The options for businesses (and customers) are growing, now that Apple has thrown its hat into the ring. There’s still room for the development of an app that isn’t platform dependant and can be used across all mobile software. Good news is, with many apps and features to choose from, there’s a guaranteed option to best suit your needs.

The Competition

Social media has been the North American pioneer for messaging businesses directly and using this feature to enhance customer support.

Twitter

This is arguably where the customer support element really took off. Twitter itself was a huge force in pushing social media to be used as a more efficient means of customer service and communication. The DM feature took it to another level.

Customers (and other businesses) use Twitter DMs to communicate directly with companies. This changed the game, obviously, as it made things more efficient and personal. People could suddenly ditch the call waiting and have a convenient, documented support query online.

The tool is platform specific, however, so businesses are only accessible if they have a Twitter account.

Facebook

Much like Twitter, Facebook turned their existing Messenger app and turned it into a business messaging tool. This app is more encompassing than Twitter, in that you can incorporate different bots for different purposes. This means instead of just sending messages, you can schedule appointments or send auto-replies.

Like Twitter, Facebook is platform dependent, meaning businesses and customers need a Facebook account to use the app.

Apple Business Chat

Apple is now moving into the market with their own business messaging app. Business Chat was just unveiled at WWDC 2017 and will work much like their existing text app, iMessage.

The difference is Apple’s message option will allow customers to directly text businesses on their phones. Using integrated bots, like Facebook’s Messenger, will allow companies to create specific tools and purposes for their app.

Unlike Twitter or Facebook, Business Chat does not require a social media account. Customers and clients can look up a company’s chat number through Maps, Siri, or Spotlight. It is, however, solely created for Apple’s iOS software. This means Android and PC-users must wait for conversion tools to develop after the app is out of the beta phase.

Common elements and how they differ

The purpose in all these tools is to bring a more direct, personal approach to messaging between customers and businesses. In doing so, common talk points like technical support, FAQs, and complaints are submitted in a more direct approach.

Each of these tools, however, require users to be with a specific platform or social account. With the growing demand for direct business communication, we’ll likely see a growth in more universal apps.

Apple is clearly leaning towards this approach. Even though Business Chat requires a commitment to Apple products, it has a far broader reach in that it doesn’t require a social media account.

The Future

The goal here is for a platform independent app that can be applied across all software and without accounts to certain social sites. This is a big opportunity for business text messaging apps, which don’t require specific platforms, only a business phone number.

With Apple stepping into the game, Facebook’s likely plan to monetize Facebook Messenger becomes tougher. That means these tools remain more feasible and affordable for small to medium size businesses going forward.

TTAG Systems’ SMS Customer Service Platform can be fully customized to support all types of business messaging through one easy interface. We can make the technology adoption easier and faster for your company. Contact your Toronto SMS Messaging experts today for your next project.

The post The Mad Dash to Business Messaging Mastery: New Competition for Direct Messaging Businesses appeared first on TTAG Systems.

Back in 2011, industry experts predicted that there was a possibility SMS would die in the coming years. It was feared that the increasing number of mobile apps, particularly the free messaging ones would spell the end of SMS. In fact, The Telegraph reported last year that people use Whatsapp and Facebook messaging apps three times more in 2015 than they did SMS, which strengthened the prediction that the latter is facing a “slow death.”

It’s definitely true that text messaging appears to be used less frequently by people due to the rise in internet messaging applications. In fact, it was reported by O2 that SMS services are now offered unlimited similar to calls by leading mobile network providers, while people are spending more money on mobile internet data packages.

Although many feel SMS is unlikely to make a return, that’s where you’d be wrong. Research revealed that text messaging is expected to grow in the coming years. Industry analysts are saying that SMS will grow from $55.49 billion to $71.60 billion by 2021, while mobile app installation will drop massively. This was supported by comScore’s mobile app report that reveals “US smartphone owners download zero apps in a typical month.”

With convenience and ease of use, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that 2017 will mark the year SMS regains its momentum and regains the title as the preferred platform for business-to-consumer communications. Here are some of the projected SMS capabilities for 2017:

SMS mPayment

Similar to SMS, mobile payment systems are gaining popularity due to the convenience and ease of use they offer. The mPayment market is said to hit $780 billion this year, especially with the latest trends in Blockchain technology. But, one of the game changers in the industry is the merging of SMS and mPayment services.

Leading the way is Apple, who is in partnership with Circle, a global peer-to-peer payment firm, in making iMessage a new platform for mobile payment. With the arrival of the iOS 10, users are now able to send US dollars, pound sterling and, even, Bitcoin payments to anyone via Apple’s texting service.

Circle chief executive Jeremy Allaire said they are developing their infrastructure as they are gearing towards an ‘app-less experience’.

“We believe people should be able to make social payments and make and receive payments in a lot of different contexts, where they interact with a lot of people, not just within one monolithic app,” Allaire explained.

B2C text message domination

Millennials are the top target market most businesses are focusing on today due to their interest in a myriad of technologies. Although they are tech-savvy, more than half of them (60%) still prefer to receive text messages from businesses rather than an email or via other internet- or app-based platforms. Two-way text engagement with companies were said to be “convenient, fast and easy to use.”

By 2025, it is expected that 50% of text messages that consumers receive will be from companies with SMS alerts regarding appointments (62%), deliveries (59%), and payments (48%).

Presently, millennials only receive an average of 0-5 text messages from companies weekly, while there’s a large percentage (20%) of them who noted that they never receive any SMS from businesses at all. In 2017, it’s about time businesses maximize the huge opportunities that come with reaching out to their target market via text messaging. As consumers demand SMS communication, companies will be forced to implement a stronger text messaging marketing plan to maintain engagement.

This article is written by TechnoloJen exclusively for TTAG Systems.

No matter what is the complexity of your messaging project at TTAG Systems we have the expertise to implement it. Don’t hesitate to give us a call for a confidential, no-obligation discussion.

The post SMS Text Messaging Will Be King Again In 2017 appeared first on TTAG Systems.

The following is an exclusive guest contributed post from Tim Fujita-Yuhas, Director of Product Management and New Product Strategy, OpenMarket. In 2011, influencers were predicting the end of SMS text messaging, greatly in part due to the app’s growth in the mobile marketplace. Now heading into 2017, industry analysts are reporting that SMS is set to grow from $55.49 billion to $71.60 billion by 2021. As for the mobile app? The average smartphone user in the U.S. is downloading zero apps per month.

While many marketers quickly jumped aboard the proposed app-first era and skimmed over the capabilities of SMS, a few experts saw the writing on the wall—or more accurately, the smartphone screen. With SMS’s convenience and ease of use, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that 2016 will go down in the books as the year millennials helped make it the preferred channel for business-to-consumer communications.

To follow-up its trend-setting year as not only a consumer-to-consumer communication channel, but also a business-to-consumer engagement tool, SMS has a few tricks up its sleeve.

Here are the SMS capabilities projected for 2017.

Chat Bots + SMS = A Match Made in Customer Service Heaven

Chat Bots will automate customer interactions for specific self-service use cases like appointment scheduling or responding to payment reminders. Chat bots and SMS are the two key ingredients to help an organization become king of customer service in 2017. According to a recent OpenMarket poll of over 500 US-based millennials, 60 percent of them prefer the sort of two-way text engagement available through company chat bots. And, with Gartner predicting that by 2019, 20 percent of major brands will abandon their mobile apps, companies are scrambling to implement new and highly effective communication channel opportunities that simplify mobile engagements with consumers.

Voice Will Be Replaced by Text

In 2016, texting became the number one preferred channel for notifications from businesses for millennial audiences. Email came in a close second, but as for voice? It lagged behind in a distant third. On top of this, 72 percent of millennials are currently texting at least 10 times a day and 90 percent of text messages are read within three minutes. The likelihood of reaching and engaging consumers on their mobile devices is getting increasingly higher, and the channel that works the best is leaning much more in favor of SMS.

SMS > Facebook

Despite what may have been forecasted in predictions past, social media is not the best way to reach young adult audiences. While there’s no doubting its pull for networking purposes, that’s where the channel’s power ends. There are simply too many different social media channels – even Facebook as a company no longer has a single social media solution given the fragmentation of younger users preferring Instagram over Facebook. They key point is that SMS is a much more valued communication tool for B2C engagement, as consumers prefer it over any other form of messaging channels, including Facebook Messenger.

B2C Text Messages Will Dominate the Inbox

Let’s look even further out for this one. By 2025, 50 percent of text messages consumers receive will be from preferred businesses. As we enter this New Year, companies have a huge, untapped opportunity to use text messaging to communicate with their customers. Currently, millennials are only receiving 0-5 text messages from businesses a week, with 20 percent noting they never receive texts from them at all. As consumers increasingly vocalise preferences, over the next few years companies will be forced to address this consumer demand by implementing SMS— or face irrelevancy.

Based in Toronto, Canada TTAG Systems can designs and delivers custom SMS text messaging solutions of any complexity for enterprise customers across North America. Reach out today to discuss your next project.

The post SMS Will Reign King in 2017 by Mobile Marketing Watch appeared first on TTAG Systems.

In emergencies, the most important factor that will ensure safety is getting information out to the people who need it. For fire alarms, lock downs or other safety drills, it’s essential that people in the building know that an emergency is happening and what course of action to take.

Common procedures for emergencies involve using mass notification systems like Public Address Systems to relay details about the fire alarm, evacuation or lock down in dangerous situations such as an internal or external threat to safety. Appropriate actions will have been practiced in drills, such as locking doors, sheltering out of sight and closing windows or finding the nearest exit out and taking attendance. These procedures are designed for maximum safety and efficiency.

However, these systems are usually one-way, from authorities to the audience, and don’t allow for people trying to reach safety to contact or coordinate with authorities in case of special circumstances or simply notifying emergency services of locations. In these situations, a two-way emergency text message alert system could save lives. Sending and receipt is instant and text messages have a 95% open rate under normal conditions. As long as a person has a mobile phone and the situation allows for time to correspond, local authorities can work more efficiently to meet the particular needs that someone may have.

Two-way text message alert system allows sending and receiving text messages via central dashboard or application.

In a lock down situation for an active shooter or inclement weather, a teacher may have students that are incapable of following the safety protocols, or they maybe be able to notify authorities of missing students or even correspond with emergency personnel about where they are located if the incident becomes dire. In this situation, it would be best to keep phones on silent or vibrate and check regularly to keep communication open.

For fire alarms and evacuation alerts, text messages might hinder the process of getting out to safety once people have been alerted. But for those who may be trapped or otherwise unable to get out, being able to text emergency rescue services can make rescues more efficient if teams know where to look for people who are trapped.

The benefit of messaging is the two-way communication it enables. Ideally, emergency alert systems should be sufficient, but there are cases where people can’t follow the instructions to safety or they encounter a problem they need help with or simply are not near or in the building to know that an incident is taking place. In these situations, texting is a solution that complements standard alerts that issue over loudspeakers or broadcast on televisions and radios. Barring exceptions, text alert system goes a step further to reach on an individual level to address the welfare of each person after traditional methods have reached the group.

Based in Toronto, Canada TTAG Systems designs and delivers custom text messaging solutions and software to enterprise customers across North America. Add two-way text messaging to your existing emergency notification system or let us create one from scratch. Contact us today to discuss your next project.

The post Using Two-Way Text Message Alert System During Building Lock Down or Emergency Situations appeared first on TTAG Systems.