SMS API

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.

The number of machines in the modern world is forecast to be eight times the human population by 2050 according to Detecon, an integrated management and technology company.

We have become so dependent on them in our modern world any failures, caused by power cuts, component failure or system overload can have serious consequences.

As our dependence on machines and IT in general continues to expand and businesses increasingly automate many system processes, monitoring these systems and machines is becoming increasingly difficult, particularly as workforces become more dispersed. The right person, at the right time, in the right place must be alerted if there is a problem or system failure.

SMS is being increasingly used for machine-to-machine monitoring for a number of different reasons:

• SMS provides “always on functionality”
• SMS is reliable – messages are delivered almost instantaneously
• SMS is not dependent on a 3G connection – vital for mobile workforces located in rural areas
• SMS is cheap

The totext.net online SMS service is being used for M2M monitoring by a number of different organisations in the UK and in response to a recent customer enquiry, we have taken M2M monitoring to the next level by adding customisable attributes to our developers API.

Our customers can now, for example, allocate their own reference number (generated by their overall management systems) to alert messages rather than have to use a generic reference generated by the database.

This facility is beneficial for safety-critical or time-sensitive applications where delays to SMS alerts being received could have disastrous effects. By implementing meaningful reference numbers to each alert, system managers can quickly compile a detailed audit trail of events by tracking what time a alert message was sent and, more importantly, what time it was delivered, in the event of a problem occurring.

Such detailed monitoring facilities also enable companies to analyse their processes and procedures to become more efficient in the way they operate.

SMS messages can be delivered to email inboxes, directly to a mobile phone, to online accounts, or to all three, depending on your preferences.

Our developers’ API is easy to install and integrates with most job management and tracking systems because it is open source. Further information can be found here.

If you want your M2M monitoring system to do something specific, then contact us because we specialise in customising our standard applications

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.

Today we kicked off a new project to create some reference implementations for our API. We recognise that generally people want to get up and texting as quickly as possible, so we’re creating some worked examples for integrating applications and websites into our systems.

We’ll be creating C#, VB, PHP and Java reference cases, that should shorten the development time in a green-field site dramatically.

The software will all be open-source, so customers are free to slice and dice the code as they see fit. Of course, we’ll be on hand to answer any questions that may arise during the integration process.