When it comes to the world of messaging, we might think that the ubiquitous messaging apps have overtaken SMS in the race for adoption. However, while person-to-person SMS messaging is reducing, when it comes to business messaging, A2P messaging, and M2M, SMS is growing. The A2P market, for example, is all set to grow from USD 62.1 billion in 2020 to USD 72.8 billion by 2025.
Telecom operators, however, are under significant pressure to improve business opportunities, increase their customer base, and improve brand recognition and credibility in the face of rising competition from OTT platforms.
Coming to their rescue are M2M (Machine to Machine), Big Data, and AI – transformative technologies that hold the promise to change the world of business messaging.
Conversations regarding messaging and the telecom sector are incomplete without speaking of 5G. In this context, most of the focus on 5G is over super-sized networks and powerful applications. With 5G, telecom operators also can identify ways to leverage the connectivity to drive enriching customer interactions keeping business messaging in the mix for the growing market in M2M communication.
While 5G is still “on the way”, let’s focus on technologies such as M2M, Big Data, and AI in the current ecosystem and evaluate how they can make business messaging more impactful to create customer stickiness. These technologies can also solve some of the challenges of increasing grey route areas and greater security.
Improved delivery success rate
Over the last few years, technologies such as M2M have made the world of text messaging suitable for the business environment. Transformative business applications like Industrial Internet of Things, Smart Manufacturing, and Industry 4.0 were loath to depend on telecom networks. In the initial days, delivery success rates were poor and influenced by the devices. If the device was of a different carrier, then message delivery failure was highly likely. Back then, text messages in such business-critical contexts suffered due to a reputation for uncertainty.
Today, however, M2M communication and robust cellular networks make a successful partnership to drive impactful and timely business messaging. High-quality tier-1 routes can ensure maximum speed and deliverability and also provide the flexibility to schedule bulk message delivery to stay on top of the customer’s mind. Businesses can also make messaging more targeted and timely and make the overall customer experience more seamless and efficient with M2M technology.
Better customer interactions
A continuous focus on improving customer interactions is key to thriving in a challenging global business environment. Organizations have been using A2P messaging to improve better customer engagement. However, given that disruption is a constant, learning to listen closely to what the customer could want or is indicating is a skill that will guarantee customer stickiness.
Customers want intuitive experiences and, in a customer-first economy, developing the capability to identify what the customer wants, both explicitly and implicitly is important. Technologies such as Big Data and AI get to work here and deliver impact in conjunction with M2M to improve customer experiences.
Businesses and operators can offer products and value-added services based on big data analytics-driven by data generated from location tags, credit tags to partners, and interest tags. Enabling differentiated services according to different types of traffic, creating new business opportunities by wholesaling traffic, sponsored services, or premium delivery capably, and service offerings such as smart bundling, location-based packages, etc. become easier, as do the opportunities to drive profitability.
Technologies such as big data and AI also help telcos attract and develop the right partnerships and give them insights into how to capably bridge the gap between the current and expected outcomes by enabling better, more personalized, and contextual interactions.
Improved security
Research shows that between 2020-2024, revenue leakage to grey routes remains unacceptably high, with a cumulative loss of $37.1 billion, or an annual average leakage of $7.69 billion. Identifying next-gen solutions to make routes more secure to prevent revenue leakage becomes essential given the significant impact of grey route areas on telcos.
Integrating traditional messaging firewalls with big data and advanced analytics can capably detect a wider portfolio of fraudulent patterns. With the right insights in place using technologies such as AI, telcos can also reduce the time between fraud detection and blocking rules implementations.
In Conclusion
The disruptive power of M2M, Big Data, and AI have been at work across industries and have been used to drive elevated customer experiences, offer greater personalization, improve security, and enhance decision-making capabilities to drive greater profitability. These technologies now show that they have the power to disrupt and elevate the business messaging landscape. They can enable more targeted, secure, and contextual business messaging that drives better outcomes and positively impacts the bottom line.