Bulk text messaging can resolve some of SA’s big issues
It is heartening to see organisations making use of the multiple advantages offered by mobile marketing and bulk SMS messaging to offer added value customer service and run large scale marketing campaigns. There are two initiatives in particular that aim at resolving major issues in South Africa. Firstly, the frustration of citizens at the shoddy service delivered by Home Affairs Departments across the country and the second initiative deals with South Africa’s most pressing crisis, the HIV/AIDS infection rate.
Bulk SMS messaging is an affordable, reliable and almost instant medium of communication. It is affordable and significantly cheaper than telephone calls. One of the overriding advantages is that it is discreet and secure; SMS gateway providers can offer encryption options and security levels on bulk text messaging solutions.
Launched in 2007, the Home Affairs ID Track and Trace system enables South Africans to track delivery of their official documents. If everybody used it, it would cut out those interminably long hours spent waiting for someone, anyone, at Home Affairs to answer the phone. This is an under-utilised service in South Africa, perhaps because most people seem to be unaware of it. To query the status of applications for ID books, simply send a text message to 32551 and include the words ID and the 13-digit ID number in the body of the text. A reply SMS will contain the details you need to know – your ID book is waiting for collection, it is still in the process or they have no record of your application.
Using this type of bulk SMS messaging plus two-way SMS capability allows the Department to significantly reduce the amount of time spent by staff on answering calls and hopefully shortens the exasperating queues that seem to be in existence no matter how early you get there in the morning. Given that close to 40 million South Africans have access to cellphones, more than those that have Internet access, this bulk text message medium is a brilliant, innovative way for government to deliver service to their consumers, South African citizens.
Another creative bulk text messaging project that proves the effective nature of SMS is Project Masiluleke HIV/AIDS awareness campaign. They use bulk SMS to provide public health information around the HIV/AIDS crisis in South Africa. Launched in 2008 and run over a six week period, the project managers utilised the fact that over 30 million Please Call Me (PCM) messages are sent a day. The network providers, in a bid to make money from these ‘free’ text messages sell advertising along with the PCM message. Involving network operators in the HIV/AIDS education drive, Project Masiluleke persuaded them to run HIV/AIDS awareness messages and contact numbers for queries and help.
Some 20 million PCM messages went out with the HIV/AIDS hotline information number and calls to the national hotline in Johannesburg jumped 350%. That is a massive response to a form of direct marketing that is extremely cost-effective. Bulk SMS, as demonstrated by the National Health Service in the UK, is a great tool for disseminating health information. It is immediate, discreet and can easily be passed via text message to others. Project Masiluleke looks to relaunch this programme full time from the beginning of 2009 and to reach at least 1 million people a day for a year. A further service that they would like to offer is TxtAlerts – notifications and reminders around taking medicine and scheduled visits to the doctor. Taking this further, they hope to launch ‘virtual call centres’ staffed by HIV+ staff who will be able to answer questions via SMS text message. Anthony Darcy, the Project Coordinator at Nokia Siemens Networks said that, “Project Masiluleke demonstrates the power that mobile technology has to address some of the big issues facing the world today.”
Bulk SMS messaging solutions can be adapted for a wide variety of purposes by large and small organisation. Creativity and innovative use of the medium is the key to successful campaigns.
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Tags: 2 way SMS, bulk SMS, bulk SMS messaging, bulk text messaging, Clickatell South Africa, mobile marketing, mobile technology, SMS, SMS gateway providers, SMS messaging, two-way SMS
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