Services FAQs.

• Bulk SMS defined

  Bulk SMS and business based text messages are one and the same. In nearly all cases, when you see either of these terms, it relates to the sending of multiple texts with just a click of a button or an automatic function.

  All we do at Faretext is simplify the steps involved to make this happen.

  Right from the start, and before any messages are developed or route is considered, we make sure we understand the purpose of your intended text message or messages.

  From our experience, there are only ever two reasons why organisations want to send text messages to their customers:

  One is for marketing your business and the other is for adding value to your customer proposition, what we commonly refer to as notification based text messages.

  To help make this as clear as possible, so that you adopt the ‘what do I want this text to do?’ mentality for your marketing, operations and business plans, we take you through an initial fact-finding process to establish your specific needs.

  Don’t worry if you need the text to cover both the marketing and notification aspects. We’ll develop a plan around your exact requirements, which will ensure the right people in your organisation are involved. We want the purpose to be clear to you, to us and most importantly, to your customers.

• Using SMS for Marketing

  Considering developing a new area for your business? Be it the launch of a new service or product, or perhaps an incentive for new and existing customers – bulk SMS is one of the most cost-effective, targeted and accepted ways of direct marketing.

  As well as replacing more traditional forms of communication, SMS marketing is one of the fastest growing areas in the advertising arena and is becoming a major part of the communication strategy of many companies and brands.

  For small business owners, SMS marketing is one of the best ways of attracting new customers and generating new revenue. This is because it’s personal, and gets direct to the individual.

  You don’t ignore a text message – which is why they offer unparalleled immediacy and the chance for you to personalise marketing messages to a specific type of customer.

• Using SMS for Notification

  Being able to communicate instantly with your customers, using real-time updates, is not just the future. The technology is available now. The applications are endless. Integrate into your software and replace multiple customer touch-points with texts; confirm bookings; update on orders; or inform customers on delivery ETAs.

  With so many new businesses continuously entering the market place, companies are finding it harder and harder to differentiate themselves from their competitors. However, they all recognise the importance of retaining their customers. SMS has now become one of the easiest and most cost effective ways for a business to do the all-important ‘something extra’

  Whether you’re a small business owner or a SME, consumer or business-to-business targeted company, Faretext can help you realise certain areas of communication that could mean the difference between having a loyal and contented customer or a customer open to switching.

• When to use our Economy service

  Developed largely in conjunction with the needs of our taxi text-on-approach customers, we have established a route that is now comparable to the reliability and speed of our Direct route.

  We currently send hundreds of thousands of these types of texts per month with a 98% delivery success rate. Most are delivered within a 7 second window, from transmission to receipt, making them ideal for the more time-critical text applications.

  Even though choosing Economy gives you one super-reliable, super-fast route, it does have certain limitations with fewer features than those available with the Direct route.

  The main consideration when opting to use the Economy route, is that this service is strictly for notification-based text messages only.

  In addition, although we are able to get delivery receipts for texts sent through our Economy route, we aren’t able to provide further detailed reporting for these texts submitted to this service.

  Even though Economy is our cheaper alternative, we still employ the same level of back-up redundancies and contingencies that we provide for our Direct routes.

• Why should you use our Direct service

  This route offers the very best possible quality for bulk SMS transmission.

  Processed directly by the network, our Direct routing delivers on everything you expect from a business text, and a whole load more.

  This is our quickest and most reliable route available, with the best possible coverage. Texts processed through Direct have the highest rates of reliability; currently over 99% and comparable with delivery speeds of the mobile networks themselves.

  Going Direct also offers a host of many other value-added feature and options, including, 2-way SMS, key-words, short-code etc. That will help you tailor the system to your specific requirements and ensure you get the very best from your text communication.

  We invest a lot of our time ensuring that our technology moves parallel to that of the networks. So when a new technology becomes available, we make sure that it is accessible and present via our Direct routes.

  This route is ideal for companies that want to ensure their branding is visible on all their text communication. This you can do by manipulating the Sender ID (the number or characters appearing on the end-user’s handset) – what’s called having a dynamic Sender ID. With a character limit of 11 characters, including any spaces, businesses opting for Direct have the freedom to change the mobile number into their company name or a dedicated hosted mobile phone number of their choice.

  All texts sent through Direct come with detailed reporting. We can show what was sent, delivered, failed, opted out and, if a mini-web link is integrated, how many times it was accessed. This maintains good practice by only targeting customers that are active on a mobile network whilst cleansing your customer database of people who have opted out. We make sure that you only pay for messages that you need at all times.

  Long message support comes as standard, allowing your customers to send 4 text messages in a single message transmission with an allowance of 612 characters. This is ideal for software-generated forms that may exceed the maximum 160 character limit of a single text.

  And to put your mind at rest, we have numerous onsite, offsite and virtual back-ups in place. These are supported by our 24-hour monitoring systems and an emergency hotline. On the extremely rare occasion there is a problem with our service, your message and ultimately the customers’ communication, will still be delivered.

  With the Direct back-up process, we operate a like-for-like system; meaning that in the very unlikely event this route failed, your message would still be sent through a dedicated stand-by Direct route (lying dormant until automatically activated by our monitoring controls).

• Help to ensure your data is healthy

  All companies hold and retain certain information on their customers. The differences between companies can be seen in the quality of the data and how often it is used.

  We take the view that data is simply information and remains this way until it is used or shared. Most businesses regularly update their database but many are often guilty of not really using it to their advantage on a regular basis.

  By analysing this data, cleaning it and sharing it within your organisation, this information suddenly becomes knowledge. Once you have that, you have a springboard to talk with customers more effectively, ensuring that any outbound communication is targeted to their needs, not a simple blanket message that offers no interest or relevance to their requirements.

  We’ll help you cleanse what you have and put it into a format that you can understand, that can then also be used as a platform to generate bulk SMS campaigns with the minimum of fuss. We’ll assist in developing different messages for different customer demographics and advise on the best times to schedule the broadcasts.

  For a small additional charge we can also run your list of customer mobile numbers through something called ‘HLR lookup’. Put simply, we take your numbers and cross reference them against what is effectively a mobile phone number registry that indicates whether the number is still connected and live on a mobile network. The advantage being, you’ll only have to pay for texts that have the best chance of being delivered to your customer.

  As we’re an ethical business, we’ll make sure you have the right policies, recorded opt-ins and agreements in place for you to use your customer data for SMS marketing and communication.

  If you haven’t, don’t worry, we’ll help you develop them. As an organisation, we are strictly against anything that could be viewed as ‘SPAM’. We ensure that every text going out has the ability for your customers to opt-out via a reply number or at least the facility for them to set their preferences via email.

  For more information, please visit our Anti-Spam Policy