Late 2012 I wrote about how SMS or Text Messaging had just reached its 20th birthday. Over those years use of SMS has grown and evolved. In many parts of the world consumers use of SMS is now falling as people use more "data" based services but in other countries it is still growing and will for some time.

Business use of SMS worldwide is growing as more and more organisations discover what a great method of communicating with their customers SMS is. New sectors are opening up, especially in the area of M2M or "Machine 2 Machine" where devices use SMS to talk to each other.

If you have a business which involves appointments with the general public then SMS can stop people being late or missing appointments. Many software or online scheduling tools allow you to deliver reminders using SMS. Automatically sending a message (SMS) a short period before an appointment will remind those attending about the appointment and when it is. Potentially this will help people be on time and hopefully those that can not keep the appointment will provide advance warning so you can reschedule the time more profitably.

Appointment bookings, reservation and travel references, important directions are all simple uses of SMS. If you provide a service which involves any sort of "balance", changing status or consumption of anything then a regular SMS update is an easy method of delivering these. Doing so can simplify and increase communication between you and your customers which is usually a good thing.

In this era of smart phones and the internet it is easy to think "why not email". Phones group information automatically,.SMS are small, each one limited to 160 characters. So the information they contain is concise and focused and therefore easy to find. Finding information is simple and of course a phone is something that you always have with you. Email requires a data connection whereas SMS requires the bare essentials of a connection and can usually be relied upon to work. Data coverage in many parts of the developed world is still non-existent and data availability in the developing world has a long way to go before it reaches a reliable level. SMS also works on every phone whereas email requires a "Smart phone".

Over 90% of messages are read within 3 minutes according to the Text Messaging/SMS experts at Messito, a leading global SMS company. SMS is well known as one of the most effetive methods of delivering information to someone.

Using SMS to improve customer service need not cost you money, it can often save you money.Many travel and hospitality businesses call clients to check on travel plans, flight delays, progress etc. Replacing a call with an SMS can not only be better but much cheaper especially when considering international travvellers and mobile roaming charges. From a customres point of view arriving at a destination and receiving an informative SMS when they turn their phone on is much easier than trying to pick up voicemail.

If improving customer service using SMS is of interest to you, the experts at Messito provide a lot of useful information, benefits and use cases for you to consider.