Corporate SMS speeds up information delivery
Remember the pager, that tiny little radio receiver that can display a few lines of text? Back in the 1980s and 1990s, when a cellular phone was still a luxury, pagers were widely used as a means of mobile communication because of their low cost and reliability. Bosses provided their employees with pagers so that they would be able to send out last-minute instructions to them out in the field.
Effective as it was, the pager had one shortcoming: it was a one-way communication tool. If a pager user wanted to respond to a message he had received, he would have to find a public telephone. Today, with the rapid proliferation of low-cost cell phones as well as the overwhelming popularity and cost efficiency of the short messaging service, or SMS, the pager business has shrunk to a barely survival state.
While some people still have these gadgets in their pockets as they move around, the majority of us prefer using the cell phone's SMS facility. With SMS services, delivering timely information to customers, business partners, suppliers and employees has become easier and more compelling, particularly with all the different corporate SMS service plans being offered.
In fact, the range of services offered by a mobile communication operator is not complete if they do not include three specific types of SMS services for corporate customers: Broadcast SMS, Alert SMS and Pull SMS.
As you can guess, the Broadcast SMS service allows a company to send one uniform message to multiple cell phone users both on a regular and as-needed basis.
The information beamed to the fleet of cell phones can include a company's latest price changes so that its sales force will remain updated and will be able to offer competitive prices to customers earlier than their competitors. The message may also contain new company policies, which the company wants to let its employees know immediately.
The Broadcast SMS service can also provide a company's customer base with valuable information such as product availability. With this information, customers can immediately place their orders. The company can get a head start over competitors who choose to inform the same customers with faxes or other more traditional and slower means of communications.
The Alert SMS, which the names indicates, has to do with letting certain people know that something unusual has taken place or is going on.
An Alert SMS is an unbeatable means for letting system administrators know instantly that their mission critical applications have been running too slow or no longer meet their service level agreement, for example. It is also a very powerful tool in times of emergency, for example if the temperature of a boiler in a plant has risen beyond safe limits and action must be taken to avoid a major catastrophe.
The Pull SMS is also an interesting and useful service. Unlike the Broadcast and Alert SMS services, the Pull SMS communication is initiated by the employees who need company information to complete their jobs. The Pull SMS service can be connected to the company's information database.
By sending an SMS to the database, the employee is "pulling" out the information and has it displayed on his cell phone. So, for example, if he needs to know the availability of a product that his customer wants, he can use the Pull SMS service to get this information. Within seconds, he will be able to tell his customer whether he can deliver the order today, tomorrow or next week.
Clearly, SMS services can be used for more than just gossiping or delivering a Talaq (divorce) statement. Businesses can use the messaging service to gain competitive advantage by speeding up information delivery to their customers, partners, suppliers and employees, and even by alerting the necessary people in case of emergency.
Best of all, the corporate SMS services are a very cost- efficient solution for timely information delivery. -- Zatni Arbi