There are tons of features that OTT apps like WhatsApp and Telegram offer for free. This includes sending text and voice messages, sharing photos, videos, GPS location, and even making payments. To businesses, OTT apps mean a convenient platform to build a better customer journey.
Is there any way for mobile messaging to evolve further? Well, you could combine each of these features into a single messaging app, which is the very technology behind Rich Communication Services. Through RCS business messaging opportunities, brands can achieve productive business-to-customer communication effortlessly and cost-effectively.
Understanding RCS Business Messaging – From SMS to RCS
RCS business messaging is the future of texting. It offers a rich set of features that integrate seamlessly into the native SMS messaging app. The list includes payments, chatbots, HQ images and videos, group chats, and many popular features from WhatsApp and Telegram.
But the advantages of RCS business messaging go far beyond its convenience.
Advantages of RCS Business Messaging
To start, RCS presents a noticeable step up from SMS in terms of feature diversity and unparalleled reach that outperforms OTT text messaging. Traditional SMS campaigns that use the native messaging app have an extremely high open rate of 98%, with the response rate averaging 90 seconds.
Enterprises don’t need to worry if their messages got lost anymore – RCS simply shows that they are read. Overall, RCS business messaging enables brands to provide better customer service throughout the customer journey, increasing customer loyalty, decreasing churn, and maximizing revenue.
There’s no doubt that the RCS technology changes the game of mobile messaging – it’s beneficial for businesses and user-friendly. On that note, the next part of the article will examine how exactly the RCS API platform benefits enterprises, telcos, and end-users.
10 Key RCS Features – How RCS Business Messaging Surpasses Other Messaging Apps
Let’s have a closer look at the ten major benefits RCS business messaging provides for all main players – end users, telcos, and enterprises:
1. Utilizing native messaging apps
In contrast to OTT apps that are just one possible messaging channel, RCS business messaging offers all the same features and then some in one single app, which makes them more accessible to a wider audience.
2. Variety of functions
As we mentioned, RCS technology is embedded with a vast selection of services currently unavailable on OTT apps. Interactive maps, payments, AI chatbots, multimedia attachments, action buttons, and most importantly – no character limit. It immediately sets RCS business messaging off from the SMS limit of 160 characters. All of these features are now easily accessible to business messaging, which results in operators greatly benefitting from a better user experience.
3. Strong market presence
Studies show that 90% of text messages delivered through SMS are read within 3 minutes. And since RCS business messaging is the natural descendant of SMS, it takes over both the presence and market penetration of the most reliable messaging channel.
4. Custom branding
RCS A2P profiles feature the enterprise’s own logo and branded colors instead of using the messaging platform of another company. Custom designs are much more appealing and improve customers’ trust.
5. Verification tool
The verified badge, or the blue checkmark that Twitter, Instagram, and other social media apps use, is quite beneficial to a brand. RCS business messaging does that, too. Brand verification and business messaging opportunities collectively prevent unauthorized use of the brand’s image via fake accounts and spoofing. No more impostors profiting off honest business.
6. Improved marketing analytics
Unlike SMS lacking visibility following message delivery, RCS offers clear data points for gauging a campaign’s performance. For example:
- The time when the message was received and opened
- The immediacy of a response
- A person’s reaction to the message (the response itself)
Using this data, enterprises can determine whether the user understood the message as intended – were they confused, had enough options, etc. – and tweak their customer retention strategies or other campaigns accordingly.
7. Easy customization
RCS business messaging is all about digital convenience. So naturally, the campaign managers can customize, correct, and improve sent messages in real time to achieve specific goals.
8. User history – better targeting
Access to user’s brand interaction data allows enterprises to promote the most appealing deals to users looking for specific solutions.
9. Utilizing device advantages
While the argument seems obvious, as of now, SMS messaging doesn’t really leverage smartphones, apart from clickable URLs in messages, with functions limited to that of old-fashioned button phones. On the other hand, RCS enhances customer and personal communication by bringing the same experiences as web services and apps like WhatsApp or Telegram.
10. Multiple-choice button responses
Social media platforms and OTT apps use various interactive polling features – questions, sliders, and multiple-choice forms. RCS integrates similar mechanics into business messaging: enterprises can put fixed user reactions to messages. The choices can vary from multimedia carousels to action buttons, suggested replies, and more.
The one-tap button response system saves time and energy for both brands and users. Customers don’t need to go out of their way to voice their needs while enterprises get a clear understanding of their audience’s demands. Such standardized interaction accommodates the needs and wants of both parties and offers smooth A2P communication.
While we only selected the ten most distinctive functions, RCS enables team communication as well, be it a group call or a video conference. Successfully adopting the best from SMS and OTT apps, RCS technology fills a single native messaging app with a deluge of innovation. The simplicity and convenience of RCS business messaging make business-to-customer communication increasingly productive.
RCS Business Messaging – Conversations with Your Customers
To better serve their clients, many enterprises use omnichannel messaging platforms that already implement RCS among other channels.
This small list covers a fraction of the many ways an RCS business messaging platform can improve such marketing campaigns and assist in boosting customer relationships.
How RCS Business Messaging Benefits Marketing
Here are the advantages RCS offers to marketers and their messaging campaigns:
- RCS messaging is highly targeted. It means the campaign will reach only the most engaged customers, which makes marketing remarkably cost-efficient.
- Brands can stay relevant to customers by regularly communicating with them via the native messaging app on their smartphones.
- RCS assists marketers in telling the customers important information directly – for example, delivery status, updated flight details, promo announcements, customer service responses, etc. Getting a guaranteed reply exactly when needed boosts customer satisfaction.
- Enterprises can solve their customer’s issues immediately using an RCS messaging platform. Proactive real-time communication improves the brand image and builds customer loyalty.
- RCS messaging also enables the analysis of campaign data, including read receipts, response delays, and alternative reply suggestions. By fine-tuning campaigns, marketers can lower the costs and improve ROI.
The RCS platform proves its worth for business marketing. But the perks of RCS services also extend to the customers using them.
How RCS Business Messaging Benefits End-Users
The benefits of RCS business messaging go both ways, making it the perfect B2C communication channel for the receiving side as well:
- Higher security level (compared to OTT apps)
- In-app video and audio streaming
- Attaching images of bigger size and better quality
- Using emojis in conversation
- Additional group chat features
- Various in-call and post-call features for convenient and useful communication
- Improved user interface. Powered by AI, the RCS solution interface studies user and community habits and introduces useful and needed features
- Better user experience with fewer clicks to buy products or services. Via the native RCS messaging app, the full customer journey – browsing, placing orders, purchasing, delivery tracking – takes place seamlessly, accommodating the user’s every need
The technology behind RCS business messaging is not that widely used yet, but it’s about to change the messaging world. Any business using this customer communication channel is bound to experience a dramatic influx of users and revenues.
RCS Technology – The Promising Solution
The 2020 market estimate of B2C messaging involving SMS amounted to $19.7 billion. Two years later, this number has grown more than $5 billion, reaching a total of $25.1 billion.
As of now, RCS has more than 421 million monthly active users and 1.2 billion devices supporting this technology. Compared to 2016, when there were only 30 million users, the RCS user base has increased nearly 13 times in recent years, an unprecedented growth. It’s clear why 50 operators have already integrated or are planning to invest in an RCS solution.
Changing the B2C Messaging Landscape
The rich functionality and messaging opportunities that RCS business messaging provides are hard to resist. The mobile messaging experience is about to be positively transformed. Operators all over the world collectively turn to RCS technology to improve their customer reach via daily chatting. Consumers and enterprises alike will benefit from RCS business messaging as it strives to keep us all connected in a convenient and cost-effective manner.
If you’d like your business to take advantage of the RCS technology or wish to learn more about LANCK Telecom’s RCS solution, feel free to get in touch with us through this form or email us at [email protected].