SMS that just makes sense

Recently I asked Ann, our Marketing Manager in Nottingham, UK, if we could send out an email to customers giving them idea's on ways people can integrate Business SMS into their business operations that would one, save them money at the end of the day, and two improve on what they are currently doing.

She told me to blog it, so I'm blogging it.

Please note that these figures are approximate averaged numbers, and not exact, but gives a good guide to how simply you could be improving you middle line, and therefore the bottom line.

I've taken A Business as our example, and A Business makes at least 10 calls per day feeding small bits of information to stakeholders whether it be about appointments for sales staff, sending phone messages through, delivery notes and pick up acknowledgements, sending business data to the board, etc...

Using Telstra as my example network with whom A Business have their phone lines with, they are charged a flag rate to mobiles of 39 cents + GST, then depending on whether it's on net (with Telstra) or off net (not with Telstra) will then depend on how much they are charged there after.

Now for a bit of generalisation, if Sandra who is the fictional admin/receptionist for A Business needed to make on average 10 calls a day passing on the above mentioned information, then the average cost to the business for the phone bill would be $1.44 per call (includes flag rate, and then xxx timed charges) times the 10 calls made, the business is being charged $14.40 + GST per day.

Over a 5 day week, that's $72.00 + GST per week, that's $312.00 + GST per month and $3744 + GST per annum.

Again, I've taken these figures straight off the Telstra site, and if there are better plans, then I didn't see them.

Now, according to various websites I found out that an average admin person earns between $39,000 and $58,000 per annum plus super - so to average it out (and to be fair Sandra's pretty good at what she does and is appreciated by her boss) Sandra earns $48,000 per annum (forget about the super for the moment).

So Sandra makes 10 times 5 mintue calls per day - that's 50 minutes spent on the phone, which is fine.

Based on a 37.5 hour week, Sandra earns $24.62 per hour, so 50 minutes of her time equals $20.51.

Each day A Business spends $20.51 for Sandra making calls, extrapolated out, that's $102.55 per week, $444.38 per month, and $5332.60 per annum.

let's combine the two major costs for the moment.

It costs A Business $34.91 per day for Sandra to make these 10 calls, $174.55 per week, $756.38 per month and $9076.60 per annum.

More than you thought I bet!

So, down to business, what would it cost if those messages were sent out via SMS?

The average cost of an SMS from Esendex is 15 cents + GST (because I've been talking averages everywhere else), so 10 SMS's at 15 cents per day is $1.50, over a 5 day week that's $7.50, a month it's $32.50 and over a year that equates to $390.00 + GST.

For argument sake, and the fact I'm feeling generous, I'm going to say it takes Sandra 1 minute to send a single SMS (because she has unusually large fingers for a person of her size and is a slightly slower typist than you would otherwise expect) via Email SMS - it wouldn't take you that long, and I'd argue really if it would take 30 seconds to sent a simple message out, but we'll say 1 minute.

Based on the same figures as above, if Sandra sends 10 SMS messages, which takes her 1 minute to send each, so 10 minutes in total, in terms of what A Business pays her only $4.10 per day to send the messages, $20.51 per week, $88.89 per month which works out to be $1066.67 per year.

Combining the two figure together again, that's $5.60 per day, $28.00 per week, $121.33 per month and $1456.00 per annum.

In this typical example of how A Business would use SMS within their business, the cost savings are like this.

Per day - $29.31

Per week - $146.55

Per month - $635.05

Per annum - $7620.60

** The cost savings don't take into account the GST portion, and ancillary costs associated with staff, power, rent, etc...


It's amazing how something so simple, can be so effective, but I've only shown you the cost saving side, and I did mention about how it would improve on what they are already doing.

So....

Sandra call A Customer about their goods, letting them know that they're ready to be collected, but the person she wants to speak to is on the phone, she holds for a bit, then decides to leave a message with the person on the other end - but they got busy, and forgot to pass the message on straight away.

She then called Another Customer, and let them know that their goods were actually delivered by their driver 5 minutes ago, however John from Another Customer was in the factory working on a break down and not at his desk when the call came in and Sandra left a message - he was furious because he needed the goods for the breakdown and because he wasn't alerted he was really frustrated and took it out on the sales rep from A Business.

The great thing about SMS is the ability to get delivery receipts when the handset receives the message, it's logged by time, date, user and so on, and is kept for prosperity.

Speaking with Roy from R J Sanderson and Associates one time, he said to me that to ask his staff to not use SMS anymore would be like asking them to not use email either, because it was a part of their business systems - his staff preferred it because it meant allowing them to be more efficient and get information across to customers quicker, easier and with the exact details required, and the customers like it because it's direct to them, personal, they themselves can keep it for reference later and all in all feel like they are dealing with a professional outfit.

I think over the next few weeks, I'm going to try and give different examples of using Business SMS with an array of different businesses to show both the cost and customer service benefits of using it within your business.

have a great day, and hope you enjoyed the blog.
C