OpenMarket Adds Texting for Landlines and Toll-Free Numbers for Enterprises

New service helps US and Canadian businesses use mobile messaging to improve customer service

Here is some non-news… Millennials don’t like to talk. In-fact, you can almost make the argument that no one likes to talk – on the phone anyway because since most of us communicate with one or more millennials, we’ve all been trained to text more than usual. What’s the difference between ten years ago and today regarding plane landings? Well today, when you land there can be complete silence.

More importantly, people are already texting companies – and many of these messages go unanswered. Consumers don’t care that your company has a landline not a cellphone. In fact, if they are under 30, they may not even know what a landline is – unless of course they have grandparents.

The good news? OpenMarket, the first mobile messaging and engagement provider to offer short codes, long codes, one-way and two-way global SMS now offers text-enabled landlines and toll-free numbers for enterprise messaging in the US and Canada. The addition of this capability to the company’s SaaS-based services enables businesses to send and receive text messages from existing and familiar toll-free and landline phone numbers to enhance their customer service and boost sales. The service is similar to ZipWhip which I wrote about in 2013.

Another interesting tidbit – 64% of people surveyed prefer text to calling when it comes to customer service. Target markets are call centers and enterprises of all kinds. MMS is in the works as well.

I learned all of this in a recent meeting with Steve French, VP,steve-french-openmarket1.png Worldwide Product Management for the company. He also told me about support for Matrix.org, an open source/standards project for interoperable IP-based Messaging and VoIP services. Now, Matrix.org can now provide SMS as a communication channel for developers building interoperable Instant Messaging (IM) for desktop or mobile use, WebRTC calling, and Internet of Things (IoT) solutions using what they call the Matrix standard.

Matthew Hodgson of Matrix.org explained the initiative in the following way:

The comparison between Genband’s Fring Alliance and Matrix is an interesting one: The Fring Alliance is essentially closed federation between Fring deployments, whilst Matrix is an open standard for interoperability between *any* vendors and ecosystems.  For instance, Fring is actually looking into using Matrix for providing the 3rd party federation between Fring Alliance and other ecosystems!

OpenMarket is a division of the multibillion dollar Amdocs meaning they have deep pockets and we can expect to see them enjoyed continued success in the space.

Most importantly, this is a huge opportunity… It seems there should be few businesses which target consumers these days which don’t seriously consider such a service ASAP.

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