Business Telecoms: RCS Messaging to succeed SMS Messaging

Boasting open rates of 95%, SMS has been serving businesses well for years. It’s quick to send, easy to digest and very effective for getting your message to your customer.Since its creation it has been pretty much untouched in terms of developments, however now SMS is getting a huge upgrade in the form of rich content messaging, also known as RCS messaging.

To make SMS messaging more valuable and competitive with messaging apps, smartphone manufacturers and carriers are teaming up with the cell phone industry’s governing bodies to develop a modern take on texting — Rich Communication Services (RCS), which combines the best of Facebook Messenger, iMessage, and WhatsApp into one platform.

With RCS messaging businesses can send engaging content like images and carousels, call-to-action buttons, video and even take payment and integrate with other apps like Google maps and calendar, all from the same messaging app making it a key business telecoms function.

In 2018, Google announced it had been working with every major cell phone carrier in the world to adopt the RCS protocol. The result is Chat, a protocol based on RCS Universal Profile that will supersede SMS.

Chat is going to look a lot like iMessage and other messaging apps. It’s a more interactive protocol that allows you to start group chats, send video and audio messages, and send high-resolution images. You’ll also be able to receive read receipts and even see when someone is replying to your message in real time.