The company blog

Hot off the press: Internet World 2012

We’ll be exhibiting at Internet World next month (24 -26 April), demonstrating the benefits of SMS services for businesses. In preparation for the event we’ve just printed some striking new brochures.

If you’re visiting Internet World, you’ll find us located in the mobile village on Stand M3 at Earls Court in London. Our friendly SMS experts will be ready to answer all of your questions and will be talking about how you can benefit from SMS to transform the way your business communicates.

Internet World is also a great place to find the best providers of ecommerce platforms, content management systems, social media, cloud and hosting solutions and all things digital marketing.

If you’ve not already registered, it’s FREE to do so online. Last year the event attracted over 11,000 visitors and this year is set to be even bigger. As the ‘must go to’ event for businesses, we hope to see you there.

SMS is still the favourite platform for UK mobile users

Despite smartphones revolutionising the mobile industry, new research has found that the traditional text message is still the king of mobile communication.

A new study published by Acision, the mobile communications company, has revealed the role that SMS messages play in everyday life for UK consumers.

After surveying 1,000 mobile users in the UK, 63% of which were smartphone users, research proved that SMS is still indispensable.

Results from the survey found that up to 95% of the participants stated that they actively use SMS. Even more interestingly, 93% of Brits who own a smartphone admit to regularly communicating via SMS, despite having Instant Messaging (IM) services on their handset.

Further data showed that 51% of Smartphone users said they would be “lost without” an SMS facility.

“Reports that suggest that SMS is on its deathbed, it seems, have been greatly exaggerated. In fact, it appears that smartphone and feature phone owners alike are united by their affection for text messaging,” commented Jorgen Nilsson, Chief Executive at Acision.

Converging platforms

Interestingly, research reveals that far from being in competition, SMS and IM services are actually complementing each other.

Nilsson stressed that what is particularly interesting is that SMS seems to excel on devices that have been more commonly associated with IM services.

“After looking at these results it is clear that while IM is growing in popularity, it still has a long way to go to catch up with the reach, reliability and ubiquitous nature of SMS. Analysts are predicting that Mobile IM will exceed 1.3 billion users by 2016, compared to over 5 billion users with access to SMS today,” concluded Nilsson.

While IM is useful to communicate with people in an everyday environment such as family or friends, SMS is the best tool when looking for a more formal way of communication. This is why business SMS is a great service that provides fast and effective communication by keeping a respectful distance from the user at the same time.

Specsavers improve customer service with SMS reminders

We’ve just won a contract worth more than quarter of a million pounds to provide text messaging services for Specsavers, the UK’s largest high-street optician.
We won the contract against strong competition from across the industry.

The three-year deal will see us sending millions of text messages to Specsavers customers with details of their appointments.

Geoff Love, Chief Commercial Officer for Esendex, said: “We are delighted that such a large and respected company has chosen Esendex to manage a vital part of its operations.

“Specsavers is famous for the quality of its customer care. We went through an understandably rigorous selection process before being awarded the contract and so to be chosen as their SMS partner reaffirms our position as market leaders.”

He said the deal meant Esendex was entering into a partnership with Specsavers and the two companies would be working closely to see how texting technology could help Specsavers to provide even better customer service and to further grow its business.

“Appointment reminders are the starting point”, said Love, “but texting can also be used in marketing to generate appointments in the first place and to follow them up afterwards.

Specsavers is the largest optical retailer in the UK and Ireland. It handles more than seven million appointments a year.

It has been voted the most trusted brand in the UK for the last ten years by Readers Digest.

Sarah Koulloutas, Head of Direct Marketing for Specsavers said: “Customer service is extremely important to us and something that we’re always looking to improve.

“We are confident that working with Esendex will help us to offer an even better service.”