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Latest MDA figures show that over 120 million text messages are sent on average every day in the UK, more than double the levels reached three years ago. One reason behind this staggering growth is that text messaging has moved beyond a 'teenage fad' to become an essential business tool. The first step taken into the mobile office arena, text messaging enables SMEs to conveniently and cost-effectively manage the mobile workforce and replicate the office on the move.
Whether you need to know about how you can use text messaging in your business, or if you have an idea for using text messaging in your business but are not sure how to proceed, the following information should help answer your questions.
Q. What are the main benefits for using SMS in my business?
A. An accurate, versatile, active and easily updateable tool, text messaging has numerous business advantages.
1. As a discreet tool, incoming text alerts can be received silently in business environments when you would not wish to be disturbed. Additionally, as you are reading, rather than listening to the information, text messaging does not suffer from any form of distortion in a noisy environment. There is also the additional functionality of being able to save or call telephone phone numbers sent in the body of the text message.
2. Text messaging enables information to be sent to groups of people quickly, for example sales engineers on the road receiving 'offers of the day' by text, making it a more cost-effective solution to diperse information than 1st class post.
3. In the same respect, jobs can be posted via text message to service engineers, roadside breakdown assistance vehicles or lorry drivers making collections and deliveries, while on the road. The added convenience of reply offered by text messaging enables a job's current status and employees location to be clarified, enabling efficient job scheduling leading to improved customer relations.
4. Because it eliminates the temptation to chat, text messaging is an efficient way to conduct business and it also proves to be cost-effective when needing to stay in touch with colleagues travelling internationally. For more information on business shorthand, please refer to the text dictionary within our 'text fun' section.
5. As the battery power talk time becomes a decreasing issue, the adoption of text messaging as a vital business tool will flourish in light of future developments. These include -bigger, more easily readable displays, colour messages and the ability to receive emails from the office by text message. Technological developments such as mobile data attachments will enable ADSL speed access to information being received at 32Kb per second.
Q. How can text messaging help me work smarter?
A. Reading information is often far better than purely hearing a message. With text messaging there is the ability to send the same message to several people at once. There is also the added convenience of mobility and reply, which is particularly relevant to service engineers, remote workers, sales executives and logistics specialists. A record of a text message can be obtained through itemised bills and automated cost reports. PC based business text dial options exist from all UK carriers, and their service partners.
Q: I'm new to SMS, and I'm thinking about deploying it in the field for my sales agents. However, I have questions regarding throughput and latency. My salesman are impatient, and if I want my SMS application to be semi-interactive, what sort of latencies should I expect? Messages to be delivered in 10 seconds? 90 seconds?
A. Most Operators expect a text to arrive within 10 seconds.
Q. What if I have 10 salesman all text messaging the same mobile phone number at the same time? Will all these messages carry through, or will some be dropped?
A. If the same number is being texted at the same time then all messages should get through - it's just that they form a queue and some will take marginally longer than others. However, you could still expect them to arrive very quickly. A good way to do it is to test it out on your phone and send yourself 10 text messages. The only exception here is to do with the handset's message memory. Some handsets can only hold a certain amount of messages before you have to delete them in order to receive new ones. If someone's handset memory is full then they will not be able to receive any new messages until they delete some old messages. The handset usually tells the customer that they have to delete some messages. In this instance, if the handset memory is full the messages get queued and operators try to re-send the messages for between 24 and 72 hours, afterwhich if they still cannot be delivered (due to the phone memory being full or the phone being switched off - then the message will be expired/deleted.) Q. How can I use SMS to advertise?If you have a new product, service, offer or announcement, you can effectively target your cutomers via SMS. If your mailing list is large, software is available on your PC to send text messages to a large number of recipients, acting in a similar way to an e-mail account. Download free software at www.24x.com/n-textmessaging.aspDon't forget that standard SMS messages are limted to 160 characters, so be informative in a concise manner, for example: '10% off all orders over £100 this weekend only', or 'Our records show that your car is ready for a service on 31/10/06, Please contact us so we can book you in at a convenient time' Advertise your SMS marketing service to potentially interested parties, for example with posters around the premises, or cards allowing customers to fill in their mobile numbers to allow them to 'opt-in' for the service. Always give customers the option to 'opt-out'. Alternatively, SMS Marketing companies can set up campaigns on your behalf - try www.textanywhere.net, or go to the Mobile Marketing Association website at www.mmaglobal.co.uk Rules and regulations applying to SMS marketing campaigns can be found at www.dma.org.uk
If you have any other questions, please post them to juliet@themda.org and we'll do our best to answer them for you
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