Business text Messaging services

Text is cheap – and Irish businesses are using it to reap tangible rewards and boost their bottom line.
In Ireland we are no strangers to text messaging. Current numbers show that over 2.1 billion text messages were sent in Ireland alone last year. It is the most basic form of data transfer used on a mobile phone. However quite often it’s under rated or incorrectly seen as the preserve of the text mad teenager.

In reality sending and receiving data via text messages can be a very cost effective solution for many businesses.

Commercial Wireless has a long standing partnership with the market leader in mobile messaging solutions, based in Limerick Go2mobile have been providing business solutions utilising the medium of Mobile messaging (text messages) since 1998. Go2mobile who are preferred partner of O2 currently hold the O2 “Mobile Innovation award” however their solutions work across all networks.

Sending SMS is cheap — business rates vary between 3c and 12c depending on monthly volumes — so it is much less expensive than a direct mail shot, for example.

“The cost of a letter could be €1 between the cost of printing and the postage stamp,” says John Ahern, managing director of Go2Mobile, a provider of business text messaging services. “With a text message it could be 8c so you’re talking about a fraction of the cost — one tenth if not lower.” As well as cost, the results are more quantifiable than with traditional advertising,

Commercial Wireless and Go2mobile have worked with many businesses in both the Corporate and SME sector helping them to integrate Mobile Messaging applications. Over the last few years Go2mobile’s Business+ service has experienced exponential growth with clients as diverse as waste disposal collection companies, contract recruitment companies, mortgage brokers and leisure centres. Business+ is fast, flexible, powerful and inexpensive.

It’s also an indirect customer service tool. NTL uses text messages to remind customers when maintenance operators will call out for repairs. The company claimed this reduces no-shows by 40pc.

Similarly, the Galway-based refuse collection firm Citybin texts customers to remind them which bin they should leave outside their house each night. According to Ahern, using texts rather than phone calls ensures that a customer received the correct message. “It’s great for delivery notifications, because you have a record of it. You can’t have a record of a spoken conversation on the phone,” he says.

“A text message has a fixed cost, whereas a phone call has a variable cost, depending on the length of the conversation. From an efficiency viewpoint, getting a text message out there is going to be a lot faster,” says Ahern.

He cites the example of MRS, a specialist recruitment consultancy for the medical sector. It notifies contract nurses on its books via text message, letting them know of immediate positions that needed to be filled. By using database technology in tandem with text message services, it’s possible to categorise customers according to a particular profile. In the case of MRS, it was able to target specific positions only to certain nurses who fit the required criteria.

Businesses that may be wary of using technology don’t need to worry about having the necessary expertise. According to Ahern, services like Go2Mobile require no hardware or software to be installed. Depending on the product, the text system can be managed via email software or through a web browser. “Typically a client is up and running within 24 hours,” he says.

Commercial Wireless can provide you with information on our partner – Go2Mobile. Please contact us for more information on text services. 1850 – 86 86 86 or info@commercialwireless.ie