A recent survey by the Mobile Data Association highlighted the continued growth of SMS – up 23% year on year.  The growth of Business SMS – sending and receiving of SMS messages via PCs – reflects this trend as does the consequent increase in the number of SMS providers.

So how do potential or existing Business SMS users differentiate between different suppliers?

Many start with price.  And this should be relatively transparent.  We’ve always published clear SMS pricing and have set out our pricing principals before.

Like many SMS providers we also offer a free trial of both our office products such as Web SMS and Email SMS and our SMS API so that you can get to grips with the functionality that we offer.

But how do you gauge the level of service and support that you will get with each supplier and their strength in depth, particularly when half a dozen providers are claiming to be the “UK’s leading provider” of Business SMS services.

A company’s reputation is often a good starting point: dig down a few pages on a Google search, or even a Twitter search: what are other people saying about them, are they hiring, are many others using them?

For those looking at Premium Rate SMS services, PhonePayPlus’ adjudication database can also be “illuminating” too!

Thereafter a certain amount will come down to “gut feel”:

• Does the SMS provider have the financial strength to offer you account terms?
• Is it always the same person answering the phone, indeed do they answer the phone!?
• And do their claims seem unrealistic: if a provider claims global reach or to be the biggest provider in the market, how does this stack up with whatever others say about them?

As a business we’ve defined one of core values as Integrity. We’ve always been careful not to make claims that we can’t back up. At the risk of sounding pompous we’ll continue down this path but we urge potential purchasers to dig deep when looking at different suppliers.

If you’ve got any questions about what we offer or who we are, please get in touch.  We’d welcome the opportunity to meet with you here in Nottingham.

The Mobile Data Association has today released its 2009 mobile messaging review and the figures show continued strong growth in SMS and MMS messaging. 265 million text messages were sent on average each day throughout 2009, whilst MMS (picture messaging) volumes reached a total of 600 million by the end of the year.  Annual SMS messaging volumes have increased by a staggering 23% from 2008 to 2009.

Despite regular stories commenting on the possible demise of SMS messaging, both its simplicity and ubiquitous nature, continues to win through with consumers and businesses alike.

This is certainly our experience at Esendex. SMS messaging has been mainstream for years now, but despite this, new businesses start to use SMS for the first time every-day, and once they do, they often increase their SMS volumes, add 2-way SMS messaging or start to communicate with different groups as they look for applications of SMS across new areas of the business.

We were amazed with the number of schools and colleges that contacted us during the recent bad weather wanting to use SMS for the first time to communicate with parents and staff. But we shouldn’t have been. We have been established in the market for 9 years now and it may feel like SMS is a well established business communication technology to us, but for many organisations, they are only just starting to realise the benefits.

The full press release from the MDA can be read here.

The recent spell of bad weather has proven to many organisations and schools that SMS messaging is a vital communication method for keeping people informed.

We’ve seen a huge increase in our SMS customer traffic this week, as our clients keep all those connected to them updated with emergency SMS messages. Travel updates, school closures and works opening hours are currently flying through our dedicated SMS messaging servers.

Our customers report that SMS is the best option for communicating emergency situations, as most contacts have immediate access to a mobile phone (those who don’t can receive a voice message to their landlines instead) and the vast majority of SMS messages are read straight away.

If your Business or School needs to urgently text emergency or business critical communications, we can offer you a straight forward Web SMS solution to get your emergency SMS out straight away.

Get a free trial today or call us on 0845 356 5758 and we can set you up with an account straight away.

Ref. nasa.gov – UK Satellite image taken 07/01/2010

This was a time-lapse video we captured in our Nottingham office on the day of the Christmas Party on Wednesday. No this wasn’t a case of “big brother is watching you” although yes it was good to see some early starters in the office! Shame we didn’t capture the ice skating that took place later on at the Nottingham Market Square Ice Rink  – another time perhaps……

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