How to prevent customers from mistaking SMS communications for a scam

With the rise of malicious SMS texting scams exploiting COVID-19 (Coronavirus), there will only be a decline in trust for business communications from legitimate organisations. It’s important that we do our part to ensure that stakeholders can easily confirm any business messaging coming from your organisation is authentic. Follow these five best practice tips.

Here are out top 5 tips to ensure your customers can trust your messages:

1. Identify yourself

• Send your messages from a dedicated number so that recipients can see that the sender is always the same
• Use a consistent signature that contains your organisation's full name

2. Make it clear

• Get straight to the point in your messages - make the most of the 160 character count per SMS
• Use a URL shortener when sending links to avoid taking up valuable characters and clogging up your message

3. Pick a dedicated number

• When you use the same number to send all your messages, you build your customer's trust
• You can also make a statement on your website that this is the ONLY number from which your customers will ever receive messages from your organisation

4. Be time conscious

• Due to the ever-changing nature of the situation around COVID-19, try to prepare your messages early so they are relevant to what's happening when you send them
• Follow this checklist to help you prepare for sending emergency SMS communications
  
  

5. Choose trusted providers

• Ensure they have consistent positive client reviews and the ability to scale depending on your audience needs
• Whomever you choose, make sure they will be able to support you in the long-term

You can read more about how to avoid scamming people with your broadcasts here