Nowadays, to provide excellent customer service, businesses need to understand one of the most sacred things every person has; their time. And of course, one of the key ingredients of valuable customer service is the ability to show that your business respects and values customers’ time, by providing a reply in a fast, and timely manner.
Just to exemplify how important a timely SMS can be, try to perform a bank transaction where a confirmation PIN is required, but not receiving the SMS while the PIN is needed in the following minutes or seconds. Or try to login to your social media pages, without receiving the one time access code within seconds. Frustrating? Of course! Most people will soon give up and look up for other options to complete the desired actions as well as push your company for an increased level of support involvement. Enterprises need to realize the importance of delivering notifications within seconds, as this can be the reason behind an ongoing client leaving your business or generating more work.
With a growing base of services, social media platforms, and businesses requiring 2FA (two factor authentication) to login and perform transactions, SMS texting is becoming the most important tool to deliver these notifications, thanks to its almost instant delivery anywhere in the world, and thanks to businesses not having to worry if the client has access to internet data or no, or on which messaging platform they can be reached.
But why if SMS is the most reliable tool to deliver sensitive information and instant notifications; sometimes messages still fail to be delivered? We have listed the most common factors that cause an SMS to reach its intended destination. Make sure your business is taking proper action to avoid these common mistakes!
Invalid destination numbers
Does the phone number your client provided is valid and existing? This issue is one of the most common. Sometimes clients forget to add the lada codes, miss a number, or give their previous, now non-existent cell phone number. To avoid this, make sure to review your databases and properly collect numbers from clients and if possible, validate the numbers immediately and regularly.
No dialing code, or incorrect country dialing codes
When managing international SMS marketing campaigns, making sure you have the correct dial codes is of vital importance. Stay informed about the global phone number structure and dialing codes, as sometimes for local delivery a 0 must be added, but for international delivery the 0 must be removed. Make sure you’re updated with the latest news about this topic.
Landline numbers
Make sure your client has provided their mobile phone number, as it’s common that they give their landline phone numbers instead. Unfortunately, SMS texts cannot be delivered to landlines in most of the cases, so make sure you have the correct contact phone number.
Operator’s filtering
More and more firewalls and filtering measures are being taken by operators around the world to avoid spam via SMS. Make sure your messages are straight to the point, and that your brand name appears in the text to be delivered. Avoid casual conversation contents, using too many random characters, or adding too many emojis.
Local regulations
Make sure to stay updated about all local regulations on the countries you’ll be sending messages. Some countries do not accept numeric or alphanumeric SID’s, for some others the SID registration is mandatory. Also, some countries filter messages linked to specific topics like gambling or religion. A rigorous investigation of local mobile regulations of the countries of your interest must be done before sending your SMS text messages.
Network’s service interruptions
Unfortunately, it is common that mobile operators suffer from ittermitencies in their networks. Stay informed about network outages so you can know if it is best to postpone your bulk SMS campaign for another moment.
Route quality
Make sure to use legit and high quality routes to deliver your messages, as the market is flooded with “gray” routes (SIM farms), or routes offering low quality being sold as premium routes. Having a trusted bulk SMS provider is a must for ensuring the correct and timely delivery of your SMS campaigns.
Now that you’re aware of the most important points to consider for a timely delivery of your messages, you might be willing to start your own SMS campaigns.
SixFive has the experience, the infrastructure, the technology, the route quality, and the latest information about mobile operators regulations to help you deliver your messages anywhere in the world with the lowest prices in the market! Contact us now, we’ll be pleased to help.
