SMS messaging has become a crucial component of marketing by companies and organizations. It is common knowledge that SMS is a tool for promotion and advertising. But there are many uncommon uses of SMS, which have made it such a popular technology.
Here are some uses of these short messages:
Finding lost pets:
Some companies use SMS to locate lost furry friends. When they are notified about a lost animal, they will send photo alerts by text messages to animal shelters, registered vets, and pet owners in the locality. This has become popular with animal lovers as opposed to invasive techniques like micro-chip implants. They require no equipment besides a mobile phone with camera and the capacity to send messages.
Donations for good causes:
Text to donate has proven very effective to draw those people to make donations, who do not make charitable contributions otherwise. The success of text to donate is because of the simplicity of the procedure. Persons, who are too busy to undertake the hassle of visiting charity websites and uploading of credit card information, need only to reply to a text message (SMS) and pay their contribution as part of their phone bill.
Emergency alerts:
It is a great way to manage logistics and coordinate relief efforts during emergencies like floods, earthquakes, landslides, etc. It can also serve as a vehicle for disseminating weather updates and impact of weather damage.
Connecting with home appliances:
Smart appliances permit owners to control them remotely through text messages. Appliances can be programmed to respond to a series of commands. For instance, if you have a surprise guest, you can order your robotic vacuum cleaner to clean your home.
For contact centres:
Operatives of contact centres are able to send information that is requested, send call summaries, and details of appointments and payments. By using inbound services, full two-way communication can be achieved, reducing time and cost and improving the satisfaction of customers.
Educational organizations:
Such organizations find it possible to notify parents, pupils, and staff regarding reminders, closures, absentees, and changes in timetable, all through the channel of SMS online.
Banking and finance:
Passwords and PINS can be sent to pre-registered numbers for authentication, which will lower time and cost taken to serve consumers as well as to reduce fraud. Such value-added services can enhance the customer service substantially.
Healthcare:
By using two-way SMS between medical service providers and clients, many benefits can be achieved. A common example is when doctors and surgeons sent out confirmations of appointments and reminders and other related notifications to clients.
Insurance:
Increasing total sales, cutting costs and improving customer relations are just a few of the main benefits of using SMS as regards an insurance company. There is much higher probability that it will be opened and read, compared to snail mail and e-mail.
It can be used to provide updates to their customers about policy details and the progress of the application. Reminders of renewals as well as sales and marketing can be sent to beat the competition.
Logistics:
SMS is invaluable to logistics companies as monitoring or tracking of shipments can be coordinated via it. In particular, a two-way message is beneficial for logistics companies as they can use it for conveying to customers to apprise them of delivery and collection times and also any delay.
These are some of the out-of-the-usual benefits of sending SMS.
