THINK SMS IS EASY?Seven Pitfalls to Avoid When Sending SMS Messages

All it takes is a quick glance at a millennial to know that SMS is huge. SMS, or text messaging, has become a vital part of nearly everyone’s daily life and now businesses of all types are realizing that SMS is an ideal way to directly connect with their customers. Companies are leveraging SMS for a variety of communications including verification messages, shipment or appointment alerts, and mass-marketing offers.

Before you sign-up for a generic SMS API service and start sending SMS messages, let’s get a few things straight:

Mobile instant messaging is growing at a rate of 37% per year and will represent some 35% of messaging traffic in

2016.1

Setting the Stage

1. SMS is not easy. The infrastructure was never intended to reliably manage the volume of SMS messages sent around the world.

2. There are different types of messages that have varying levels of urgency and importance. Accordingly, there are also different end-user tolerances for message delays and failures.

A TeleSign Guide

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It seems pretty simple. You integrate the API into your website or set-up a communication path in your marketing department and start sending. That’s the easy part, but it is one thing to send a SMS message, it is quite another to actually deliver it.

Generic SMS API services serve an important role in sending SMS messages to a mass audience (e.g., a marketing campaign) when

there is higher tolerance for message delays and even dropped messages. For important user-generated or security messages, companies have a much higher expectation for delivery, transparency and speed.

A quality practice is a prerequisite for any SMS messaging service that needs to deliver messages anywhere in the world within seconds of the request.

Authentication codes, important alerts, and other mission-critical messages require a higher level of diligence to ensure they get delivered, every time, and without latency.

This e-Guide will walk you through the seven pitfalls of deploying a generic SMS API service for mission-critical messages. For these messages, you need a specialized messaging service that includes the systems, processes,

and network connections to optimize delivery rates and minimize latency on a global scale.

All of the incremental services that bolster the API are necessary ingredients to mission-critical message delivery and why the most visible and recognized web properties trust TeleSign.

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Person-to-Person (P2P) Application-to-Person (A2P)

Both of these types of messages leverage an API call.

Attribute Marketing Mission-critical

Requested by Unsolicited User requested (opt-in)

Message type Special offers

Alerts, authentication, password resets

Optimal Delivery Rates

Desired Required

Message Latency

Tolerated Not tolerated

Website / App Integration

Minimal Premium placed on user experience

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This table delineates some of the differences between marketing vs. mission-critical messages

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IT SOUNDS EASY.You send an SMS, the other person receives it, and that’s that. The days of pretending that you didn’t get an SMS are as dated as blaming your spam filter on a misplaced email. Wrong. SMS is hard, delivery is not easy, and the path to the handset is complex.

Typically SMS messages go through multiple hops and multiple “middlemen” before reaching their final destination. These middlemen also known as SMS aggregators partner with mobile operators to offer wholesale SMS services at reduced rates.

Unfortunately, with each additional hop, the probability of failure increases. Generic API services often lack direct connections to mobile operators for any of their routes and rely exclusively on SMS aggregators to get the message from point A to point B.

Without these direct connections, there are more hops, and each hop creates an opportunity for failure and makes it more difficult to troubleshoot if there are delivery issues.

Mission-critical messaging services can provide tangible value since they have invested in the processes to optimize global delivery. They have deeper relationships with the telcos and mobile network operators (MNOs) to quickly course-correct when delivery issues inevitably happen.

For marketing messages, generic APIs may be perfectly sufficient. But, for organizations using SMS for two-factor authentication, password resets, shipment notifications, and other business process messaging, purpose-built APIs coupled with direct operator connections ensure that messages are delivered, not just sent.

PITFALL #1LACKING DIRECT CONNECTIONS ON A GLOBAL SCALE

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When a SMS is sent, it can either be routed directly to the MNO or traverse across multiple aggregators. Each additional aggregator means additional hops and additional points of failure.

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PITFALL #2UNDERESTIMATING THE OPERATIONAL IMPACT OF DEPLOYING A GENERIC API SERVICE

For companies relying on SMSfor user-initiated or authentication messaging, operational investments have to be made to ensure that messages are consistently and reliably delivered. These investments are usually not baked into most SMS API services, but come standard with most mission-critical messaging services. These investments take a variety of forms, but generally include the following processes:

Automated Failovers

A systems architecture is required to automatically switch over to alternative delivery routes to operators in real-time if performance degrades. Individual messages should be retried through one or more routes in response to failures, delays or other network conditions.

Global Carrier Monitoring

Mission-critical messaging requires dynamic monitoring of message delivery across global mobile operators. Ideally, the provider has direct access to these operators to escalate any performance issues and make necessary routing changes in real time. 

Custom Reporting & Alerting

Customers increasingly require 24x7 access to transaction history, billing activity, and traffic reporting. In addition, real-time alerting can notify customers when traffic patterns materially change from benchmark norms.

Dedicated SWAT teams

When there is a persistent issue with a specific route or carrier, a Message Assurance Team can isolate the problem, identify trends and course-correct — often before the operators themselves identify the problem.

Managing Short & Long Codes

The right blend of short codes and long codes will depend on the use case, the markets, the mobile operator, the volume of messages, and a variety of other variables.  Generic API services generally relegate this management to the customer while full service messaging solutions assume this complexity and oversight.

A final operational consideration is whether you want to allocate your scarce technical resources to managing message delivery. If you are going to staff message delivery operations with existing headcount, what is the operational cost? For many companies, that cost is just too high.

The decision to leverage

SMS for your company’s

important business

communications is more

complicated than just

coding to an API.

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SMS delivery is not guaranteed. In fact, various studies have shown that around 1% to 5% of messages are lost entirely, even during normal conditions, and others may not be delivered until long after their relevance has passed. Consequently, it’s vital to measure delivery rates, especially if those messages are mission-critical like two-factor authentication.

Most APIs allow you to process delivery receipts to determine the status of the message (i.e., delivered, failed, expired, etc.). But, some carriers don’t provide delivery confirmation, or provide them sporadically, and often there is an incremental charge for providing delivery receipts.

Moreover, published delivery rates are usually defined as delivered to gateway, which more or less means “Hey, we sent the message.” But, there’s a lot that can happen to a message when it’s en route. Adding insult to injury, there have been documented cases where providers published fake delivery reports that confirmed a message was delivered when, in fact, it never was.

In addition to end-user frustration, undelivered SMS messages are quite costly. Companies are charged for every SMS sent, even if some of those messages don’t get delivered. While individual SMS messages cost just pennies to send, companies,

who send large volumes of SMS messages on a daily basis, may end up paying tens of thousands of dollars for undelivered messages and never once get alerted.

Generic SMS API services are not in the business of providing this level of insight and visibility. For messages that positively, absolutely have to get to end users, finding a vendor that will partner with you to optimize true delivery rates is vital.

PITFALL #3TRUSTING DELIVERY REPORTS

In the world of phone-based authentication, companies should capture completion rates instead of relying on delivery receipts.

The completion rate is the number of successful authentications (where the user correctly inputted the one-time passcode) divided by the number of messages sent.

Since authentication messages include one-time passcodes that the end user has to enter into the website, companies can capture actual completion rates.

CompletionRate

Number of completedauthentications

Number of messages sent=

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PITFALL #4MIXING YOUR MISSION-CRITICAL MESSAGING WITH SOMEONE ELSE’S MARKETING MESSAGES

A number of emerging generic SMS API services mix their traffic, pumping critical messaging and mass-marketing messages through the same pipe. The problem is that it can stall or prevent the delivery of critical messages since every provider only has a finite amount of capacity available.

For example, when there is a massive SMS marketing campaign during the Super Bowl, the delivery pipe can clog and cause queuing of security messages, important alerts, and other user-generated messages.

The other big problem with mixed traffic is that operators may shut down certain routes if they suspect spam. Countries have

different regulations that complicate deliverability.

India, for example, has a pervasive Do Not Call list for SMS messages. In the US, the Telephone Consumer Protection Act and the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act ban many SMS messages. Often, security and authentication messages get lost or delayed

if they are commingled in routes with mass-marketing messages. Unfortunately, most customers have little recourse when this happens.

Within some markets, like India, marketing messages can only be sent during specified time periods (e.g., between 9:00am to 9:00pm), while mission-critical messages can be sent anytime. But, to have your messages classified as “mission-critical,” your SMS traffic must be vetted and deemed allowable. Companies risk hefty fines if they send marketing messages outside of these designated windows. In fact, some operators will require their clients to sign liability waivers attesting to the type of traffic being sent.

Security messaging requires the highest level of on-time deliverability because of what’s at stake – your brand, your customers’ identities, and even your downstream revenues. Businesses need a SMS platform that does not commingle mission-critical messages with “Get Rich Quick” or “Look Younger Now” marketing messages.

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PITFALL #5FORGETTING TO CONSIDER THE END-USER EXPERIENCE

The end-user experience is exceedingly important and often overlooked by generic SMS API services. When adding messaging to your service, make sure to consider:

Localization: It is a far better and a more personal experience if you can deliver SMS messages in the user’s native languages and dialects. It is not a trivial exercise to create and maintain translations of the 80+ languages and dialects of the world.

Message Encoding: Just because you have translated your SMS, does not mean it will arrive in the desired character set. Double-byte characters need to be encoded to arrive in the proper format. Unicode has become a universal standard for message encoding, but it still needs to be translated into a protocol that handsets understand. In Europe, that protocol is GSM, in Japan that is Shift-JIS, and most other languages are covered by UTF-8 and UCS-2.

Long SMS Support: A SMS message maxes out at 160 characters, and for languages such as Chinese, the maximum SMS size is as low as 70 characters. What happens if your message is over the max amount? ‣ Truncation: Many providers will

simply send the first 160 characters and drop the rest of the message.  Unfortunately, this frequently means that critical security codes or key information is left out of the SMS.  

‣ Simple message splitting: Some providers will split the message and send it in multipleparts.  Customers receive

all the content, but critical information may be split into separate messages.  This forces the user to cut and paste pieces of an email or URL back together on their mobile device.

‣ Messages Out of Order: When messages are split they are sent as separate message packets and can be reassembled in the wrong order. Some times, parts of the message go missing or get delayed.

The best way to avoid these issues is to use a provider that offers smart message splitting and long message support (i.e., splitting, sending and reassembling messages over 160 characters).

Instead of dropping characters over 160, long SMS support splits an SMS message and sends it to the user’s handset with the instruction to reassemble the message in order as one SMS. In the event that a handset or operator is unable to reassemble an SMS as one message, smart message splitting separates a long SMS without breaking critical pieces of information, such as URLs and email addresses. The end user will receive multiple SMS messages, but important information will remain intact.

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User Experience/Interface: For two-factor authentication and many other enterprise use cases, you need the entire experience to integrate seamlessly into your website and provide straightforward instructions how the verification process works. A full-service messaging service can provide UX/UI best practices that, when implemented, minimize friction and end-user frustration.

End-user Adoption: Companies deploying two-factor authentication need to develop a compelling messaging strategy to educate their end users about the process. When users understand that these extra precautions are in place to protect their accounts, transactions and identities, your brand can be enhanced.

Offering a Voice Option: Offering voice calls as a complement to SMS isn’t just about offering your users a choice, it’s fast becoming a business requirement. In certain countries, SMS is not as reliable as voice and a voice call may be the only way to reach most users in these markets.

Transaction Workflows: Since authentication and other mission-critical messaging projects often touch other departments, it’s a best practice to diagram how these departments and resources will be impacted by the implementation. This is where a dedicated Client Services team can pay big dividends by creating integration workflows for successful internal rollouts.

Generic SMS API solution companies are not in the business of providing best practices around the user experience. For mission-critical or user-generated messaging thinking through the user experience will reap tangible benefits in terms of brand reputation, increased registrations and customer retention.

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53% of mobile phone users surveyed preferred receiving a voice call to an SMS. Some users may not know how to use SMS, may not own anSMS-enabled phone, or do not have messaging plans and are charged on a per message basis.2

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Although API integration is usually pretty straightforward, support is key when troubleshooting delivery issues. Support costs from generic API services are often overlooked and more expensive than anticipated. These API services often include free email support during business hours, but charge as much as $5,000 per month for live 24/7 support.

An online knowledge base or access to log files is one thing, but when you are experiencing delivery issues, you need proactive guidance from a support agent who is well versed in the nuances of global SMS delivery. It’s one thing to be transparent about outages, quite another to provide proactive guidance about how your problem is being resolved.

PITFALL #6THINKING YOU CAN GET BY WITHOUT SUPPORT

Do they charge on a monthly or per-incident basis?

Do they offer 24x7 support at no additional cost?

Do they offer integration (on-boarding) support?

Do they offer proactive alerting or access to a client portal?

Do they offer SLAs and Service Level Objectives (uptime, technical support response times)?

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5 Questions About Support You Should Ask Your Generic API Provider

1

2

3

4

5

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Phone-Number Cleansing: When users enter their phone number in a form, they are not always properly formatted for delivery in international markets. Phone numbers often have to be “cleansed” by adding or removing leading digits in the phone number based on the country, city, and message type (SMS vs. voice):

Phone number cleansing can improve SMS deliverability by more than 10% in most markets. It takes some telco expertise, including a working knowledge of the ever-changing international policies and dialing codes, to dynamically auto-correct phone numbers.

SMS-Enabled Phones: If you are sending SMS messages to a landline or a non-SMS-enabled phone, the SMS will simply not get there. Knowing this can improve deliverability, reduce the number of message retries, and improve the overall user experience.

Porting and Other Roadblocks: It can be hard to correctly route an SMS to a user who has ported their number from one operator to another. Not all SMS providers can send messages to ported numbers or to VoIP phones (e.g. Google Voice or Pinger phone numbers).

Phone number attributes play an important role in establishing a user’s online identity and mitigating online fraud. These attributes are increasingly being used by leading web properties as part of a risk-based authentication approach to identify high-risk phone numbers. Unfortunately, most generic API services don’t provide any data about the phone type or cleanse the phone number, which can collectively have a big impact on deliverability and user experience.

Having some intelligence about the phone number — even just the phone type —can dramatically improve deliverability.

PITFALL #7NOT KNOWING ANYTHING ABOUT THE PHONE NUMBER YOU’RE REACHING

Phone Number Cleansed Number

Notes

0 44 0 330 808 0081 44 330 808 0081 Remove leading zero

44 44 330 808 0081 44 330 808 0081 Remove double country code

54 1151591111 54 91151591111 Append a 9 to the beginning of phone numbers for voice calls to mobile numbers in Argentina.

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PITFALL 1: LACKING DIRECT CONNECTIONS ON A GLOBAL SCALE

Do you have direct connections for my desired routes?

Are you a Mobile Network Operator?

If there is message queuing or dropped messages how do you troubleshoot the issue?

PITFALL 2: UNDERESTIMATING THE OPERATIONAL IMPACT OF DEPLOYING A GENERIC API SERVICE?

Do you have multiple failovers to other carriers if there are performance issues?

Do you dynamically monitor mobile operators in real time?

Do you manage short and long codes, or do I need to manage that globally?

Do you have experienced messaging professional to manage the ongoing complexity and oversight for mission-critical messaging?

PITFALL 3: TRUSTING DELIVERY REPORTS

Do you rely exclusively on delivery reports to measure performance?

Can you help me track completion rates for my authentication messages?

PITFALL 4: MIXING YOUR MISSION-CRITICAL MESSAGING WITH SOMEONE ELSE’S MARKETING MESSAGES

Do you leverage your messaging pipe for sending mass-marketing campaigns?

Does your service commingle marketing and mission-critical message types?

How  do  you  manage  messaging  in  countries  with  “Do  Not  Call”  laws?

Are  your  short-­‐codes  whitelisted  in  countries  (e.g.,  India)  that  restrict  markeBng  messages?

PITFALL 5: FORGETTING TO CONSIDER THE END-USER EXPERIENCE

Do  you  localize  and  encode  SMS  messages  in  the  languages  of  your  users?

Can  you  provide  best  pracBces  for  website  integraBon  for  authenBcaBon  and  verificaBon  messaging?

Do  you  offer  a  voice  opBon  for  message  delivery?

Can  you  provide  any  guidance  on  how  to  improve  end-­‐user  adopBon  for  authenBcaBon?

How  do  you  handle  SMS  messages  that  are  longer  than  160  characters  in  length?  

KEY QUESTIONSTO ASK YOUR SMS PROVIDER

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Key Questions to Ask Your SMS Provider

PITFALL 6: THINKING YOU CAN GET BY WITHOUT SUPPORT

Do  you  offer  free  24x7  live  support?

Is  your  support  staff  well  versed  in  SMS  and  troubleshooBng?

Do  you  offer  integraBon  or  on-­‐boarding  support?

Do  you  offer  a  customer  portal  or  proacBve  alerBng?

Do  you  offer  SLAs  or  Service  Level  ObjecBves?

PITFALL 7: NOT KNOWING ANYTHING ABOUT THE PHONE NUMBER YOU’RE REACHING

Do  you  “cleanse”  phone  numbers  to  auto-­‐correct  improperly  formaVed  phone  numbers?

Can  you  detect  whether  the  SMS  is  being  sent  to  a  landline  phone?

Can  you  send  SMS  messages  to  ported  or  VoIP  phones?

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Deploying a generic API-based solution is never just a “set it and forget it” proposition. The complexity of global mobile communications requires both real-time monitoring and troubleshooting for critical SMS messaging. This requires dedicated operational resources, carrier connections, and organizational focus to address delivery problems when they occur. And they will occur.

If you don’t have a surplus of skilled telecom professionals, you may need to revisit this decision to go it alone with a generic API service without the supporting monitoring and data services.

TeleSign addresses these pitfalls head-on with a commitment to:

‣ Providing crucial services, built around the messaging API, to optimize global message delivery

‣ Reducing the points of failure by eliminating the number of message hops due to our direct carrier connections

‣ Isolating and troubleshooting delivery issues rather than relying solely on delivery receipts at face value

‣ Sending ONLY mission-critical messaging and not commingling traffic with low-quality, high-volume marketing messages

‣ Focusing on the customer experience with intuitive website and app integration services, localized messaging and encoding, and multiple messaging modes (SMS and voice)

‣ Supporting customers and developers, 24x7x365, at no additional expense with experienced messaging professionals

‣ Providing mobile data associated with a phone number (e.g., the phone type) and phone number cleansing services to boost deliverability

Closing Thoughts

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At TeleSign, we’re experts at

authentication, and to do that we had

to become experts in global

messaging. While there’s a messaging

API at the heart of our services,

TeleSign layers on additional services

and processes to ensure reliable and

timely messaging on a global level.

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Every second, of every day, TeleSign protects the world's largest Internet and Cloud properties against fraud. TeleSign's security and authentication products provide an easy-to-implement and powerful method for identifying and substantially reducing online fraud and spam. The company protects 2.5 billion downstream accounts in more than 200 countries and territories, offering localization services in 87 languages and dialects. In 2012, TeleSign ranked #23 on the Deloitte Technology Fast 500™ and was named Visionary in Gartner's User Authentication Magic Quadrant. TeleSign is a Summit Partners backed company.

For more information about TeleSign, visit www.telesign.com.

About TeleSign

Sources:1 Informa Telecoms & Media, Despite incursions from OTT providers of IM services, SMS retains dominance in messaging revenues and traffic through 2016 (April 2012)2 Pew Internet and American Life Project on Americans and Text Messaging (September 2011)

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