According to Portio Research, “The most popular form of communications in the world is SMS.” It’s estimated that almost five billion people (Source: GSMA) regularly use SMS. Many of them use it almost every day, especially millennials.
What business can’t afford to ignore SMS? Airlines, banks and hotels. Doctors, taxi firms and fashion retailers. Theme parks, dentists and auto makers. Everyone is talking to their customers via SMS. In fact, Portio’s report, SMS: the language of 6 billion people, forecasts that businesses will send over 1.7 trillion Application-to-Person (A2P) messages in 2016.
Three key trends are shaping the future of communications and technology:
- A rapid shift to a mobile first mindset
- The unprecedented reach of SMS
- The emphasis on content personalization
How are enterprises using SMS to improve their business?
Major enterprises are using SMS today to enhance their customer experience, increase revenues and lower operating costs. Below are some recent stats from a global brand that is using OpenMarket to engage with their customers, employees and partners. This is just a snapshot of one company – and how they are using SMS to engage with their key stakeholders over their preferred communication channel – one which they check more often, read and act faster upon, and respond at a much higher rate than other channels.
This enterprise is using OpenMarket SMS throughout their business, with dozens of distinct multi-lingual use cases worldwide, most of which stem from one of the following functional categories.
Different use cases
This business is one of our largest customers, sending millions of messages every month.
Messaging volumes have increased by almost 10% month-over-month (MoM) during the past 25 months
Note: On an average day this enterprise sends SMS messages to nearly 200 countries.
What should major brands and other enterprises being doing with SMS?
Based on what I’ve seen at OpenMarket and working with major global brands, if you’re not already using SMS to engage with your key stakeholders, then you’re already behind. If you don’t believe me, then read the above information again to see how a top 5 global brand is using SMS today. Contact us if you’d like more information.