Reader Forum: Personalized priority messaging is the new killer app in mobile

Editor’s Note: Welcome to our weekly Reader Forum section. In an attempt to broaden our interaction with our readers we have created this forum for those with something meaningful to say to the wireless industry. We want to keep this as open as possible, but maintain some editorial control so as to keep it free of commercials or attacks. Please send along submissions for this section to our editors at: dmeyer@rcrwireless.com or tford@rcrwireless.com.
The key challenge facing most businesses today is building and maintaining strong customer relationships in a world where customers are bombarded by vast amounts of communication through many different media channels.
The customers of today are not the same as those of a few years ago. Since the global financial crisis, customers are demanding greater transparency from the businesses they interact with. They want to be spoken to like an individual and not like the “target market.” Today’s customers are searching for brands that share their values, simplify their lives and engage in meaningful communication.
The collapse of mass communication
But what is “meaningful?” Perhaps the clue lies in the first two letters of the word meaningful. In the developed world, customers are suffering from information overload and boredom as people turn away from “mass” communication, looking for “me” communication.
This is where the mobile phone enters and dominates the market. Statistics from Nielsen Co. show that a staggering 71% of the global population or 5.3 billion people own a mobile handset, in contrast, only two billion people are connected to the Internet, according to Internet World Stats. At the same time consumers open 98% of text messages while e-mail has an open rate of only 20%, according to a Frost & Sullivan report.
My phone, my message
The mobile phone is also a very personal and individual device. It’s usually within arm’s reach and for years people have been using their phones to SMS friends and colleagues, exchange information, make plans and generally keep in contact. It’s known, it’s trusted and most importantly it’s valued.
Businesses have been quick to take notice. Unlike an intrusive phone call or an “often ignored” e-mail, a text message is almost always read. It’s simple, quick to understand and delivered right into the customer’s hand on a highly personal device. It can also reach customers wherever they are, anywhere in the world.
Bulk SMS versus personalized priority messaging
Many businesses were quick to get on the SMS bandwagon, sending out bulk SMS’ to both customers and complete strangers in an effort to promote their latest deal or special offer. This abuse of the SMS channel has been universally slammed and is quite correctly labelled spam. Intrusive and irritating, unsolicited bulk SMS is largely ineffective and tends to alienate and annoy consumers.
More astute businesses have been careful not to fall into the bulk SMS trap and instead have harnessed the power of the SMS through the use of personalized priority messaging.
Messages as individual as any customer
Unlike bulk SMS, PPM is the use of the mobile phone to send out personal SMS text messages that are valued by both the sender and receiver because the messages are simple, of interest and received at the right time and place, anywhere in the world. PPM messages can also be responded to via a shortcode or a long number, allowing for valuable customer feedback and interaction.
Boosting business
Whereas other forms of communication can take a while to reach their destination, PPM is immediate and can reach its recipient and be read within five seconds of a message being sent. Messages are simple, easy-to-read, personal in nature and can be tailored to the recipient’s current situation, location or need. There is also virtually no limit to the type of messages that can be sent or received which allows businesses to communicate with customers or prospects about almost anything – as long as it is of interest to the reader.
Businesses are responding to the power of PPM by incorporating it where it has tremendous effect – in their customer relationship management programs. Now, the marketing, sales and customer services departments in the CRM environment can communicate with their customers and deliver the right message, at the right time and the right place.
PPM also enables quick and effective communication between various divisions of a company, employees, partners and suppliers. Businesses can reach an employee in Mexico as quickly as one sitting in the local office. If time is of the essence and business decisions are resting on the agility of a company’s communication, a timely personalized priority message can make a world of difference.