SMS – The last mile of Enterprise ERP

Businesses invest a lot of time, money and resource into automating their processes with the goals of cost efficiency, customer service excellence and operational effectiveness. 

It is surprising therefore that all too often the last mile of the ERP process, the communication to a person, is left to email, voicemail or an old fashioned phone call. This is where SMS adds value far beyond it’s cost. 

Let me explain! 

Your ERP system has recognised that stock is low of a specific product, and that deliveries of product to distribution points are at risk. The system auto-generates a new order, but sign off is required. How does the mobile authoriser learn about the need to perform this task? By Email? By logging onto the ERP system from their hotel room or while on the train? 

The better answer, and the answer that accelerates responses to ‘calls to action’, is SMS. 

SMS is delivered faster than email, is read in priority to email, and triggers people to respond, act, solve, confirm, or in short, get the job done. 

Integrating SMS into ERP is a relatively simple process. Most ERP systems, most CRM platforms and most portal technologies connect to XML based web services. From there, plumbing in a SMS connection is a simple process. 

2sms has worked with many customers who have made this discovery. The record in terms of a customer grabbing our API from our web site and sending their first SMS message from their test platform, was a major bank. And these days, their core product systems are monitored by software that connects to SMS when problems are detected.

SMS and the Olympics

2sms provides a robust platform for messaging with a high volume of spare capacity to handle additional messages sent by our customers during peak times such as the Olympic Games. 

We are reliant upon the mobile networks such as O2, Vodafone and Orange (among others) to deliver these messages to the mobile phones registered on their networks. 

We have tested our platform to ensure it will be able to cope with additional capacity but are subject to the networks’ preparations at the delivery end to ensure messages go through.

2sms cannot expedite messages through a network, but can only submit messages to them for them to deliver. Users should expect that during peak times messages may take longer to deliver to UK mobile phones as the networks will have higher volumes of traffic to process. Messages to other countries will remain unaffected.

Video tutorial - Send SMS from Excel using 2sms software add-in

 
Did you know you can send SMS messages from Microsoft Excel, without needing to log into the 2sms website? Use your own databases, build personalised messages and schedule messages for any time with 2sms' Microsoft Excel Add-in.

Update on Indian SMS Regulations

As you may know, SMS regulations in India were changed in September 2011 to involve strict new laws on what types of messaging are allowed and at what times they are permitted to be sent (information on these regulations can be found here on the 2sms blog.)

We have since been updated that further to the original regulations, Indian networks are now rejecting any messages sent between 21:00 and 09:00 Indian Standard Time (16:30-04:30 British Summer Time.) Any messages sent to the networks between these times would fail rather than simply being delayed.

As a result 2sms has implemented a queuing system for our customers which will collect any traffic going to Indian mobile phones between these hours until the networks reopen at 9am IST. This means that your messages will not be delivered immediately if they are submitted during this time period, but will be sent later. While we understand this is less than ideal, unfortunately our hands are tied by the Indian government’s legal requirements.

If you have any questions about this or any other 2sms service please get in touch with our Sales and Support Team on 0800 65 222 77 or email support@2sms.com.

How to transfer credits between your sub-accounts

Did you know that...

 

You can transfer credits between your subaccounts. Simply go to www.2sms.com and log in using your master account details and follow these steps:

 

1. Under ‘My Account’ tab select ‘Sub Accounts’
2. Select ‘Transfer Credits with Sub Accounts’
3. Select accounts you wish to exchange credits with, enter the number of messages to exchange to each account and submit.

 

This allows you to transfer credits both into and out of your sub-accounts.

Are you interested in sending SMS messages in Arabic or Chinese?

2sms has implemented a service to support SMS messages written using non-Latin characters. One unicode text message can only contain 70 characters, therefore when sending messages longer than that using characters outside the GSM 7-bit alphabet, the charges will vary. 

Call your account manager on 01234 757 800 or email support@2sms.com to get the service set up and running on your 2sms account today.

Fast Upload address book

If you struggle to download software to your machine but would like to upload your address book with contact details stored within Microsoft Excel this is solution just for you!

Fast upload allows you to upload contact details into your 2sms web address book straight from Excel spreadsheet without the need to download any software to your
machine.

Click here to access the Fast Upload spreadsheet now!

If you would like more information about this or any other 2sms service, please get in touch with our 24/7 Sales and Support team on 01234 757800 or email support@2sms.com.

Process improvement starts with the smallest message

All businesses seek to improve their use of people and resources to grow revenues, reduce costs, serve customers better and do more of the right stuff.

One 2sms customer implemented a simple but effective solution to reduce costs, improve operations and ensure accurate deployment of drivers. Each day the customer sends text messages to van and lorry drivers on their books with their assignments for the next day. The messages are sent from an Excel spreadsheet at 6pm each evening, so that the drivers have their jobs to hand for the early morning start.

Once spreadsheet issues 500 daily jobs on average, taking less than one minute to dispatch the data.

The cost savings are substantial. No more telephone calls from Operations Managers to their fleet drivers, with all the problems associated with leaving voice-mails and not knowing if the message was delivered.

But the benefits do not stop there. By using the 2sms 2way service, any drivers who had issues with their instructions could text back their concerns. This allowed the customer to deal with the issues the night before, resolving problems before the start of the next business day.

The resulting improvements in customer satisfaction from happy customers receiving on time deliveries was fed back to all involved in this project.

The cost of sending these messages? Less than £200 a week. The cost of one vehicle left idle, or wrongly assigned? Multiples of SMS costs.

Return on investment : Instant.

2sms add support for Outlook Mobile

You can now send text messages through 2sms from your Outlook directly through Microsoft Outlook Mobile, without the need for a software add-in.

2sms offer white label SMS services to b2b Telcos

Are you a b2b Telco looking for mobile data products to add to your product portfolio? 2sms provides Telco partners with their own branded web site selling SMS services to business customers. 2sms brands the web site to your Corporate branding guidelines, and can provide the entire end to end solution to allow you to add SMS services to your offering.

SMS is used by business customers to send messages to staff, customers and suppliers who are not sitting at their desks. If your customer's business needs to get its people to re-deploy, sending a SMS message from their office to remote staff is the fastest way to get a response. SMS is now used by all the leading FTSE100 companies to manage internal operations and response to events. From major emergencies to everyday customer requests, SMS will allow businesses to respond faster.

If you are Telco wanting to offer SMS as a differentiator, 2sms can have you up and running with a SMS product in 6 weeks from enquiry to 'Go Live'. Better still, it won't cost you a penny, since our model is a revenue share model.

If you would like more information about this or any other 2sms service, please get in touch with our 24/7 Sales and Support team on 01234 757800 or email support@2sms.com.

Musings from World Mobile Congress 2012

• The Chinese are here in force. The world is moving East. This is Asia’s Century. The Huawei Pavilion was something else. ZTE was also a lead sponsor.

• SMS is moving from Premium rate consumer marketing into the Enterprise.

• With the growth of mobility, will the networks cope with the data demands of customers?

• Joyn is an interesting development, and certainly requires strategic thinking from SMS players to develop new opportunities.

• Security significantly stepped up this year at Barcelona – none of our team got mugged which is a first.

• Why can't the WMC, the pivotal Mobile event in Europe, provide decent working WiFi to visitors?!

• Some great business meetings and significant new opportunities.

• If you have not visited Barcelona, do so!

Changes to 2sms Support Forum

2sms announces changes to the 2sms Support Forum.

Following a high level of attempted Spam on the support forum, 2sms has changed the forum to a read only basis. Customers wishing to pose questions may still send an email to support@2sms.com, and where appropriate, and with the customers permission, we will share answers to generic questions on the forum.

The forum stll allows customers to access a comprehensive FAQ database of SMS relatee questions.

Royal Mail prices set to increase by up to 50%... time to use SMS?

With Royal Mail announcing that this April stamp prices are due to increase by up to 50%, the time has never been better to use SMS messaging to lower costs and avoid expensive postal charges.

While prices are yet to be confirmed, industry leaders suggest the rise could be as much as 19p on second class stamps alone, raising the current cost from 36p to 55p per item – the cost of which could cover a minimum of five text messages sent through 2sms.com.

SMS is fast, efficient and allows you to track your messages to the recipient – unlike the postal service. There is no cost to the environment and no stationery is required. And if you get a wrong number – unlike a wrong address – your message is marked as failed, has cost you very little and you can remove it from your list immediately instead of continuing to pay for messages that never arrive.

Why send an expensive letter when an SMS will do?

If you would like more information about this or any other 2sms service, please get in touch with our 24/7 Sales and Support team on 01234 757800 or email support@2sms.com.

We’re upgrading our security

At 2sms we pride ourselves on offering the highest level of data security and protection, which is why as part of our latest round of upgrades we are changing the way password protection works on your account.

From the 6th February 2012 all new accounts will have a password expiry of 90 days, after which the password will need to be changed or access to the account will be frozen. Notifications will be sent out as the renewal date approaches, and if you miss it then our Sales and Support Team will be able to reset this for you pending confirmation of your identity.

Existing accounts will not be affected until the first time the password is changed, after which the 90-day expiry will come into effect.

Password reminders can be requested from the log-in screen and can only be sent to the registered email address for your account. All new passwords must be at least 8 characters long and contain at least one upper case character, one lower case character, and one number.

If you would like to discuss our new policy or any of our products and services, please get in touch with the Sales and Support Team at any time on 0800 65 222 77 or email support@2sms.com.

Changes to mobile numbering in Egypt

The Egyptian National Telecom Regulatory Authority (NTRA) has announced that as of the 6th October 2011 all mobile phone numbers in Egypt will be adding an additional digit.

Both new and old numbering plans will be active until February 6th 2012 and should receive communication normally, however after this time only the new numbers will be active.

2sms suggests all customers sending to Egypt ensure they modify their address books accordingly to account for the changes.