A few months ago we conducted customer research asking if a ‘concatenated text message’ or ‘long message’ (the ability to send bulk text messages containing more that 160 characters but arriving as one message) feature would be useful in our Bulk SMS Software. Around 50% of customers said they would use this feature.
This is quite a major technical update to the system but as so many customers responded positively, our technical team has been busy making all the necessary changes for both web based Text Marketer accounts and the SMS Gateway.
We estimate this significant enhancement should be available in all customer systems within a week but we thought we would release a sneak preview of what you can expect to see very soon.
How will this affect you? FAQ’s
Q. Do I have to use this feature?
A. Although your system will be able to send concatenated messages, you can still simply send messages up to and including 160 characters for 1 credit.
Q. I use the SMS Gateway, can I use text message concatenation?
A. Absolutely, this feature is already enabled on the SMS Gateway. Contact us for more details.
Q. How will it affect my delivery reports?
A. If you don’t send concatenated message then there’s no change. If you do, for the first 24 hours or so after the campaign, you will see multiple delivery receipts for each ‘section’ of the message per recipient. E.g. if you send a 640 character message, then you will receive 4 delivery receipts for each number sent to. From the network’s point of view you have sent 4 messages to that number (although the recipient receives it as one message). After 24 hours or so your reports will automatically be ‘cleaned’ so that you just have 1 response per number sent to, as usual.
Do I need to do anything?
No. As soon as this enhancement is available it will automatically appear in your send screens.