Imagine you own "ModaExpress," a clothing store chain looking to innovate its marketing strategy. To enhance your outreach, you decide to go beyond SMS and explore RCS (Rich Communication Services) to send visual content, videos, and interactive buttons, enabling customers to book appointments or make purchases directly from their smartphones.
The results are remarkable: the open rate reaches 85%, and conversions significantly increase. Customers enjoy the interactive experience, leading you to recognize RCS as a powerful tool for connecting with your audience and enhancing your business.
While this story is fictional, it could easily be a real case. Since Apple announced its adoption of the RCS standard, this protocol has gained substantial momentum. Although it was already available natively on Android devices, Apple's decision will optimize interoperability and broaden its potential reach.
According to Juniper Research, Apple’s entry into the market, with support for iOS devices, is projected to increase the number of active users by 900 million over the next two years, reaching 2.1 billion globally.
RCS brings superior dynamism to corporate marketing campaigns by facilitating the sending of video or audio messages, maps, and GIFs. It also enables read receipts and leverages other advanced multimedia features. Additionally, it enhances security with end-to-end encryption and verified sender information, establishing itself as a superior alternative to SMS, particularly for customer interaction and achieving better conversion rates.
This approach also enhances brand visibility by allowing messages to be sent from a branded company profile and incorporating colors, logos, and images, which boosts trust in this form of messaging.
By offering two-way communication options, RCS enables customers to schedule appointments, make reservations, and more. Features like carousels allow for showcasing multiple products or services in a swipeable format, while interactive buttons enhance calls to action. Integrated payment options further improve conversion rates.
Simultaneously, this protocol allows for greater personalization of messages and recommendations, providing more data on delivery, open rates, clicks, interactions, conversion rates, and other key metrics to refine campaigns.
Additionally, RCS messaging enhances the customer feedback process by making it more interactive, with messages that can include quick surveys or forms.
Concrete examples
The fast-food brand Subway implemented RCS to improve customer interaction and boost sales. The chain conducted A/B testing in various U.S. cities, comparing the performance of SMS and RCS messages. As a result, conversion rates were 140% higher with RCS compared to SMS for a specific promotion, and another offer saw a 51% increase. Consequently, Subway plans to expand its use of RCS due to its success in enhancing customer engagement and campaign effectiveness.
Another example is the UK charity Cymba, which utilized RCS to improve communication with donors and supporters. The implementation resulted in a 50% increase in response rates compared to SMS, demonstrating how RCS can effectively enhance engagement in the nonprofit sector.
Virgin Mobile (now Virgin Media O2) also leveraged RCS for a conversational marketing campaign aimed at increasing engagement and customer lifetime value. The results included a 93% delivery rate and a 60% viewing rate, indicating high communication effectiveness and customer interest.
Clearly, the possibilities are extensive. For example, retail companies could use this channel to send promotional messages featuring images, videos, and clickable calls to action. They could also develop loyalty programs with interactive updates and provide real-time customer service with chatbots for quick inquiries, as well as access to agents for more complex issues. Additionally, RCS could be utilized to create interactive catalogs and dynamic brochures, send messages for abandoned cart recovery, and provide order status updates, among other functions.
Technology companies could send RCS messages with interactive tutorials, video demonstrations, and helpful tips about their software solutions, as well as responses to frequently asked questions.
At Plusmo, we are committed to enhancing this type of enriched mobile business messaging. We offer the option to reach customers with vibrant and interactive multimedia content, tailoring proposals to meet the unique needs of each company.
