SMS Gateways: A Key Step for UK Financial Institutions – Part 1
As more financial institutions move towards mobile platforms, the SMS gateway has come to play an increasingly important role in secure communications between these institutions and their customers. In this series of SMS gateway posts, we focus on the advantages that an SMS gateway and its application programming interfaces (APIs) offer financial institutions, and look at some real-life examples of how banks and insurance companies are offering their customers added-value services, while at the same time reaping the rewards of this affordable and effective medium.
Simply put, an SMS gateway is a hosted messaging platform that allows the transmission and receipt of SMS text messages from a variety of applications and programmes. There are application programming interfaces (APIs) that connect to the SMS gateway and translate incoming messages into text message format. These incoming messages can originate from proprietary software applications, email systems or websites – it makes no difference to the SMS gateway.
SMS gateways offer affordable and easy-to-implement messaging options for financial institutions and the advantages of using a secure messaging platform, such as an SMS gateway, are manifold. First, it is easy to build consumer confidence in your brand with immediate and reliable delivery of transaction alerts, fraud alerts and point-of-sale receipts. Increased customer satisfaction leads to increased customer ‘stickiness’ and enhances the value and reach of your brand. Second, the SMS gateway allows for message tracking, so all secure communications are monitored and real-time reports can be generated.
It is easy to run customer acquisition campaigns because an SMS gateway has a large network reach and can deliver anywhere in the world that has mobile coverage. There is no handset or demographic limitation when using text messaging through an SMS gateway, as all mobile phones can send and receive text messages. The mobile phone is also the most ubiquitous personal communication device on the planet, it is always with the customer and it is nearly always on.
Automation of various tasks – such as balance queries, FAQs, claims updates and notifications of transfers, deposits and payment – is simple with SMS gateway APIs. This automated process reduces the time-burden placed on IT personnel and resources, and therefore reduces operating costs.
Obviously, the biggest factor for any financial institution is the reduction of risk in their transactions. Using SMS gateways to transmit text notifications and alerts to customers helps reduce the potential for fraud considerably, as customers can instantly respond if something is amiss. There are other security options available with SMS gateways to further reduce this risk for both financial institutions and their customers. Read more about this in our next post in this series.
The SMS gateway APIs also open up opportunities for revenue generation through offering premium-rated text services. Commissions and fees on mobile transactions provide a steady stream of income, and by offering additional related products and service to customers through two-way text messaging, profits can be increased.
Banks and insurance companies, in particular, have taken mobile messaging onboard, through secure SMS gateway transmission, for a wide range of purposes. These include, reducing their risk, generating additional income while cutting operational costs, increasing their customer loyalty and extending the reach of their brand. Look out for our next post in this SMS gateway series for further information on the security features available to financial institutions.
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Tags: API connections, Application Programming Interface (API), Clickatell UK, mobile banking, sms gateway, sms gateways, test gateway, two-way SMS
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2 Comments On This Post
[...] is the original post: SMS Gateways: A Key Step for UK Financial Institutions – Part 1 Tags: advertising, api-connections, communication, customers, medical, sms, sms-gateway, [...]
I absolutely agree with the opinion that clickatel had to say. Its all about reaching the customer with a personal touch , and the best way to be aorund the cutomer is being a part of his “mobile life”
Why mobile???
The reason why mobile is being the 21st century’s medium?? First, it is genuinely a mass media. Statistics show that at least 80% of any developed population own mobile phones. The second most import thing is that, the handset is genuinely for the user which accentuates the fact that any advertisement sent on them is exclusively private and personal. Third, it is a proper media channel because it has text like a news papers, sound like a radio, pictures like TV, and connectivity like the online internet. Therefore it blends many of the features of all possible mediums available today. It also helps organizations to be constantly in touch with all their customers with minimal cost with the predefined customer database. The advantage of having a personal touch of the ads is just an added goodie of this particular medium. The potential is huge beyond imagination it is still growing as the strongest emerging advertising media