SMS Keeps Customers Safe
February 02, 2010 by Bill HiltonRecently, the Safelincs team has started to use TextMagic's SMS
gateway API to stay in touch with customers. But the firm isn't taking the traditional SMS marketing route. Instead, it is using text messaging as part of a free reminder service. Safelincs' IT Manager
explains:
"As well as being a profit-making business, Safelincs is
also strongly ethical – we have a real commitment to
saving people’s lives through fire safety. We support the Government’s Fire
Kills campaign, and we do a great deal to keep people aware and informed of
fire safety issues.
"As a part of that strand of the business, we’ve recently
set up a free SMS reminder service for customers who want to keep their smoke
alarms and carbon monoxide detectors working. All they have to do is sign up on
the website, and we send them a reminder when they need to test their alarms,
replace batteries and so on."
The Safelincs
team has used the TextMagic SMS gateway API to integrate text messaging into the company website. Customers fill out a simple form, stating their mobile
number and the type of reminder they require. The API handles the
rest.
How difficult did the developers find it to integrate the
TextMagic SMS gateway API and get started with automated text messaging?
"Not difficult at all. We’d been keen to
integrate SMS into the site for a while, and we spent some time shopping around
different service providers. We settled on TextMagic because it seemed to offer
a flexible API and the best combination of service, reliability and pricing.
"Integrating with the API was very easy indeed. We had one small
glitch which was resolved really quickly, and we managed to get the service up,
running and tested without even buying any SMS credits – the 20 free credits we received on sign up were enough to test the whole thing."
And would Safelincs recommend TextMagic to other businesses?
"Definitely. Integrating SMS into a website sounds like it needs a lot of complex work, but it didn’t at all – I think it wound up taking a day’s development time and some very standard coding skills. We’ve had no problems whatsoever, and we hope to be using TextMagic to text our subscribers for a long time to come."
Interested in how automated text messages can help your business? Learn more about out SMS gateway API.
Comments
February 03, 2010 at 02:55 PM
It's amazing what developers are creating with SMS for business, other than simple marketing tools. This is a really valuable service. I wonder how many people have signed on for this service via Safelincs?