Airlines can give better customer relation experience without a lot of investment

We have been trying to brainstorm different solutions in this blog which come from day-to-day experiences that we go through. We think that there is some gap that can be bridged using the communication technology. This one is from very recent experience from my international travel. This is so recent that I am actually writting this from 30000 feet above the ground and the trip is not yet finished.

The trip started with 9 hours flight delay. Some of the passengers had to go through the process of re-tagging their bags and I was one of those (lucky!!) people. It was a nightmare as a customer represenatative didn’t know the exact status of my bags. Just before my plane left I got my new tags delivered at my seat till then I was not sure the status of my luggage. Why can’t airlines use newer communication technologies to keep passengers updated in these kind of circumstances? I think ROI in these kind of solutions is very stratight forward. These solutions alone don’t go in thousands of dollars. I spent almost 35-40 minutes with the supervisor who could not really tell me what exactly the status of the bags was, let alone the image of the airlines and customer satisfaction. These kind of issues where customers need more information on a particular situation happens everyday. Airlines can really make the whole workflow trasparent to the passengers by sending them relevant information using either TEXT or Voice alerts. It would have been really good if I knew what exactly was going on to reduce some nail biting moments in the trip.

(Note: The actual entry got posted a few weeks after it was written.)

Role of TEXTing in tomorrow’s Healthcare

Reducing cost and improving quality of healthcare is one of the main concerns in today’s world. There are a lot of think tanks around the world working on this topic. One of the initiatives has started by Boston based non-profit organization mHealth Initiative, Inc. The organization is working on an approach called “participatory health”. In this approach all the stakeholders of the health system; providers, patients, payers, consumers, pharmacies, labs etc. need to have active participation in the system and the goal of this approach is to make people healthy.

To make this approach successful the organization is emphasizing on improved and simplified communications within stakeholders. The plan also talks about new communication-based disease management programs that would drastically reduce emergency and office visits, cutting healthcare costs in the process.

In this approach, TEXT messaging has a big role to play. Patients can take appointments using TEXT messages. Providers can send appointment and medication reminders to patients. Patients even can ask general enquiries, administrative or even non-healthcare related questions. Healthcare facilities can send Health promotions. Patients can reschedule appointments or ask for prescription refills.

All of this functionality is easily achievable but integrating this in existing systems to make it seamless is really a key here. Products like Hummingbytes communication APIs can come handy to deliver these solutions. The product delivers bi-directional communication and designed with open protocol.

Businesses need to interact with their consumers using TEXTing

The time has come that every business, no matter whether it is small or big, needs to have mobile presence. Starting of this century it was a web presence that everybody was going for, now it needs to extend to mobile presence. The “Third Screen” is becoming a part of the life in many countries and in many countries that is the “Only screen” people have. Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter, recently said, “There are over one billion people with Internet access on the planet but there are more than four billion people with mobile phones and Twitter can work on all of them because even the simplest of these devices feature SMS.” This statement is an eye opener statement!

TEXTing can be used to accept questions and concerns about the products, services. It can be used in Customer Service applications. It can really be used to create one-on-one dialog between you and your customer.
 
TEXTing is still a relatively uncluttered and spam-free channel. I think governing bodies have also learnt from “e-mail spamming” experience to keep this medium relatively clean. It is individual business’ and applications provider’s responsibility to keep it clean as well; and give more value to the end-users. If all of us can keep this moral responsibility in mind and use this medium, then I think we have a win-win situation here.

Hummingbytes has a suite of hosted products to take advantage of this. Businesses can use SMS based customer service module to answer end-users questions and concerns. They can use alerting module to keep customers updated. They can also use Hummingbytes communication cloud to integrate the communication in their own business processes. Most importantly the whole suite is based on Short code and adheres to anti-spam guidelines.

Not many of us are aware that these applications can really be very cost-effective. These applications can also have very high ROI. The solutions need to be a part of business’ overall strategy and most importantly should be designed methodically.

Mumbai terrorist attack

Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims of Mumbai attack. This was one of the most heinous crimes against humanity and once again told us that we are living in totally different world now.
A lot of people became hostages of terrorists but a lot of people escaped from the situation. Three World Bank officials were told to stay in their rooms. They kept on hearing firing without knowing what was going on outside. CEO of Equus Advertising had stepped out of the hotel and was on his way back to the hotel when he got a message from employees of the Taj that there was a law and order problem and he should not go back to the hotel. There are numerous stories like these; some of them ended in tragic deaths and in some of them it was a close shave situation. I was wondering what if the hotel had some kind of mechanism with which on a click of a button all the people staying in the hotel and employees got a SMS or voice message to inform about the situation. Probably the patrons and employees would have got better idea about the situation.

In the US, after Virginia Tech tragedy a lot of US universities are deploying SMS Based Emergency Alert System that uses text messaging to alert students, faculty, and staff when needed at the push of a button. I think similar Emergency Alerting System needs to be in place for Hotels, Banks and other organizations to keep their patrons, employees informed about the situations.

Hummingbytes Interactive Information Gateway (IIG) is designed to provide solutions like this. IIG’s SMS or Voice gateway can be used to design this system. The implementation of this kind of system is very easy with IIG. Letting businesses connect to the consumers is one of the main features of the product.
Here you can learn more about the system.

I don’t want time sensitive information going in my e-mail junk folder, do you?

The other day I came to know that the information I was waiting for almost three weeks did never made it to my Inbox. When I called the person who was going to send the information, I came to know that the information might have gone in my junk folder as it had come from common e-mail ID. Grrr….

With so many spam e-mails coming to our inbox, sometimes information can get lost with unwanted data. I think a piece information which is time sensitive and very important, is a perfect candidate to get to mobile SMS inbox.

People can argue with me that, it might make our SMS inbox filled with junk. But fortunately there are some standards and regulations around mobile spamming. The regulation is called CAN-SPAM Act of 2003. This law shields consumers from unwanted mobile phone spam as well as E-mail spamming. But this law is more meticulously followed by SMS gateway providers than e-mail providers. Providers cannot send SMSs to consumers unless they specifically opt-in for the particular information. Also after every SMS it is mandatory to give consumers an option to quit the service.

Hummingbytes provides SMS soft solution for enterprises. The solution comes in different flavors (APIs, Webservices and components) and designed for rapid development. Enterprises can make use of these services and send valuable information to their customers. The solution is based on Shortcode and also can be used bi-directionally. This can be a very good way to be in touch with customers and make sure they are not the one like the way I was when I lost the information in my e-mail junk folder.