Chances are you’ve checked your smartphone at least once in the last 20 minutes. Everyday, people use their mobile phones for just about everything — from responding to that timely business email to more personal matters like finding the nearest open restaurant or exchanging messages with friends and family. And, as adoption of new channels increases, mobile messaging solutions are becoming more essential to a business’ overall marketing strategy.

Now more than ever, companies need to engage with their audiences through the channels their customers prefer, promoting their products and services via a more personalized, fast and reciprocal communication channel.

To continue supporting our customers in their engagement strategies, the Genesys CloudTM solution features SMS Outbound Campaigns.

SMS Outbound Campaigns Explained

An SMS outbound campaign is a text message sent to a large audience that’s mainly used for notifications and to promote sales and discount offers. With a remarkable open rate (98%, according to Gartner), it boasts an easy deployment process and has massive outreach.

How to Set Up a Genesys Cloud SMS Outbound Campaign

Getting your SMS Outbound Campaign going is simple. To get started you’ll need:

  • A Genesys Cloud 3 (GC3) license
  • Short codes for US, UK and Canada
  • International long codes for non-North American countries*
  • Full contact lists uploaded through a CSV format file or added through API
  • A message body to include in a column on each contact record

Feature Overview

The SMS Outbound Campaign feature allows customers to send a large volume of messages in a short time frame, with no tied agents. In other words, these are “agentless campaigns.” They can be used for mass notifications of all kinds, including school closures, utility outages, emergency notifications and special discount offers.

The feature also handles incoming communication; customers using short codes can set up inbound workflows through Architect to handle responses either with an agent or through automation, including bots.

Keep in mind the following parameters.

  • Short codes for US, UK and Canada: These are five- or six-digit numbers that the customer purchased through Genesys and used to send a high volume of messages (A2P). Because there’s no carrier filtering, these short codes have a wider bandwidth and can send up to 100 messages per second.
  • International long codes, except for US and Canada*: These are 10 digit-number that customers purchase through Genesys and use to send the text message. Even though these long codes are subject to carrier filtering due to volume and message content, some international markets allow more bandwidth with long digit-numbers — up to 10 messages per second. They are less expensive than short codes and are available immediately from the SMS Number Inventory UI.
  • Full contact lists: These are the phone numbers to which you would address the text message. Customers can use internal lists created and uploaded by them as a CSV format file, or external lists from one of our integrated partners. They can also include “Do Not Call (DNC)” lists, which enable customers to prevent sending messages based on pre-configured business rules. Callable timesets or Automatic Time Zone Mapping to send messages based on the customer’s area code and zip code are also available.
  • UI updates: Currently, customers can configure the pacing of their messages per minute and they can choose SMS as the type of messaging campaign selected and specify the message column that would contain the text body to send the SMS.

Another recently released feature is Inbound MMS support for SMS messages, which enables agents to receive .jpg, .png and .gif media from inbound customer interactions right in their user interface. US and Canadian standard, long 10-digit numbers are supported in this first phase;  easy-to-remember five- to six-digit short numbers are coming soon.

Skip the wait times and hold music — connect with customers the way they want. With inbound and outbound SMS and messaging apps, your contact center can create two-way conversations that don’t have to end. Discover why messaging is the fastest growing and most widely used form of interpersonal communication.

*Coming soon