Mobile technologies are the latest buzzword when it comes to connecting people socially. And all the Social networks are competing with each other in rolling out mobile compatible versions through which the consumers can rate, provide feedback and mainly share with others.

I want to focus on one of the lesser focussed services in the mobile platform, namely SMS. SMS is the most widely used application after voice. Its inherent simplicity eliminates any learning curve and according to wikipedia, more than 70% of all mobile phone users use it. The participation in all the reality shows on TV is a very good metric for this.

I am a believer in customizing this service for different business needs. SMS is one technology which can be used to pull or push information without very heavy investment in infrastructure.There are a whole lot of providers who allow SMS’s to be configured from the system.

Just google it out and you will be overwhelmed by the number of simple SMS broadcast services. Most of these concentrate on just a simple broadcast mode by pushing out messages to the audience. I think there is a lot of potential in using a pull mechanism for disseminating information.

Different organizations and primarily SME’s can use this technology in numerous ways to connect to their customers. Depending on the nature of the organization, whether its a manufacturing organization, a service organization or any other organization, each can use this to efficiently streamline the external facing operations such as promotions or for Sales force automation.

Manufacturing organizations can use SMS to streamline and enable Sales force automation. It can also be used as a supplement to email to alert the users.

SMS can be used by Service organizations to broadcast information (such as offers) or send point to point information (in response to a query or reminders to the customers for ex:- bill payment) as a simple CRM system. A few examples:

  • Doctors can use these to inform their clients about vaccination dates such as the Pulse polio campaign.
  • Restaurants can inform customers about promotions such as Happy hours etc.
  • Notifications in case of any calamity

The only hindrance I see is that for Business applications, the system should be very robust and in this case the delivery has to be instantaneous in 100% of the cases. SMS delivery isn’t prompt as far as I have noticed. If it can ensure timely delivery then a lot more business applications can use this as an enabler.

Update 1: Came across this post on Watblog regarding TRAI on SMS Charges

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