sent and received using Microsoft Outlook.
Providing information to customers via SMS as well as email has greatly improved the company’s order conversion rates because they are no longer reliant on their customers having access to email to receive information about their enquiry.

Terry continues “Most people carry a mobile phone at all times so they get our messages straight away, even if they are out and about. If the customer is happy with our quote, they can place an order simply by replying to the message or calling telephone number embedded in the message if they require additional information.”

All messages are created in Microsoft Outlook. By including the customer’s mobile number followed by @toText.net in the “To” field of the email as well as their normal email address, the message can be sent via email and SMS simultaneously. The toText.net software converts the email into an SMS format and forwards the message to the mobile number provided in the message.
Not only has the email to SMS service improved the customer’s overall purchasing experience, it has also given customer services staff the ability to manage email and text messages from a single application.

In addition, all SMS replies are delivered directly to the original sender and not a centralised email inbox, so orders can be processed straight away and staff can begin to build a rapport with customers.

The toText.net email to SMS service supports multiple users at no extra cost, making it an ideal tool for busy customer service departments.
In the future Online Automotive is planning to fully automate its order processing system and SMS will form an integral part of the new order management process.

Ends

Slepe Communications Ltd is a dynamic, growing company based in Cambridge UK. Its staff have many years’ experience in the Internet and telecommunications industries, and are experts in designing, building and operating mobile Internet applications based on text messaging, web and Wi-Fi technologies.
The company is a member of the Mobile Data Association.

It can be challenging for vehicle hire or maintenance companies to operate efficiently and provide high quality after-sales service to their customers. Both factors, however, are vital to their success and in order to achieve this they are willing to invest in sophisticated job management and allocation software systems.

The majority of these systems use email as the primary communications method. All information relating to a particular job or order is uploaded onto the system and this is used to generate a unique job sheet. These are then sent to appropriate personnel (drivers or maintenance engineers, for example), often located in different geographical areas, as emails with PDF attachments.

Everything runs smoothly so long as the recipient has a Smartphone or a Wi-Fi connection. If they don’t, however, they may not receive important job information or updates until much later, and by then it may be too late to take further action.

Slepe Communications Ltd, operators of toText.net and providers of bespoke online SMS applications, has recognised the limitations of these systems and, as a result, has made a number of enhancements to its popular email to SMS service in order to overcome them.

The company’s SMS management software can now detect if a PDF document is attached to an email and if so extract relevant information such as the location and nature of the job from the data file and forward it to the recipient as an SMS.

If job information is included in the email itself, the software simply converts the message into a text format, giving companies the option to send information via SMS as well as email to ensure delivery.

The system has already been integrated with “CoachManager”, an online job management system supplied by Distinctive Systems and will integrate seamlessly with most other system interfaces via a developers API.
 
Coach and private vehicle hire companies have found the enhancement particularly useful because not all drivers have access to a 3G or wireless connection. In addition, they simply do not have the time to look through their emails and download job sheets when they are working.

The ability to send relevant job information via SMS and incorporating a “read receipt” facility means these companies can now be confident that their drivers receive the correct information immediately and are able to respond accordingly, making them more efficient as a result.

Comments Rob Jagger, Managing Director of Slepe Communications. “While Smartphones are growing in popularity, not everybody has one, and if 3G coverage is patchy, drivers might not even receive their job sheets. All drivers do, however carry a mobile phone and all phones support SMS. Furthermore, messages are delivered almost instantaneously even if the signal is poor.”

This enhanced email to SMS service could benefit many other industries, drainage or gas companies, for example, where it is vital that engineers receive their job sheets immediately to avoid problems that could affect public health and safety.

Ends

Slepe Communications Ltd is a dynamic, growing company based in Cambridge UK. Its staff have many years’ experience in the Internet and telecommunications industries, and are experts in designing, building and operating mobile Internet applications based on text messaging, web and Wi-Fi technologies.
 
The company is a member of the Mobile Data Association.

All businesses strive to provide their clients with good after sales-service, but providing consistently good customer service on a regular basis can be both expensive and time-consuming. During economic downturns existing customers often experience less than adequate customer service; sales personnel are so busy trying to secure new business they often forget about existing customers, believing they are too busy or lethargic to find alternative suppliers.

Not only that, there are so many different communications methods available to us – phone, post, email, social media – selecting the most appropriate method for different client groups is becoming increasingly challenging.

1. The phone is time consuming – especially if you are constantly connected to voicemail
2. Regular mail is too slow, very expensive and not very eco-friendly
3. Social media can be damaging to your brand if sensitive issues such as complaints are not managed appropriately

In our digital age, however, it is fairly safe to assume that our customers own at least one mobile phone and that most offices use email for the majority of written correspondence. So why not combine the two and use email to SMS applications to give your customer service team an efficient and cost-effective way of keeping in contact with your customers using technology they are already familiar with?

Messages are written as normal emails and then converted into an SMS format so they can be delivered. Not only is it practical to use email to SMS to communicate with your clients from a time-management point of view, it is also extremely cost-effective.

All replies are delivered to the sender’s email inbox, so your staff can manage all their correspondence from a single centralised point.

Below is our top 10 list of email to SMS applications:

1. Financial information – SMS is a great way to keep clients updated about stocks and shares, giving them time to sell or reinvest

2. Sports results – Loyal fans instantly know the results of important matches. What’s more, they are often willing to pay a premium to receive this information

3. Invoice reminders – Credit control departments can quickly send SMS alerts to all overdue accounts. What’s more, these types of messages can be personalised to include your client’s name and the exact amount owed

4. Insurance reminders – Postal reminders are often overlooked due to the amount of junk mail we receive. SMS reminders will also help your organisation reduce its overall carbon footprint

5. Delivery notices – Advising your clients in advance of expected delivery times mean they are more likely to be in to receive them and your drivers do not need to make multiple delivery attempts

6. Traffic updates – People can make alternative arrangements if they are aware in advance of traffic problems

7. Birthday reminders – Automated text alerts will prevent you from missing important birthdays -nephews nieces, in-laws etc

8. Email forwarding – By forwarding emails to mobile phones remote staff will always receive important messages, even if there is no 3G signal

9. Appointment reminders – No-show appointments are expensive and can be reduced by as much as 70% using SMS alerts

10. Voicemail notification – A simple text alert means you will never miss out on a business opportunity

All of the above services can be carried out using email to SMS. No plug-ins are needed, there is no need to download any special software.

In addition if you send in excess of 25,000 SMS messages on a monthly basis you’ll also benefit from wholesale SMS prices.

Organisations across the UK are using our email to SMS application to provide their clients with better customer service. Why not sign up to a FREE trial and find out how email to SMS can benefit your organisation?

Our digital era is having a huge impact on the way young people communicate. They have a whole variety of different technologies (Smartphones, games consoles, computers) at their disposal that allow them to interact with each other in many different ways. With more than 80% of 11 – 25 year olds actively using at least one social network site on a daily basis, anyone involved in youth work must embrace these changes if they want to engage with this generation.

The majority of teenagers prefer “hanging out” virtually from their bedrooms rather than going to a physical location. As this becomes increasingly the norm, unless those people who engage with young people are accessible via Facebook, they stand little chance of being able to reach their targeted audiences to promote local events, provide information about sporting events or simply keep in contact with their squad.

Promoting events and activities via social networks is one thing but getting people to turn up is another. Many sports clubs and other organisations, however, have found that SMS reminders about forthcoming activities can complement such online campaigns because it SMS is an easy, yet unobtrusive way to engage with young people.

SMS alerts are also an effective way of providing advice and guidance on wide range of youth-related issues such as health, crime, and drugs.

These types of services work very well because SMS is an easy way to reach a large audience, it is cost effective, messages are delivered straight away and are generally read as soon as they are received. But what happens if a young person sends a reply to one of these received messages?

In the majority of cases, replies to bulk SMS notifications are forwarded to a centralised mailbox or holding number, so the young person may not receive a reply until much later on, once the messages have been sorted.

Our SMS notification service allows organisations to send out bulk messages, but unlike many of our competitors, we also offer a personalised replies facility at no extra cost. This means that all replies are delivered directly to the original sender, allowing them to immediately begin private conversations with these young people, thus developing a rapport and obtaining their trust.  Not only that, message senders only receive replies intended for them.

The service works using a pool of shared sequential numbers that are accurately mapped to a sender ID (youth worker or football coach, for example) and a receiver ID (a young person’s mobile phone) by our SMS data management software.

If our SMS software is unable to deliver a reply (due to poor network coverage or incorrect number details, for example), it automatically sends a message to the sender, advising them to use an alternative means of communication.

Our personalised replies service is also beneficial to other industry sectors – temping agencies or estate agents, for example. In both these cases office staff are in regular contact with the same groups of people on a regular basis and two-way dialogue is commonplace.

As with all SMS applications, our personalised replies service can be integrated with existing communications infrastructures via a developers API.

Click here to find out more about who we are and what we do.

Missed NHS appointments cost the Government and ultimately the taxpayer in excess of £6million per annum, according to industry statistics. Patients believe the blame lies with the NHS – letters not being sent out in time, not being able to cancel or change the appointment because phone lines are busy or never answered, or stuck in an automated loop. The NHS on the other hand believes the blame lies with the general public because they never bother to cancel or reschedule their appointments.

Significant cost savings could be made and time wasting could be avoided if doctors’ surgeries, outpatient departments, dentists and specialist clinics made more use of SMS, as recent trials have demonstrated.

Barts and the London NHS Trust have recently deployed an automated online SMS service in their outpatients department, to remind patients about their forthcoming appointments because reports showed that over 94, 000 appointments were missed in 2009. The first reminder message is sent two weeks in advance and the second reminder is sent three days before the scheduled appointment.

If the appointment is no longer needed or convenient, patients can cancel or reschedule simply by sending a reply to the text.

Aberdeen City Council has also recently adopted a text messaging alert service to remind its social housing tenants about maintenance or repairs due to be carried out on their properties. The Council sends its tenants an SMS the day before so they do not forget and if there is a problem they are requested to get in touch by replying to the message.

Considering that more than 98% of 20 – 29 year olds and 89% of all men in the UK own at least one mobile phone, you would think that more public sector organisations would be making use of automated SMS services.

Health visitors could remind mums about their childrens’ vaccinations, community nurses could remind the over 60s about their flu jabs, housing officers could remind tenants that their rent is due, maintenance staff could remind tenants that their meters need to be read – the possibilities are endless.

The cost of sending an SMS message is significantly cheaper than the cost of a first class stamp or a phone call made during the day, particularly to a mobile number.
Text messages are delivered almost immediately and, unlike other forms of communications, the majority of people do respond to their texts straight away. Not only that, sending a reply essentially costs nothing because most phone contracts include a certain number of free texts as standard.

Automated SMS reminders can also benefit other industries – informing drivers their car is due for a service or MOT, for example. It’s good customer service as far as the owner is concerned and it’s  cost effective for the garage because  they can keep their contact list up to date with minimum effort or resource.

Our online SMS facilities are really easy to set up and, by deploying one of our services, you would benefit from significant cost savings almost immediately. There is no software to download because you manage your account online and no training is required.

You can upload your appointment spreadsheet onto our servers quickly and easily and schedule single or multiple reminder messages to be sent on specific days and times.

Unlike other providers we also offer a “personalised replies” facility as part of our standard package. This service ensures all your replies are delivered directly to the original sender, allowing them to immediately begin private conversations and start building relationships.

Many organisations in the public, private and not-for-profit sectors are saving themselves money by deploying out online texting services.

Click here to find out more about who we are and what we do.

According to figures published by the Institute of Fiscal Studies, if the Government is to reach its borrowing target by 2015, it must cut overall public spending by £456 billion over the next 4 years. No wonder local authorities and supporting agencies are under such immense pressure to run their departments more efficiently, drastically reduce costs and streamline overall services.

Martha Fox, the UK Government’s digital champion believes that more than £2.2billion could be saved annually if routine public services (income support or tax benefits, for example) were digitalised and citizens were encouraged to answer their own queries online using “self-service” style applications.

Significant savings could indeed be made, but let us not forget that even in our digital age,  a third of low income UK households do not have access to the Internet at home and that one in four adults in the UK have never even been online.

In order for self-service applications to be feasible, other communications channels need to be brought into play.

SMS is currently used to deliver more than 50% of mobile marketing campaigns because even in our Smartphone age, SMS is still one of the most effective communications methods available.  Online SMS services and inbound SMS could help local authorities reduce costs because it is significantly more economical to send text messages to mobile phones than to call them.

Why is SMS such an effective communications method? Here are some of the reasons why:

• There are more SIM cards than people in the UK so the potential communication reach is enormous.
• Migrant residents are more likely to have a mobile phone than a landline.
• SMS is not reliant on 3G networks – even the most basic handsets support SMS functionality
• Text messages are delivered almost instantly
• SMS is a technology that is well understood
• SMS is very direct and does not rely on users having to follow links to access information

Furthermore, SMS is cheap. Local authorities for example could streamline information services by communicating routine information by SMS because messages can be bought in bulk. Not only that, the majority of mobile phone contracts incorporate free SMS bundles, so it essentially costs consumers nothing to send a reply or to request further information by text.

Online SMS services can be used as an effective communications tool by many different departments. All of them could use SMS to keep in contact with fellow colleagues. SMS is a cost effective and reliant way to make residents aware of changes to scheduled services (refuse collection, for example) due to bad weather. Social workers could save themselves time by confirming appointments by SMS. Housing departments could speed up housing applications by using SMS to contact prospective tenants.

SMS is the preferred communications channel for consumers because it is discrete and they can usually send SMS messages requesting a call back or further information as part of their inclusive texts. SMS could be the return channel for NHS awareness campaigns, to quit smoking, for example.

Equally, residents could use SMS to report incidents of graffiti or vandalism in the community and commuters could use SMS to inform the Highways Agency of accidents. Inbound SMS advice lines could also help deal with incidents relating to racism or bullying.

These types of services can be delivered quickly and cost effectively using our online SMS applications. No training is required, there is no software to download and there are no minimum contracts or hidden costs. In addition our SMS services can be integrated with other existing CRM systems and databases using our developers API.

Click here to find out more about who we are and what we do.

The main challenges public sector organisations have had to face since the General Election have been how to reduce costs and operate more efficiently while still maintaining high levels of customer service.

Such pressures are taking their toll and nowhere is this more apparent that in education. Schools are obliged to keep parents/carers updated of their children’s progress during the academic year via reports, parent evenings etc. Failure to do so reflects badly on them and can effect funding.

In addition to this, schools are in contact with parents/carers more or less on a daily basis about routine information such as exam dates, school trips, after school clubs, teacher training days, parent/teacher meetings, school uniform, fund raising events and so forth. Administration staff are increasingly overstretched and keeping up with routine communication is becoming more and more challenging.

Many schools have been using electronic communication for some time and Government has stipulated that by the end of 2012, all schools will be required to communicate with parents electronically. Email, however, is not necessarily the most effective way to communicate routine messages, particularly time sensitive ones. Unless the recipients are online (assuming they have Internet access in the first place), or have a Smartphone, chances are they won’t receive the message until it’s too late.

The most effective way to deliver time sensitive information, both from an execution and a cost point of view, is via SMS. This was demonstrated by the findings of a BBC survey carried out in Scotland in December last year, which showed that after local radio, SMS was the second most popular way to receive information about school closures. 

SMS notifications could easily be much more widely adopted to deliver routine messages and to provide parents/carers with progress updates of pupils. They are currently updated via parents’ evenings, which happen two or three times a year.  Indeed, a recent survey carried out by Becta has shown that more than two-thirds of parents would like to receive regular SMS or email messages about their childrens’ progress in school. Only 8% of those surveyed benefitted from such a service.

No specialist software or equipment is needed and single or multiple messages can be sent to individuals or pre-define groups. Messages can be targeted (by year group about a school trip for example), written and delivered instantaneously using online SMS services. Unlike bulk emails, which can be affected by SPAM filters, you know your message will get through. Even in the unlikely event that a parent/carer does not have a mobile phone, text messages can be left on landlines.

SMS notifications are cost effective because messages can be bought in bulk. You can also see at a glance how many messages have been delivered and how many replies you have by looking at delivery reports. 

We are a provider of online SMS services and unlike most other SMS providers, we also provide a personalised replies facility at no extra charge. What this means is – if a parent responds to a message received from a teacher, that message is delivered directly to that teacher and not to a centralised holding account, as is usually the case with online SMS services. It is an effective, yet non- time consuming way for teachers to establish relationships with parents/carers about a pupil’s progress, so that help and support can be provided when it is needed.

All our online SMS solutions integrate seamlessly with electronic registration systems via a developer’s API, and this API can also be customised to meet specific requirements. Click here to find out more about who we are and what we do.