Rich Business Messaging Boosts Sales and Brand Loyalty by Transforming the Customer Experience

By: Chris Drake

Consumers love deals, but they hate jumping through hoops to get them. Rich Business Messaging (RBM) enables the kind of convenient, frictionless experiences that maximize sales and brand loyalty — all while protecting consumers and businesses from fraudsters and spammers. RBM is based on Rich Communication Services (RCS), which fundamentally changes how people can use their mobile devices to interact with airlines, retailers, rideshare companies, restaurants and other businesses. 

In fact, RCS campaigns have seen 200 percent increases in click rates as compared to other channels. A key reason is that RBM provides application-to-person (A2P) features that aren’t available with traditional SMS and MMS text messaging options. One example is rich cards, which support a combination of images, video, text, and suggested replies or actions known as “chips.”

Multiple rich cards can be sent as a group called a carousel. For example, when tourists message a local guide company about day trips, it could respond with a carousel of several destinations. Tourists then spin through the cards directly from the text messaging app native to their device, select the one that interests them and use a chip to get more information or go ahead and book.

Credit to and courtesy of: developers.google.com

This is a fundamentally different consumer experience compared to SMS and MMS. For example, although MMS supports multimedia content, it would require a series of messages to convey the same information that a single RCS carousel provides. RCS supports longer videos, so businesses have more time to showcase a destination, a product or a promotion. It also provides consumers and contact center agents with read receipts and typing indicators so neither side is left wondering whether the other