SMS gateways and what they mean to industries

We are evolving at a fast rate, processing information and consuming content at an unthinkable speed; it is no wonder that a lot of technology from the past has gone obsolete. A service such as messaging is now a barely used feature, when at a time they were the main option used to communicate with people.

Companies hand businesses, however, have taken a full advantage of the situation, and have made it their go-to source for delivering information and alerts. If you open up the messaging application on any modern day mobile phone, it is highly likely you can find a ton of messages from banks and companies notifying people of many things.

In order to send messages to their employees or customers, they cannot do it individually. This would be extremely time consuming and inefficient. There are services which specialize in sending bulk SMS; they are called SMS gateway companies. These cheap SMS gateway services charge a very minimal amount to send mass SMS to the public.

There are over 400 million mobile phone users in India, and this presents a brilliant opportunity for companies to directly advertise promotional offers and new schemes directly to customers. Bulk SMS companies are experts in sending these SMS, they send hundreds of millions of such messages daily. With servers and failsafe measures that ensure delivery is absolute and the sender remains anonymous, it is an ideal service system.

Companies may need it for more than just one purpose. Telecom companies use them to send out promotional offers and push better tariffs via these messages. Transportation services such as the railways send information about the PNR status and seat confirmation to passengers. Banks use a transactional SMS to notify customers of withdrawals and bank balance. Educational institutions use these to inform parents and students of grades, holidays and other emergency information.

There is a new feature that enables these SMS gateway to send shortened URLs to customers. URLs are used to denote information about websites and companies can use this feature to send links promoting new products or website sales. As shortened URL means fewer characters used, this means more characters can be used to convey and deliver a message regarding the URL. In terms of clicks and responses, this type of short URL has a much higher response rate than that of a longer one.

These websites are almost automatic, if companies want their customers to be very aware of certain products and constantly reminded of it, they can opt for certain services that allow delivery of the messages for a certain type of message, during a certain time of the day; and certain days of the week. There are algorithms that can do the calculations and ensure delivery to the recipient. Certain services also provide a sort of gate-keeping server system, which makes sure the messages are delivered in case of heavy traffic as well.

Bulk SMS is a means to an end for companies and organizations to send information and alerts, and as they are quite effective, it seems that these services are here to stay.