The need for a new standard
Every modern enterprise faces a digital dilemma: while customers demand interactive, secure, and instantly responsive communication, legacy messaging channels often fall short. With customer expectations increasing, we’ve reached a turning point where the quality of a brand’s customer relationship is now the single most important driver of engagement and, ultimately, revenue.
A new standard for business messaging is not just desirable – it is essential for competitive advantage and customer retention. This standard is RCS for Business messaging, and with Apple’s recent support for IOS, alongside Android, it now achieves almost near-universal reach.
Representing the channel’s natural evolution, RCS for Business upgrades conventional SMS with rich, interactive features and ‘verified’ branded profiles to drive higher engagement and conversions directly through a phone’s native messaging app, combining SMS’s inherent reliability, and reach, with powerful new functionality, including two-way conversations and advanced reporting analytics.
Defining the new standard: Security and measurable impact
The power of RCS for Business lies in its measurable impact on core business performance, transforming it from a simple communications tool into a strategic investment. The RCS platform is designed to drive improvements across three critical areas: Risk Reduction, Operational Efficiency, and Customer Conversion.
Security: The foundation of trust and risk governance
A significant hurdle in digital communication is the vulnerability of traditional channels to phishing and fraud. RCS messaging solves this through Verified Sender status. When an RCS for Business message is received, the customer’s device displays the business’s verified logo and brand name, often alongside a confirmation badge. This instant verification eliminates guesswork and increases customer trust by providing a crucial layer of authenticity to each message.
Research also indicates that the Verified Sender status functionality within RCS messaging reduces fraud attempts by up to 70%, providing a secure channel that is crucial for regulatory alignment (e.g. PCI-DSS, PSD2 in relation to card transactions).
High engagement: Driving conversion and revenue uplift
Plain text is no longer a novelty for consumers. RCS for Business empowers businesses with a rich media toolkit that drives measurable business outcomes:
- Conversion uplift: RCS campaigns have been shown to deliver a 36–50% Click-Through-Rate (CTR) uplift over equivalent SMS campaigns.
- Rich media content: Visually reinforce branding by offering customers a richer, visual experience with graphics and videos that promote interaction.
- Interactive Call-To-Action buttons: Offer customers one-tap options, simplifying the experience and achieving quicker outcomes.
- Actionable Analytics: Features like ‘Read receipts’ and button-level analytics provide deep behavioural insights for real-time campaign optimisation.
- Guaranteed delivery: Ensure messages are always delivered, even to non-RCS-enabled devices, with SMS fallback
Operational efficiency: Streamlining high-volume workflows
RCS messaging transforms customer service and operational workflows by introducing a critical layer of efficiency. By replacing long-form text with interactive quick-reply buttons and rich media, RCS drastically reduces friction for the customer. This enables single-tap actions for common tasks like confirming an appointment, submitting a CSAT score, or viewing an outage map.
The result is a significant decrease in inbound call centre volume, lower rates of abandonment in critical journeys (like payment or 2FA), and a streamlined pathway for customer lifecycle completion. RCS automates routine service interactions, freeing up agents to focus on complex, high-value enquiries.
High-impact use cases
RCS delivers immediate, measurable ROI by applying its secure and rich features to high-stakes workflows across a wide range of industry sectors:
Finance & Banking
Use cases: RCS-based 2FA: Replaces generic SMS OTPs with verified, branded security codes.
Business Outcomes: Fraud mitigation, improved authentication completion rates
Retail/Ecommerce
Use cases: Targeted Promotional Journeys: Dynamic rich media carousels and targeted offers with a clear “Shop Now” button.
Business Outcomes: Higher conversion rates (CTR uplift) and better product discovery.
SaaS/Technology
Use cases: Trial Activation/Subscription Reminders: Secure, branded alerts for account changes or renewals.
Business Outcomes: Reduced abandonment, improved customer lifecycle completion.
Travel
Use cases: Pre-Departure Check-in with Rich Media: Send a branded alert with an embedded boarding pass/QR code, airport maps, and a one-tap “Check-in Complete” quick-reply button.
Business Outcomes: Reduced wait times, improved customer satisfaction, and decreased operational load on customer service agents.
Utilities / Telecoms
Use cases: Proactive Fraud/Outage Alerts: Send a verified, branded alert for a high-usage warning or a service outage. Include a quick-reply button to “Confirm Payment” or “View Outage Map.”
Business Outcomes: Significant reduction in inbound call centre volume, increased payment completion rates, and improved customer trust during critical incidents.
Property / Real Estate
Use cases: Targeted Rental/Sales Viewings: Send rich media carousels featuring properties that match a customer’s saved search criteria. Include a “Book Viewing” CTA button and calendar link. Appointment Confirmations can also be incorporated to help lower ‘no-shows’ and enhance the overall customer experience.
Business Outcomes: Higher conversion rates from property views to booked appointments (CTR uplift) and faster sales/rental cycle completion.
How the messaging platforms compare: RCS vs SMS vs WhatsApp
Choosing the right messaging channel is a strategic investment in both customer trust and future performance. The following matrix provides a clear, high-level comparison evaluating the three dominant platforms – RCS, SMS, and WhatsApp.
| RCS For Business | SMS | ||
| Security/Trust | High: Verified Sender status (logo/badge) virtually eliminates spoofing/phishing attempts. Crucial for regulatory alignment. | Low: Unbranded/generic sender ID. Highly vulnerable to phishing/spoofing. | High: End-to-end encryption. Business accounts are verified. |
| Reach | Very High: Near-universal reach (Android/iOS support). Guaranteed delivery via SMS fallback. | Universal: Works on all mobile devices globally. | High: Dependent on app adoption and user consent/download. No fallback. |
| User Experience | High: Supports rich media, dynamic cards, carousels, and one-tap Call-To-Action (CTA) buttons. | Low: Plain text only. Very limited character length. | High: Supports rich media, documents, and interactive buttons. Two-way conversation focus. |
| Reporting /Analytics | High: Supports Read Receipts and button-level analytics for deep behavioural insights and real-time campaign optimisation. | Low: Only provides basic delivery confirmation status. | Medium: Read receipts, limited delivery/read status. Behavioural analytics are often siloed. |
| Channel Type | Native to phone’s messaging app. Carrier-backed | Native to phone’s messaging app. Carrier-backed. | App-based. Requires download/registration via App. |
Conclusion: The immediate path to performance
RCS for Business is the new enterprise standard for business messaging, defined by verified security, greatly improved conversion metrics, and enhanced customer interaction.
RCS messaging not only delivers measurable improvements today, including significantly higher engagement, stronger security, and improved customer trust, its unique capabilities make it the essential strategic choice for maximising high-value messaging opportunities.
Similarly, with the ongoing expansion of RCS for Business support across all major mobile operating systems, the total addressable market is now almost fully maximised – ensuring any investment is future-proof and universally accessible across the vast majority of Android and IOS mobile devices.
To fully realise the benefits of RCS for business messaging, organisations must start by auditing their current communication channels and prioritising the migration of their most security-critical, and highest-value promotional traffic. Investing in RCS business messaging is an investment in both risk reduction and the sustained future performance of your customer engagement strategy.
Ready to unlock the power of RCS Messaging for your Business?
Esendex
The team at Esendex comprises tech experts and experienced marketers who thrive on sharing their know-how, to support prospects and customers to identify the right mobile messaging solutions for their business.
