Lunch and learn - 2sms education series

2sms run a 5 minute daily lunch and learn session with their staff, based in 4 countries. As part of the feedback from staff, the suggestion was to offer this same training to customers and visitors to the 2sms web site. To this end, 2sms will be publishing 5 minute 'training nuggets' covering a wide range of topics with the core theme of text messaging, and how it can help customers improve their workflow, productivity, efficiency and effectiveness.

2sms launches Voice product - 2sms Voice

2sms Voice Cloud

Cost effective, collaborative communication cutting phone costs by up to 50%

www.2sms.com/voice.aspx


Sound familiar? You are growing, yet growth brings more sophisticated requirements for your phone system. More users, some remote, some mobile, some on the road.
 
What if you could simply replace your existing phone system with a cost effective communication platform, payable on a per-user subscription basis?
 
Cost Effective: As a cloud based solution, costs reduced:
 

• No upfront infrastructure or investment costs

• No landline / ISDN or hardware rental fees

• No phone system hardware to maintain and power

• Collaborative: No matter how virtual you are, colleagues still need to instantaneously meet, edit and agree on actions. 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2SMS Voice Cloud supports this by:

• Click-to-dial

• Presence awareness

• Conference calling

• Screen sharing

• Meeting transcriptions

• Geo-location mapping

Seamless

As with most intuitive Cloud solutions, there is no need to migrate and launch the new system. No downtime for system launch or training.
 

• Continue with your existing phone numbers

• Utilise existing hardware such as VOIP headsets

• Continue with existing devices: handsets, tablets, laptops, smartphones

• Continue with familiar interfaces, e.g. Skype

This is a comprehensive solution for any corporate looking to find cost savings while enhancing employee productivity with leading collaboration tools delivered via one communication platform. 

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.