Four industries that are shaking things up with SMS

For years, we’ve been using SMS to reach our friends and family in the quickest, easiest and non-intrusive way. Clever and innovative industries have caught on, and are contacting customers and target audiences using the medium they already know and love. SMS can be used to improve information security, management customer relationships and more. Just have a look how these sectors are shaking things up with SMS:

1. Travel

There’s nothing more annoying (and frequent) than a transport delay; being stuck at the airport for hours can be a pretty bad start to a holiday. To help combat the inconvenience, innovative airlines rely on SMS to keep customers informed. United airlines, for example, send you flight updates and check-in reminders by SMS. JetBlue and Delta also let you sign up for SMS flight notifications if you wish. Some airlines also allow you to sign up for one-time flight arrival notifications, so you’ll know exactly when a flight is arriving with your much loved and missed friend on board that you are off to pick up!

2. Social networks

Social networks, like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter contain a lot of valuable and sensitive personal information. Not just that embarrassing photo of you at the Christmas party. So they have to be very careful to secure accounts. In order to secure this, many of them use SMS verification in their two-factor authentication (2FA).In addition to entering your password, if there are any mistakes, you may need to receive a code via SMS to enter. This way, unless a hacker has also stolen your iPhone without you realising, they won’t be able to access your account.When you opt-in to Facebook’s Login Approvals, the platform sends you a six-digit code via SMS whenever you attempt to log in from a new device. Google Plus offers something similar.

3. Gaming

Mobile gaming companies are using SMS to make it easy for users to invite their friends to join the game. This adds both a social element to the game as users will enjoy the game more when playing with friends, it’s also a great way to attract new users. Players can invite friends to download the game via the contact list in their phone. The invite is sent directly to their friend via SMS. That way, it doesn’t get lost in a bursting email inbox, or falsely categorised as a spam email.

4. Online retail

You know when you’re in a clothes store and you ask a salesperson if there are any discounts on an item, and they respond a week later? Nope, because this never happens. So why would online consumers wait a week for responses; and more importantly, why would online sellers risk losing the sale by not promptly responding to any queries? They shouldn’t, and modern online sellers aren’t. Many online retail sites use SMS to keep you informed the second a question is asked about an item you are selling. This works like a charm, because people check their phones about 110 times a day, and every six seconds in the evening. Imagine if you were emailed when a question was asked about your selling item, it would probably take a lot longer for you to read it, and therefore respond to the question. One global leader in online retail, Amazon, allows users to sign up for SMS alerts right away when someone is asking questions about your merchandise. Also, if you are bidding on an auction on eBay, you can get SMS messages telling you an auction you are watching is about to end or if you have been outbid on an item. So you always have the best chance of getting the item you want! If you think your business could use an edge, look into ways to use SMS in your industry. Our White Papers have lots of great suggestions, but if you want to learn even more give us a call on 1300 764 946.