Can RCS Offer Spam-proof Business Messaging?

The increasing rise in RCS adoption across the globe may very well see it usurping SMS in the coming years. Its engaging feature-rich attributes coupled with the penetration of SMS – still the most prevalent A2P messaging medium – make RCS an indispensable business messaging avenue in your digital marketing strategy.

Since RCS is an extension of SMS, it still has to deal with issues like spam and fraud, raising doubts on its ability to reduce spamming. The Google RCS ban in India due to spamming is still a fresh memory. This begs the question; how can RCS protect brands and customers from being a victim of spamming and fraud? Read on to know more.

How does spamming occur?

Spamming occurs when someone sends unsolicited, bulk emails or SMS messages to a large number of recipients. These messages are often sent using automated software that allows the sender to send hundreds or even thousands of messages at once.

Spammers obtain email addresses and phone numbers through a variety of methods, including:

• Scraping them from websites and social media profiles
• Purchasing lists of email addresses or phone numbers from third parties
• Using malware to collect email addresses and phone numbers from infected computers

Once they have a list of phone numbers, spammers can use automated software to send messages to all these numbers at once. These messages are often designed to promote a product or service, or to trick people into divulging personal information or installing malware.

How does spamming affect brand reputation and brand-customer relationship?

Spamming can have similar effects on a brand’s reputation and its relationship with customers as email spamming. Some specific ways in which SMS spamming can affect these things include:

• Annoyance and irritation: Like email spamming, SMS spamming can be annoying and irritating to recipients. If a customer receives spam messages from a brand that they have not explicitly opted in to receive, they may view the brand as disrespectful of their time and privacy, which can damage the relationship.
• Loss of trust: If a customer receives spam messages from a brand that they do business with, they may lose trust in the brand. This can be especially true if the messages contain false or misleading information, or if they are part of a scam or phishing attempt.
• Damage to the brand’s reputation: If a brand is associated with SMS spamming, it can damage the brand’s reputation and make it less attractive to potential customers. This can be especially true if the brand is seen as ignoring laws and regulations related to SMS marketing.

To avoid these negative consequences, it’s important for brands to be careful about how they use SMS marketing and to make sure that they are only sending messages to people who have opted in to receive them. This can help to maintain a positive relationship with customers and protect the brand’s reputation. In the long run, spam messages impact customer-business relationship and trust, turning customers against a brand trusted and effective communication business messaging tool.

How does RCS prevent spamming?

RCS allows for verified, business-to-customer messaging that customers want

RCS is a messaging protocol designed to improve upon SMS and MMS messaging by providing features such as high-quality media attachments, read receipts, and typing indicators. RCS also supports message verification, which can help prevent SMS spamming.

Sending an RCS message requires brands to verify and authenticate their RCS messages before they can be sent. Verified brands get an authentication badge against their name, signifying the legitimacy of the message and its sender. This ensures that customers can easily discern the legitimacy of the message, making it difficult for spammers to send unsolicited messages.

This also provides more control over what customers see and when they see it, while also giving businesses a way of reaching out when needed without having to worry about spam filters or other third-party restrictions on how you can interact with your customers.

RCS supports user opt-in

RCS includes support for user opt-in, which means that customers must explicitly agree to receive messages from a brand before they will start receiving them. This typically involves setting up the service through the Android Google Messages app on their phone and agreeing to the terms of service. Some carriers may require users to specifically enable RCS on their accounts before they can use the service. Once a user has opted in to RCS, they will be able to send and receive messages using the service as long as they remain subscribed.

This can help prevent spam as the user has explicitly chosen to use the service and has given their consent to receive messages through it. Additionally, because RCS is a carrier-based service, it is more secure than other types of messaging and is less vulnerable to spam and other forms of abuse. This is because RCS messages are transmitted over a secure connection and are authenticated by the carrier, which helps to prevent unauthorized access and ensure that only legitimate messages are delivered.

Overall, the opt-in process for RCS helps to protect users from spam by requiring them to actively choose to use the service and by providing a secure and authenticated messaging platform.

Quality based messaging services by RCS business messaging solution providers

RCS is still in its growth stage, undergoing constant innovation and change. This means, RCS business solution providers like Dotgo are working on enhancing the rich business messaging experience both for brands and users. For instance, Dotgo’s exclusive Managed RCS Messaging (MRM) solution ensures spam control and quality-based messaging, benefiting both brands and customers.

MRM ensures that messages are expected, timely, and relevant, enhancing business conversation with customers

• Expected: Customers opt-in to receive messages, ensuring messages are always welcomed, helping build stronger customer relationships.
• Timely: Sending a message at an exact time should serve a purpose. For instance, sending messages informing customers about upcoming festive offers.
• Relevant: The message should be personalized to the customer using past purchase history and customer behavior. The conversation should be crafted in such a way that the customer feels comfortable and is keen to continue.

Currently, the combination of user opt-in and secure messaging makes RCS a more effective tool for preventing spam and protecting users from unwanted communication. Additionally, RCS is still an evolving technology, and the entire ecosystem is committed to ensuring seamless, secure, fraud- and spam-free, and engaging customer-business conversations.