How to legally use SMS to contact your customers?
SMS are timeless, effective and inexpensive marketing tools that allow you to quickly reach your customers. Moreover, more and more companies are investing in texting-based campaigns to communicate with their customers. However, the use of this method is subject to several regulations, in particular on consent and data protection. Let’s do a check in.
Collection of the customer’s telephone number and consent of the latter
You must first obtain the phone number of your customers before you can contact them by SMS. This can be done in different ways:
- Information form when subscribing to your service;
- Recording of data provided during an order, a delivery or a trade show.
Nevertheless, this data that you have in hand remains unusable for commercial purposes without the agreement of your customers. You must therefore obtain their consent. This can be done by means of checkboxes (unchecked by default), before the validation of their order and their subscription, authorizing you to contact them by SMS.
Transparency being essential, it is also essential to mention if you plan to share the information collected with third-party companies. In addition, the customer must be able to change his mind at any time and therefore decide to no longer receive your messages.
Data protection
A phone number is personal and sensitive data that malicious individuals can use for harmful purposes such as harassment or blackmail. You must therefore use advanced security protocols to guarantee the protection and confidentiality of this data which has been communicated to you. The best way to achieve this is to entrust the design and development of your website as well as the management of your SMS campaign to an experienced and qualified service provider.
The advantages of contacting your customers by SMS
Here are the main benefits of using SMS to contact your customers:
- Speed: Statistics show that over 95% of text messages are read within one minute of receipt.
- Accessibility: SMS messages reach their recipient even without an internet connection.
- Saving time: it is possible to send an SMS to several recipients scattered all over the world at the same time.
- Low cost: The cost of an SMS campaign is usually low compared to phone calls.
- Efficiency: Customers receive all the information they need in the SMS, avoiding rejected calls for example.
Conclusion
Investing in an SMS campaign to communicate with your customers is an interesting option to inform them about your offers and services, to invite them to visit your website or your premises, to contact them in case of emergency and to create proximity. At Appwapp, we support you in the development and implementation of your SMS project in compliance with the regulations and standards that govern this type of campaign. For this, we provide you with experienced, creative and serious professionals. We invite you to contact us for additional information about our services.
