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An SMS service provider you choose to cooperate with plays a significant role in the success of your SMS marketing. Your partner is responsible for the message delivery, and if they are unable to do this properly, your business might experience financial and reputational losses.
How to avoid this and choose a provider you can trust and rely on? We will answer these questions in this article.
Why is it important to choose the right bulk SMS provider?
The telecom industry is a complex world. To navigate it and succeed, you need to cooperate with dozens of players and providers, follow all necessary regulations and compliance, and guarantee reliable and robust infrastructure. Enterprises choose to delegate these tasks to a bulk SMS sender who will take care of all these factors and provide businesses with ready solutions.
As you can guess, if the vendor misses any of the aspects above or acts irresponsibly, you won’t be able to deliver your messages to the end-point recipient, meaning that time and resources spent on SMS marketing were wasted.
Is the price the main factor?
In this equation, price is necessary but not essential. Yes, you might need to consider budgeting and choose the wisest and the most cost-efficient option, but making your decision on expenses would be dangerous.
Low prices on SMS delivery most probably mean that the vendor utilizes grey routes, i.e., routes that manipulate specific regulations to reduce their expenses and gain more on bulk SMS service. This way, you risk your delivery rates and numbers being blocklisted.
We suggest testing SMS message sending with the Testelium platform to check the vendor on reliability. It will help you detect fake deliveries and analyze the overall quality of services provided. And SMS testing through API integration will make this process simple and convenient for your managers.
Five key factors to pay attention to when choosing a bulk SMS service provider
Delivery
The delivery relies on the routes. Your goal is to find the vendor who will be able to provide the highest delivery rates, and testing will help you to detect that.
Choose the vendors who cooperate directly with mobile carriers and aggregators and eliminate third-party players from the chain. This way, you have a higher chance of reliable services, trustworthy reporting, and results.
Scalability
Understand the capacities the vendor has and think further. For now, you might need to send, for example, one thousand bulk SMS texts for a month, and your vendor will cover these volumes. But the books may grow along with your business, and the vendor should be able to manage them at the same speed and quality.
It is easier to choose a strong vendor in the initial stage and then increase your volumes together instead of changing partners in the middle.
Integration Capacities
You most likely use other business software like CRM systems, task managers, or omniportals. You might need to integrate the SMS vendor’s platform to streamline processes or increase productivity. Without adequate support from the vendor’s development team, it won’t be possible.
Reputation
As with any other business, public opinion might say a lot about the company’s approaches and attitudes. Reviews, testimonials, and comments on social media can reveal both the good and bad sides of the vendor and help you decide if you want to see this company as an essential partner you will depend on.
Customer Support
While sending mass text messages, you might face many challenges and issues you will need help to overcome. Hence, your interaction with the vendor’s support team is inevitable.
Check how and when the vendor promises to provide support if they allocate a dedicated manager for you. Evaluate if you are satisfied with the way they negotiate, as the support department will probably have the same tone of communication.
Summing up
Choosing the right SMS vendor is the key to success. You delegate a big part of responsibilities to the other company, so you should be ready to rely on them and give a particular credit of trust.
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