What are SMS notifications and why should you use them?

Today's consumers have high expectations when it comes to communicating with your business.

The truth is in the data, with nearly 50% of people expecting responses from businesses within four hours of reaching out.

Staffing your help desk accordingly is one issue.

But even if your business had all hands on deck responding to customer queries, how do you decide which channel is best for customer communication? How do you ensure customers see your messages quickly?

How can you automate communication processes so customers don't feel like they're constantly reaching out with questions?

SMS (text) notifications, a simple yet remarkably effective communication tool, have emerged as a crucial asset for businesses across various industries.

Take advantage of insights from 1 billion+ messages with our '2023 Guide to SMS and MMS'. Download your copy to learn from Telnyx experts and shape your ideal SMS/MMS strategy.

According to a recent study from G2, it's one of the fastest ways to reach customers—60% of respondents read a text within five minutes of receiving it. And it's versatile enough to support many use cases, from customer service and appointment reminders to two-factor verification.

This blog post will explain SMS notifications, explore their significance for your industry, and describe how Telnyx has empowered real businesses to build robust SMS notification systems.

What are SMS notifications, and how do they work?

SMS notifications are concise, targeted text messages dispatched to a device via the Short Message Service (SMS). They serve as a conduit for updates, alerts, reminders, and information relevant to the recipient. SMS notifications can be customized to meet many business objectives, from nudging customers about upcoming appointments to launching marketing blitzes.

Sending an SMS notification involves transmitting a text message from a sender's system to a recipient's device. This process is facilitated by an SMS gateway, which serves as a conduit between the sender and the recipient. The gateway communicates with the mobile network's Short Message Service Center (SMSC), which then delivers the message to the recipient's device.

Businesses can leverage an SMS API to automate the dispatch of SMS notifications, ensuring seamless communication. An SMS API is a software interface that allows developers to build code to send and receive SMS messages using an Application Programming Interface (API).

SMS notifications vs. other types of notifications

SMS notifications hold a distinct edge over other common forms of one-way communication like push and email notifications. Unlike push notifications, SMS notifications don't require the recipient to install a specific app to receive them. And compared to email notifications, SMS notifications boast a significantly higher open rate. They’re also typically read within minutes of receipt, whereas emails often get lost amid full inboxes.

Here are the top four reasons businesses choose SMS over other types of notifications:

1. Instant delivery: SMS notifications land on the recipient's device in real time, ensuring prompt communication.
2. High open rate: SMS messages have an impressive 98% open rate, which blows other direct marketing and communication channels out of the water.
3. Versatility: SMS notifications can be deployed for various purposes, from marketing campaigns to customer service.
4. Personalization: SMS notifications can be personalized to create a more engaging customer experience.

In short, SMS notifications are an essential component of effective communication strategies across industries and have the potential to foster stronger customer relationships, promote business growth, and streamline communications.

Why are SMS notifications important for businesses?

SMS notifications offer businesses a direct, immediate line of communication with customers. As such, it’s emerged as a powerful marketing, communication, and notification tool as businesses iterate on their strategies to meet customers’ ever-changing communication needs. By integrating SMS into their existing applications and workflows, businesses can leverage SMS notifications in various use cases, such as

Two-factor authentication (2FA)

Security is a top priority for any application. By integrating 2FA via SMS, businesses can add an extra layer of protection for their users, safeguarding their data and enhancing trust.

Order tracking

SMS notifications are essential for logistics and e-commerce businesses to provide real-time last-mile delivery updates. These types of notifications improve transparency and customer satisfaction and reduce the need for customer inquiries about package locations.

Targeted marketing

In today’s competitive business landscape, reaching customers with the right message at the right time can make all the difference. Businesses use SMS to send personalized marketing messages or exclusive offers directly to their customers, driving engagement and boosting sales.

Internal communications

Efficient internal communication is the backbone of a successful business. Whether it concerns important updates or sales lead alerts, using SMS ensures messages are received promptly and keeps everyone on the same page.

Customer support

In the age of instant gratification, customers expect real-time assistance. Companies offer SMS as a customer support option in contact centers, providing immediate help and improving customer satisfaction.

Account notifications

Transparency is key to a positive customer experience. Businesses are sending important account notifications or alerts about deliveries and orders via SMS, keeping customers informed every step of the way.

Appointment reminders

No-shows can significantly drain resources from businesses like healthcare providers or salons that work on an appointment basis. SMS appointment reminders can help reduce no-shows, improving operational efficiency.

As you can see, SMS notifications aren’t just a communication tool. They’re a versatile solution tailored to meet a wide range of business needs. Whether it's enhancing security, improving customer engagement, or streamlining internal communication, the potential of SMS notifications is vast and, unfortunately, underused by many.

Partner with Telnyx for SMS notifications

Telnyx is a next-gen communications platform that provides carrier-grade services on a global private IP network. We control our network end to end and own approximately 8 million numbers, which means that you get local numbers and high-quality, secure messaging. Telnyx makes your connections possible, and we pride ourselves on making traditionally-inaccessible connectivity infrastructure easily accessible via our APIs.

To facilitate your connections, Telnyx offers a developer-friendly billion-scale SMS API that empowers businesses to build a customer notifications system that works for their processes. Our API allows businesses to send and receive text messages globally, enabling you to reach a vast audience and scale your SMS marketing campaigns effectively.

The Telnyx SMS API triggers text message notifications to your customers based on the logic you've built into your application. You can send anything from appointment reminders to customer notices. With two-way SMS numbers, customers can respond by replying to your SMS, allowing you to manage the customer experience beyond mobile apps, push, or email notifications.

Many businesses have leveraged Telnyx's services to enhance their SMS campaigns. Here’s what they’ve built:

Talentify: Boosting candidate engagement and saving developer time

Talentify, a platform that aids organizations in advertising job openings across various channels, leverages the power of notifications to enhance candidate engagement and experience. They send 200,000 notifications daily to potential candidates. These notifications are instrumental in converting candidates who have initiated a job application. Talentify’s SMS notifications also generate increased engagement by presenting candidates with more job opportunities.

After switching to Telnyx, Talentify has gained better control over their SMS campaigns and saved an average of 10 hours per week of developer time. This efficiency has resulted in significant time savings on SMS administration, allowing their technical team to focus on generating results and avoiding potential delivery or performance issues.

FreedomPark: Elevating customer experience and simplifying processes

FreedomPark, a valet reservation service provider, has revolutionized its customer service experience by strategically using SMS notifications. The company primarily uses SMS to provide reservation instructions and gate information to its customers—a feature that has become a critical piece of communication. Transitioning to SMS notifications significantly enhanced FreedomPark’s customer experience, providing individuals with timely, essential information at their fingertips.

By integrating Telnyx's SMS API into their application, FreedomPark has streamlined communication into one Toll-Free number, further simplifying the reservation process for their customers. As a result, FreedomPark has positively impacted its customer service, and SMS notifications have become an integral part of its service offering.

Fetch: Enhancing delivery experience and reducing costs

Fetch Package aims to eliminate the chaos in package delivery, serving over 1,000 communities across the United States. Fetch uses the Telnyx SMS API to send programmatic notifications to end-users at critical points of the delivery process, enhancing flexibility and reducing confusion and stress. By communicating directly with package recipients, Fetch removes middlemen and improves the order tracking and receiving experience.

After switching to Telnyx, Fetch saw a 20% reduction in SMS costs without any decrease in deliverability or performance. As the company grows, it plans to use the Telnyx Messaging API to meet its increasing demand and integrate additional messaging capabilities into its tech stack.

What will you build with Telnyx SMS notifications?

Telnyx's API supports SMS, MMS, 10DLC, Toll-Free numbers, short code, and more. With Telnyx, real businesses have built robust SMS notification systems that save development time and improve efficiency. Whether you're a budding startup or an established enterprise, SMS notifications can help you forge meaningful connections with your customers and drive business growth.

But if you’re not convinced by our customers’ success stories, here are three other reasons to consider the Telnyx SMS API:

1. It’s scalable

Our Toll-Free verification via the SMS API enables you to build a scalable verification system that integrates seamlessly with your customer service numbers. This means you can scale up or down based on your business needs—without compromising on efficiency.

2. It’s developer-friendly

We understand the value of your developers' time. Our API is designed to be intuitive and easy to use, allowing your developers to build notifications for any situation quickly and save significant development time.

3. It’s flexible

With Telnyx, you gain granular control over your SMS campaigns. You can monitor the health of your numbers in real time and make adjustments as needed, ensuring optimal performance.

Contact a Telnyx expert today to learn how you can unlock the full potential of SMS notifications for your business.

Want more information on how to leverage SMS for business success? Check out these other resources:

• Build a customer notifications system
• Use our Developer Docs to send messages with the Telnyx SMS API
• Learn about SMS compliance