Q&A with Telgorithm on what software providers should look for in an A2P text messaging API Provider
Application-to-Person (A2P) text messaging compliance guidance and reliable message deliverability continue to be the top needs for software providers offering SMS & MMS text messaging on local phone numbers, AKA 10-digit long code (10DLC) numbers. Ensuring your customers’ A2P messages get where they need to go starts with being fully-compliant. If your provider is not able to keep you up-to-date, it could impact your messaging deliverability, customer retention and revenue.
Once compliant, your provider should be ensuring that you are getting the best possible deliverability for your messages. This is why it’s extremely important to partner with a messaging API provider that guides and supports you through compliance and can clearly demonstrate how they will proactively manage your throughputs/rate limits for the best deliverability compared to competitors.
CEO & Co-founder of Telgorithm
If seamless compliance and delivery is the goal, then why is it so hard to find these qualities in a messaging API provider?
We recently sat down with Aaron Alter, CEO and Co-founder of Telgorithm, the next gen SMS & MMS text messaging API provider for software companies. Aaron is a seasoned telecom expert and 10DLC thought leader with 20 years experience in the industry. Aaron previously served as Head of Telecommunications at ServiceTitan and Director of Telecommunications at SignalWire. In this Q&A, Aaron shares his thoughts on the top qualities in a messaging API provider which he believes to be “mission-critical” for your A2P messaging success.
What is the biggest challenge in A2P 10DLC messaging today?
The biggest hurdle right now for software providers is the recent enforcement of registering 10DLC traffic with The Campaign Registry (TCR) in an effort to mitigate spam in business text messaging. New regulations and requirements always come with a learning curve, especially in the case of 10DLC compliance, as there are many nuances based on the different industries and messaging use-cases to be aware of. To navigate these changes, you need a provider that is up-to-date on all the new changes and can support and guide you, enabling you to make your customers successful.
Otherwise you risk disruptions to your messaging, making your customers lose trust in your product.
You shouldn’t be expected to be a 10DLC expert as a software provider. Your messaging API provider should be guiding you through these regulations as your messages are their responsibility. Ensuring your provider offers hands-on quick customer support is essential when shopping for a messaging API provider.
How does Telgorithm’s API technology keep up with these industry changes?
With new rules being enforced, what worked in the past isn’t going to work now. Your messaging API provider needs to be well-versed in the industry nuances in order to support you in getting your messages fully-compliant. That’s why Telgorithm is partnered with TCR for an API-based registration to provide Automated TCR Registration saving a software team’s time and reducing the risk of human errors with automation. Telgorithm also offers expert guidance throughout the registration process to avoid rejections and achieve approvals fast.
Once your 10DLC traffic is fully-compliant and the new ecosystem deems your traffic to be legitimate non-spam, your customers will be able to message their consumers with high throughput and less filtering from the Carriers.
In order to ensure high deliverability rates, the throughput or rate limits you secured during the registration process needs to be monitored. (A throughput limit (AKA rate limit) refers to the number of A2P text messages you are able to send within a specific period of time). In the new ecosystem, Carriers monitor rate limits differently, if you’re not sure how many messages are going to what Carriers on a daily basis – you put your customers’ messages at risk of being blocked.
What makes it even more challenging is every Carrier is different. Verizon monitors rate limits by messages sent per number per minute, AT&T monitors rate limits by messages sent per Campaign per minute, and T-Mobile monitors rate limits by messages sent per Brand per day.
In the case of rate limit monitoring, you need modern solutions to modern problems. This is a new ecosystem that requires new technology that has been created by Telgorithm, we call it Smart Queueing.
How does this new rate limit management tech work?
Telgorithm built this proprietary solution to enable businesses to avoid the issue of dropped or blocked messages, giving customers the best deliverability experience.
With our unique tech dubbed Smart Queueing, Telgorithm is able to offer 99% deliverability, the highest in the A2P services industry, because we are the only SMS messaging API provider with automated rate limit management technology that prevents you from being capped or from ever exceeding your SMS/MMS rate or send limits set by Carriers like Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile etc.
How it works is that our tech automatically and proactively gathers data from TCR on your approved rate limits per each Brand & Campaign, then cross-references that data with how many messages have been sent each second, minute and day to the Carriers. This ensures you never exceed the rate limits you were approved for by TCR that are enforced by each Carrier differently.
Once you reach your rate limit, Telgorithm automatically queues the messages that would have dropped with any other provider, to save senders from hitting their rate limits and holds them to be sent until the rate limit refreshes, keeping delivery metrics high and saving customers money.
However, ahead of ever being queued, Telgorithm sends alerts to let you know if you’re nearing any limits so you can proactively apply for added vetting and avoid queueing altogether.
For messages that do get queued, Telgorithm offers unique product features that enable the sender to have full control over what happens to the messages next. With Telgorithm’s Message Prioritization feature, you can proactively program your most urgent Campaigns to deliver first, giving you peace of mind that they will never be delayed due to queueing.
Additionally, with Telgorithm’s Time Routing feature, you can rescind or “expire” the messages from the queue that no longer need to be sent, like a sale or update that is no longer relevant, for example. Or you can schedule them to be sent during a specific time period, because no one wants a business text message at 2 a.m. This enables businesses to use their rate limits efficiently, save on costs and provide a better overall customer experience.
Our tech ensures your customers will never exceed their TCR or Carrier rate limits i.e. never experience a blocked or dropped text. In the new ecosystem, this is not a “nice to have” or a perk, this is critical in keeping your customers happy and saving them from the headache and lost wasted budget from undelivered texts.
How do these features improve a product and engineering teams efficiency?
Creating automation and efficiencies is the role of a messaging API. The more redundancies you can create the less room for error. Our automations ensure your customers never miss a message.
How can product / engineering teams make the case to their executive team that they need these tools?
Simple. Better support and deliverability from your messaging API provider means less problems for your team, which means less problems for your customers. If customers are happy with the service and submitting less support tickets – the executive team will be pleased with the increase in revenue and retention.
What’s the cost of ignoring rate limit monitoring and continuing with the old way in this new ecosystem?
It’s a fact that business text messaging relies heavily on high throughput/rate limits to reliably send text messages out to consumers daily. If not, this new A2P path would not exist.
Without fully understanding your rate limits compared to how many messages you’re sending – you’re aiming at a moving target. You’re not sure how many messages are getting through, how many are dropping and the worst part is you’re paying for it all, delivered or not.
Plain and simple, not monitoring your customers rate limits means they will likely exceed their limits and experience blocked/dropped messages. In the new ecosystem, this means you will be offering poor deliverability to your customers, which does not make for a good customer experience.
For example, the standard rate limit is 2,000 texts per day on T-Mobile and one of your customers has a massive influx of traffic and sends more than the allotted 2,000 for the day – any messages sent after exceeding the 2,000 rate limit to T-Mobile users will be dropped/undelivered. Most messaging API providers would then send an error code that they were undelivered due to exceeding your rate limit and charge you for those dropped messages.
Who is managing this for you – how does your current provider know how many messages are going to T-Mobile specifically and if you’ve exceeded the limit or not?
When looking for a messaging API provider, make sure they can tell you how they offer the best deliverability and make them prove it.
We’ve spoken about the business value – what’s the customer value?
Every customer wants their messages to be delivered in a timely manner. If you aren’t keeping up with the new industry changes and modifying your software to stay in compliance, you’ll begin to experience disruptions and customers will eventually have to look for solutions elsewhere.
Having the best tech powering your messaging is the easiest way to keep your customers happy.
Final thoughts?
Good customer support and rate limit management technology are not “nice to haves’ ‘ in the A2P messaging industry, they are the key to making your 10DLC messaging successful. That’s what makes Telgorithm the #1 SMS API for 10DLC messaging.
About Telgorithm
Telgorithm is the next gen A2P text messaging API provider and the only to automate the entire SMS & MMS journey from compliance to deliverability, enabling software providers to grow revenue and improve customer experience. Founded by telecom industry experts who saw a massive need to set a new standard in the cloud communication space, Telgorithm’s mission is to offer a more reliable and transparent business text messaging service in the ever changing industry. Telgorithm has built automations for the new required path of managing 10DLC messaging, and guarantees message deliverability with its unique, patent-pending throughput/rate limit management tech. Telgorithm is the future of A2P text messaging for any software provider offering SMS & MMS messaging to their customers today.
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