For some time, I have felt like there is a gaping hole in most of the mobile strategies of the PBX vendors. We often hear terms like single number reach, single voice mailbox, etc. I currently have such a solution. However, there is one big problem: people often want to communicate with me via SMS--to confirm meeting times or places, or just as a way to say hi. Unfortunately, if I give them my desk phone number, they can't text to that number, so I have to go ahead and pass out my mobile number anyway, negating most of the benefit of single-number reach.
Avaya has tried to solve this problem by offering the Avaya Messaging Service, which is a cloud-based offering that lets people send SMS messages to someone's desk phone number. This capability significantly rounds out the mobility offering, and from my perspective, makes it much more compelling.
However, it points to a trend we are seeing in the communications world in which people are using text more and more. Cisco used to say video was the next voice. I might suggest that text is the next voice. By this I mean that the availability and utility of text for short interactions is extremely strong and nearly ubiquitous. Consider that most of us now use SMS regularly as part of our work and private lives. Twitter is another example of the importance text is playing in our public and private lives, with over 500 million tweets being sent every day.
Figure 1. Text messages sent versus voice minutes consumed. (Source: TextGen, CTIA, and CMO Council)
Which brings me to a company that aims to help users take better advantage of our growing reliance on and use of text. TextGen is a cloud-based service that combines business process, mobile device ubiquity, and the ability to enable any number to send and receive SMS messages. Based out of Willow Grove, Pa, TextGen has combined these three basic elements to create a service that works as follows:
1. Subscribers pay TextGen $50/month plus $20 for every 10,000 text messages.
2. TextGen provides the subscriber with a real phone number (alternatively, TextGen can program an existing phone number to receive texts).
3. TextGen offers web tools that allows organizations to easily create scripts for collecting information and tools for disseminating information that comes in via the text messages.
A typical scenario might be sending an SMS message to someone who provides a service. In the illustration below, a taxi company has added TextGen to their phone number for easy, fast and accurate pick up. California taxi company Taxi Maxi is the first taxi company to incorporate TextGen into their business line:
Figure 2. TaxiMaxi uses TextGen's platform, which allows people to reserve a cab using SMS. (Source: KelCor, Inc.)
The information the user enters is recorded and sent to the TextGen subscriber (TaxiMaxi, in the above scenario). Recording the data exactly as the user entered it is important for record keeping and governance. For example, if a pharmacy were to set up a TextGen number, then people waiting to pick up a prescription could text to see if their prescription is ready. In such a case, the person's authentication information would be critical to collect and keep prior to disseminating any prescription information.
TextGen also supports integration with a Twitter feed, should someone wish to direct-message via Twitter. It also supports script integration into websites so that users can complete the script from a web browser. In addition, the phone number given to the subscriber will work for voice telephony as well, and a call center agent can speak to a user and complete a form.
The founders of TextGen have tried to create a solution that is simple to use, simple to implement, and simple to integrate to back-end business process systems. The company has focused on business process integration points that are easy for companies of any size to do. Four integration options are available:
1. Sending the completed script fields as an email file.
2. Downloading the completed script fields as an Excel file in CSV format for easy importing into CRM systems.
3. Using Web hooks, which allows a form to be created on one website, and the information from that form is pushed to another website.
4. An API for deep integration into existing CRM systems (costs an additional $50/month/phone number).
TextGen is the brainchild of Thomas Howe, Gary Pudles, and Noah Rafalko. Thomas is the founder of the Cloud Communications Summit and the designer of the Skype Web API. Gary is a serial entrepreneur, CEO of AnswerNet (the largest privately-held answering service in the world), and a teacher of Entrepreneurship at the Wharton School of Business. Noah is the CEO of Massachusetts-based TSG Global, a company that enables SMS messaging to any phone number.
During the briefing call, TextGen listed off a number of different use cases for its technology including:
1. Appliance activation. In a real use case, Westinghouse Digital creates television sets that are equipped with both cable connections and digital tuners. The tuner manufacturers require Westinghouse to pay a royalty in order to use their product. Westinghouse only wants to pay the royalty if a person is going to actually use the tuner (as opposed to receiving TV via a cable provider). So if the user needs to activate the tuner, a message appears on the TV screen telling the TV owner to send a text message to a particular phone number, where an activation script gathers the necessary information from the user and activates the tuner. Thus far over 1 million tuners have been activated using TextGen's services.
2. The Society of Consumer Affairs Professionals (SOCAP) is a professional organization representing a global profession of best-in-class customer care experts across all industries. One of its functions is to help member organizations with useful applications. One such application involves recall strategies, in the event a bad or defective product has been shipped. A TextGen partner, AnswerNet, is building an application for SOCAP using TextGen that will enable member companies to create automated recall and RMA information for consumers within 4 hours from the time a recall notice is posted. Consumers can text a recall hotline number to get product return information
3. Direct response marketing--someone could see an ad on TV and send a text to a phone number to buy the product. The script would collect all of the relevant information. TextGen pointed out that for such a campaign, the call center agent is the dominant cost of a traditional solution, and replacing a voice-based agent with texting can save significant costs.
4. Couponing and opt-in requests. Given that the laws have recently changed about texting unsolicited coupons or solicitations in the United States, TextGen would give marketers an auditable trail for regulatory compliance if they send out messages or coupons to a person's mobile device.
5. Shopping help. If you are in a big-box store looking at an electronics item, you could text a phone number for information. In this case, a company representative could answer your questions, and your questions and the responses could be stored in the CRM system.
6. Helping find missing and exploited children. The company is setting up a text number in Uganda where parents and family can interact with a system by text to provide a missing child's name, age, etc., and this information is then used to create a missing children's list.
7. Abused women and children. Texting may be the only way these people have to communicate, because their voice calls may be monitored. The author is aware of a similar system that uses text messaging to help young girls forced into prostitution to escape their pimps.
8. Doing surveys via text messaging.
9. Finding apartment vacancies in a given area of a city.
TextGen's go-to-market strategy is focused on selling its solution to service providers who would then use the service to better serve their own customers with mobile relationship management capabilities (MRM).
I think TextGen may have found a sweet spot in the market. Frankly, many people would prefer to text than talk to a contact center agent. Although TextGen is not targeted toward solving the single number reach mobility issue, I do not see why PBX manufacturers with mobility offerings couldn't use TextGen's solution to patch their mobility offering by text-enabling the mobile user's enterprise number, so that it would truly enable single number reach. For $50/user/month, the cost would be significantly lower than Avaya's announced price of $120/user/month, plus these companies could begin using TextGen's capabilities within their own customer service organizations.
