Text messaging is a fast and convenient method of keeping in touch. Businesses of every size leverage messaging using an SMS API to communicate with customers and users effectively. A survey in Forbes found that more than 90% of consumers want local businesses to offer voice and text options for communication. Nearly 75% of those surveyed said they find supporting businesses that use text messaging easier.
Omnichannel communication, including voice, email, chat, and messaging options, is steadily becoming the standard for businesses, providing users with convenient and personalized assistance. As a developer, you can implement a software solution to receive and send SMS via an API. An API allows you to seamlessly implement critical SMS and MMS applications to deliver simple and convenient communication for users.
Text messaging is cost-effective and reliable, whether the user is sending a text message to the business or the business is promoting a product or service through an SMS campaign. Messaging APIs offer configurable and flexible options to create the right application for any business and deliver customer service-enhancing benefits.
Why Implement an SMS API to Send and Receive Text Messages Rather Than Build the Software From Scratch?
While building an API from scratch can be the ideal solution for certain applications, businesses can benefit from a communication service’s prebuilt API. As a developer, you can quickly implement the API without spending hours coding it from scratch and testing the software.
Implementing a messaging API from a communications platform allows you to integrate the API and configure microservices in a few lines of code. Your client or company’s software, apps, or client relationship management (CRM) software can have a ready-to-use SMS service in minutes.
Many platforms use APIs written in the representational state transfer (REST) architecture to provide compatibility with most modern programming languages and common HTTP operations. REST APIs use popular data formats like JSON and XML and require little bandwidth.
The Benefits of Partnering With an SMS Provider
While the speed and simplicity of implementing a messaging API for sending and receiving text messages offer several advantages over building an SMS API from scratch, there are other benefits. As a developer, a messaging API provider can satisfy your company or client with a solution that reduces your coding time while assisting you with documentation and providing frustration-free security and maintenance.
Implement Complex Features
If your client or company wants the ability to receive and send SMS with an API, it may also want to integrate microservices like multi-factor authentication (MFA) or appointment reminders. When you build an API for SMS from scratch, you will need to integrate the microservices yourself, which can be time-consuming and complex.
Related: What Is Two-Factor Authentication (2FA), and How Can You Use it for Your Business?
When you rely on a messaging API platform, microservice quickstarts are often available from a Docker container or GitHub repository. It can reduce your investment in coding the features and provide a ready solution for your client or company.
Easy Configuration With Documentation
In addition to quickstarts that help you implement complex microservices into your SMS API, an excellent provider will have documentation to help you configure the API to meet your client or company’s needs. Reputable messaging API platforms offer software development kits (SDKs), examples, articles, and use-case scenarios to help you implement the API in your preferred programming language, such as Python, Ruby, and JavaScript.
Improved Maintenance and Security
When you integrate text messaging into your client or company’s software to receive and send SMS using an API built from scratch, you or your client will be responsible for maintaining the API and its security.
An API is a primary attack vector, as it is an intermediary between the user’s application and a service or software in the cloud. A study conducted by Salt Security found more than 9 out of 10 respondents encountered a security issue with a production API, and 17% suffered a breach.
A messaging API requires strict version control to ensure compatibility between the two software solutions and implements security, such as secure data transfer and authorization. A reputable API provider will include maintenance and version control. They will also secure the connection between the API and the software or service hosted in the cloud.
Dynamic Scalability
An API from a reputable cloud-based communications provider will offer your company or client near-unlimited scalability. Sending messages through the internet allows a business to scale their messaging campaigns as much as required and scale back down without any investment in costly equipment or on-site infrastructure. The company’s messaging capabilities will only be dependent on its internet connection.
Carrier-Grade Reliability
When you choose a resilient platform for your client or company’s messaging API, text messages are sent using a reliable network. The network scales dynamically to meet current demands from the business. It offers reliability-enhancing features like physical failover to ensure messages reach their intended recipient even during an outage. You can also choose a platform that provides confirmation of receipt and a Message Detail Record (MDR), a report that contains details about the message sent or received.
How Can a Business Benefit From an SMS API?
An SMS API for business benefits you as the developer and provides several customer-service-enhancing advantages to your client or company. It can better serve your end user with a fast rollout of new features. An API from a reputable platform helps avoid legal issues, poor reliability, and hidden charges.
Implement Custom Solutions
A flexible and adaptable solution helps small- and medium-sized businesses succeed in a competitive and quickly changing business environment. Mobile apps, such as ridesharing or delivery platforms, benefit from integrating communication solutions to ensure users can effectively communicate with third parties. An API lets you quickly add valuable features like SMS to your client or company’s app.
Reach More Users
Being able to receive and send SMS with an API also allows your client or company to reach users and achieve higher conversion rates. Text messages are opened 98% of the time. Since mobile phone users check their phones often and typically have a positive experience opening a text message, more than half of text messages are read within five minutes of their receipt. The receptiveness to text messages improves the effectiveness of campaigns promoting a product or service when the business uses an SMS API to send them.
Avoid Gray Routes
A messaging API solution provides high-quality routes that avoid aggregators and gray routes. Local governments heavily regulate SMS and MMS traffic, and any app or text messaging service integrated into software must comply with the regulations to avoid penalties and unreliable delivery.
Messages sent from a system or software in high volumes are regulated to ensure the traffic is not spam. When selecting an SMS platform for your client or business, it is vital to ensure the platform provides application-to-person (A2P) messaging options. Messages sent marked as A2P have reliable delivery when the company sends several messages in a short period. It is necessary to ensure delivery when sending critical messages, such as authentication and appointment reminders.
Gray routes and aggregators can use routes for person-to-person (P2P) traffic that are meant for local phone numbers to send your company or clients text messages. When carriers identify large amounts of traffic on P2P networks, your messages may be flagged as spam, resulting in poor reliability and legal issues. Using a reputable API for SMS to send your client or company’s messages will ensure your traffic is routed for reliability.
Provide Cost-Effective Messaging
Messaging from an API can be cost-effective, allowing businesses to send messages in bulk for feedback, support, and promotional reasons. A flexible metered SMS pricing plan will ensure your client or company only pays for the messages used during a billing cycle, making it easy and cost-effective to scale without a large or lengthy return on the investment.
Related: Optimize Your Communication Strategy: A Comprehensive Look at SMS Pricing and Its Impact on Your Business
In many cases, bulk text messages can be purchased for several cents per message and can reduce equipment costs since minimal on-site equipment and infrastructure are required. Automating text messaging with an API can also reduce labor costs.
Automate Messaging Tasks
An API allows you to automate tasks for your client or company. You can automate messages to accommodate high-volume sending for applications like multi-factor authentication, customer feedback surveys, and appointment reminders.
For instance, if you implement an API for a dental clinic that typically calls or messages clients a day in advance to remind them of their appointments, you can configure the messaging API to send out reminders automatically at certain time intervals. Automating the appointment reminders will reduce labor costs for the dental clinic and alleviate no-shows.
How Can a Business Use a Messaging API?
An SMS API can benefit various businesses. If you are implementing an API for your company or client, use cases can help you implement the right SMS solution. The following are some examples of practical implementations of messaging APIs:
- Mask In-App Text Messaging: Apps that share support and services between users benefit from phone number masking, a messaging API feature that allows users to text anonymously. E-commerce, food delivery, ridesharing, and dating apps often use this feature to prevent users from exposing their names and phone numbers to third parties.
- Appointment Reminders: Service-related businesses can use messaging applications to send customers reminders for their upcoming appointments. The customer can then message or call the business to inform them that they need to postpone, delay, or confirm the appointment time, reducing costly no-shows in industries like healthcare, beauty, and repair services.
- Login Authorization: Sensitive customer data that requires additional protection can benefit from using an API for SMS to send MFA to authenticate user logins. Organizations, from social media platforms to banks, rely on MFA to ensure logins are from authorized users.
You can integrate a messaging API into your client or company’s CRM, apps, and software to provide solutions and unique communication experiences. Organizations can receive an MDR to confirm details like timestamps, message status, and billing information in real time. Click-to-call features can be added to apps and websites. Passwordless authentication through SMS and surveys by text message are possible with an API for SMS.
Choosing the Ideal Platform for Your Messaging API
When choosing a platform for your SMS API to send and receive texts using a client or your company’s software, evaluating the partner’s network’s reliability, scalability, and cost will ensure your client or company can satisfy users.
A reliable platform will offer 24/7 uptime and use high-quality A2P routes without gray routes or aggregators. The platform’s network and API software should be secure and offer authentication and secure data transfer like transport layer security (TLS) and secure socket layer (SSL).
A scalable API provider will offer a cloud-based communications solution that allows your client or company to use SMS, MMS, and voice APIs in its software. The cloud offers nearly unlimited scalability, allowing a business to add users and phone numbers on demand and increase network resources instantly.
Cost also factors into scalability. A metered or per-use payment model lets your client or company pay for the messages or calls used over a period of time rather than a flat rate for a limited amount of usage.
Enhance Customer Service With a Flowroute API for SMS
Flowroute is an SMS API platform that offers scalable, reliable, and secure SMS, MMS, and voice services on a metered payment model. We provide 99.999% uptime with 30-second failover services to enhance the reliability of your client or company’s communications, 24/7. With zero gray routes and aggregators, we can send messages worldwide using our network of rate centers. Get started with an enterprise text messaging solution from Flowroute today.
