We've put together some examples of how businesses in the UK are making SMS work for them. We've broken them down into the following categories:
Sales, Products and Marketing
Customer Services and Relationship Management
Business Process Management and Internal Administration
Information Technology
Transport and Logistics
Travel and Tourism
Financial Services
If you would like to read more examples of businesses using SMS in the international arena then download how with our 101 Business Uses of SMS guide.
Sales, Products and Marketing
1. Quotations
Text2Insure provides an insurance quote and cover - direct to a mobile phone in less than 5 minutes. Initially launched as a last minute travel insurance proposition, it provides travellers with easy access, right up until their time of departure, to a quote and the option to buy travel insurance simply by using existing mobile phone SMS text capability or WAP.
2. Discount Coupons and Vouchers
Books and music retailer Borders distributes a monthly newsletter with exclusive offers to its database of 480,000 customers across the UK. In order to redeem these offers, consumers print the vouchers and present them to the store.
3. Auction Bidding
Ebay offers a bidding service by SMS. Users are able to monitor and participate in the online bidding process by tracking bids through "outbid" alerts and to react quickly from their mobile with a text message should they need to increase a bid.
4. Daily Mobile Content (Premium)
- Metacheck.com is the UK and Ireland's premier weather alert service with up to date forecasts and real-time alerts for all cities in the UK. More than 100,000 daily visitors log onto the website to view the latest weather information in its own unique format. The next logical step with the advance of the Internet and SMS was using SMS technology to make data available to users roaming around Europe with international ‘email to SMS’ applications.
- Netweather.tv is offering subscribers SMS text warnings of imminent downpours for specific UK locations.
5. Marketing and PR Campaigns
- Pharmaceutical company Novartis launched a Pollen Count , a text alert service to promote the launch of a new allergy nasal spray (Aller-eze) for hay fever sufferers, during National Allergy Week 2003 (12-18 May) in England. The Pollen-Count Alert text message service enables sufferers to receive personalised, up-to-date, regular pollen count information by SMS with special alerts on days when the pollen count is particularly high in their geographic location - together with tips to help manage hay fever.
- Nothing quite beats the January 2001 campaign by The UK National Blood Service , inviting students to come kiss a vampire (aka Sarah Michelle Gellar, star of TV cult series "Buffy the Vampire Slayer") but a campaign launched by the Puget Sound Blood Center and AT&T sends alerts to specific blood donors and volunteers in "real-time" via text messaging.
6. Product Launches
Book publisher Random House promoted a new book - Life's a Pitch by sending the first chapter via bulk SMS to existing customers.
7. Product Advice
Topshop is tapping into the youth market's obsession with text and picture messaging with the launch of a mobile phone style advice service, reports DigitalBulletin. "The mobile service, which is an extension of Topshop's existing in-store style advice service, has been developed by luxury and lifestyle interactive marketing specialist Skywire. The mobile technology enables Topshop customers to interact with the retailer's style advisers. Using their mobile phones, the fashion conscious can book appointments with advisers, receive advice, reserve items and receive picture messages of recommended clothing."
2. Customer Services and Relationship Management
8. Greetings
Remind4u offers their corporate customers a fully managed service. Whether they want to send Birthday or Christmas cards to their staff or to their customers, they even digitally print signatures into the cards for that personal touch.(http://www.remind4u.com/corporate/default.aspx) The British Heart Foundation teamed up with Remind4U and offered greeting cards to help support their fund.
9. Reminders
Recycling Reminder is a bulk text messaging service to remind residents in Northern Ireland to put out their recycling bins for collection (www.textually.org/textually/archives/2004/03/003168.htm).
10. After Hours Assistance
Pupils at a school in Buckinghamshire received extra help with GCSE revision by text messaging their teachers. An innovative use of SMS software!
11. Customer Satisfaction Measurement
Sony Ericsson is running a pilot that uses an SMS-based data capturing tool from Broca to measure customer satisfaction amongst mobile users who have had their handset repaired. Broca's SMS-based data capture product, Acquire, is being used as part of a Sony Ericsson's customer services pilot. The service measures satisfaction among mobile phone users that have had their handset repaired. The pilots are being undertaken with T-Mobile in the UK and independently in Sweden.
12. Ask the Experts
Mobile users were able to send their question to UK Prime Minister Tony Blair to a designated short code by texting "PM" followed by their question. The 45-minute session was be transmitted live from No.10 Downing Street.
13. Personal / Group Support
Go Smokefree (gosmokefree.nhs.uk) is a support service to help people quit smoking. They send advice and support at critical times by email and text messaging.
14. Refund Requests
The London Underground Customer Charter states that if a tube journey is delayed for 15 minutes or more, passengers are entitled to a full refund of their single journey cost. (Tube Refund) enables frustrated commuters to simply text their email address and journey details to a designated number to state their claim.
3. Business Process Management and Internal Administration
15. Debt Collection
icLiverpool reports that a debt collection agency has seen a four-fold increase in responses from debtors after using text messages to contact them. Agilisys Contact Services substituted stern letters and curt phone calls to people who had fallen behind on repayments with friendly text messages asking them to call and discuss an issue with their account. Within two hours of texting 1,000 people, 40% of them had responded to the message and contacted the group. This compared with a 9% success rate from spending two hours telephoning people, or a 35% success rate if the whole day was spent making face-to-face calls.
16. Sales Force Reporting
Valuefirst
offers real-time communication for a sales force with their corporate office, such as:
- Text message updates on weekly/daily individual targets
- Increasing the credit limit of dealer
- Ordering placement and delivery tracking through SMS messages.
- SMS alerts and reminders of periodic performance review deadlines
17. Applications and Placements
In 2005, The Guardian newspaper offered UK students free SMS and email alerts for matching university places. On The Guardian website, students entered their name, email address, mobile number and selected three preferred courses and institutions. If no matches were found a message was sent out suggesting they search for more options. The alerts started on 18th August - the first day of what is known as Clearing.
18. Interdepartmental Communications
Johnson&Johnson set up an international SMS platform with a company called Red Message to communicate with its 100,000 employees in the field. Every account rep receives by SMS, the stock situation in real time, stats, delivery dates... and other information sent out by company. (http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/5/17249.html)
19. Project Status Updates
Families of British Merseyside soldiers in Iraq will be sent texts by the army if the regiment is targeted. "Families will get a flash message to tell them if information released by the news agencies is true or not and if it's not, that the truth will follow as quickly as we can", said Commanding officer Lt Col Gary Deakin. "We plan to test and adjust as we go and see what is appropriate. If there are casualties then we would ask a casualty notification officer to go out to the family and break the news to them directly."
4. Information Technology
20. Email Alerts
Yahoo Mail launched an SMS alert service for its email users based in the UK and Ireland. The service sends a text message alert to a mobile user when an urgent or selected email comes into his Yahoo Mail In-box, according to Web User.
21. Remote Monitoring Text Alerts
T-mac Technologies is a leading intelligent system for remote, Internet monitor and control of assets including heating, ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration, plant and machinery, fire and security systems as well as consumables such as water, air, gas and electricity. The company uses Clickatell's SMS Gateway in case of faulty machinery.
Once t-mac sends alert messages to the server, the server immediately responds via Clickatell's Gateway sending a text message directly to one or many personnel. The ability for t-mac's users to receive SMS alerts as soon as the t-mac device registers a fault has vast damage limitation and cost-saving benefits for the end-user and/or their client site.
22. Password Confirmations
Sending web access passwords via SMS can provide your customer with peace of mind when forgetting this sensitive information. Payment and order confirmations can also be automated in order to keep customers up to date with their account status. Sending an text message is also an easy way to confirm the activation of a purchased service or changes in activation date. By making use of API integration, passwords can automatically be sent upon request of the user.
5. Transport and Logistics
23. Tracking
TextTrack is a free tool that tracks UPS and FedEx packages simultaneously and alerts the user via SMS text message or email when their package has been delivered or changes location.
6. Travel and Tourism
24. SMS Reservations / Bookings
HotelZone is one of the largest hotel booking agencies in Europe and has a staff of 75 in four countries. They opted to use Clickatell's SMTP (email to SMS) API for all its SMS traffic around the world. The booking confirmation text message alerts enable HotelZone's customers to receive reservation codes, hotel names & addresses and arrival and departure dates.
25. Travel Information
London's Underground provides free text messages to mobile phone with real-time travel news and details of delays before you reach the station. A SMS service is also available for Airport Express trains to Gatwick, Heathrow and Stansted. This service is also free of charge and available to customers who book a train ticket via the web. (source textually.org)
26. Promotional Travel Offers
Lastminute.com offers promotional travel offers to its subscribers via SMS. "We will send information to SMS subscribers once each week," said Pete Flint, Head of Global Business Development for lastminute.com. "Subscribers select their preference (city breaks, hotels, restaurants, theatres, etc). Our SMS will detail an offer that reflects their product choice. This represents a value added service for true 'last minute' customers and people on the move who can still access lastminute.com's extensive database of products." (Source: m-travel)
27. International Health Information
Britons travelling abroad to exotic destinations are now able to receive immediate and free travel health information regarding malaria thanks to a new text messaging service developed by mobile healthcare specialist iPLATO. The service, funded by GlaxoSmithKline Travel Health as part of the Malaria Awareness Campaign, allows travellers to text in the name of their destination country to receive relevant information about the malaria prevalence in that country.
7. Financial Services
28. Credit Checks
Creditgate offers instant and live mobile access to credit and director information on all UK limited companies. To retrieve information: mobile users type the company name or the company number or the director's name (prefixed with the words "director") and send as a text message to a designated phone number.
An SMS report can then be selected by simply replying 1 or 2 or 3 or 4, etc., to the subsequent SMS messages.
29. Cash Transfers
Servicing 20 countries in Europe, Ukash (www.ukash.com/) lets users go to a bank and get a form to pay cash for a secure one-time 19-digit code that is sent via SMS. This voucher number is used when they are asked to pay at any of the hundreds of web sites that accept Ukash.
For more examples on how SMS is being used in international businesses download Clickatell's 101 Business Uses of SMS guide. |
