Businesses today are looking to text messaging as a more effective way to communicate with their users and customers. A recent survey 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.
Is your company or client looking to communicate more efficiently with users? As a developer, you can implement a software solution to receive and send SMS via an API. An API allows you to implement SMS and MMS capabilities into your client’s software 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. Here we’ll discuss implementing an SMS API, the benefits to you and your client or company, and how an SMS API offers value to any business.
Why Implement an SMS API to Send and Receive Text Messages Rather Than Build the Software From Scratch?
Building an SMS API to send and receive text messages can be costly and time-consuming. Your client or company will be waiting on their new software function while you create the API from scratch, taking time from your daily coding tasks and other projects.
Implementing an SMS 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 an SMS API for sending and receiving text messages offer several advantages over building an SMS API from scratch, there are several other benefits. As a developer, an SMS 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.
Provide Complex Microservices
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 SMS API from scratch, you will need to integrate the microservices yourself, which can be time-consuming and complex.
When you rely on an SMS API platform, microservice quickstarts are often available from a docker container or repository. It can reduce your investment in coding the features and provide a ready solution for your client or company.
Documentation
In addition to quickstarts that help you implement complex microservices into your company or client’s SMS API, an excellent provider will have documentation to help you implement and configure the API to the company’s satisfaction. You can read articles and use case scenarios to help you implement the API in your preferred programming language, such as Python, Ruby, and JavaScript.
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 or company 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. One security survey found that more than 75% of organizations using an API reported a security incident within the last 12 months.
An SMS 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 provide maintenance and version control. They will also secure the connection between the API and the software or service hosted in the cloud.
The Benefits of an SMS API for Business
An SMS API to send and receive messages for business benefits you as the developer while also providing several 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 your client or company avoid legal issues, poor reliability, and hidden charges.
Deliver Quick 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. 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 conversions. 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 Grey Routes
An SMS API solution should provide high-quality routes that avoid aggregators and grey routes. Local governments heavily regulate SMS and MMS traffic worldwide, and any app or text messaging service integrated into software must comply with the regulations to avoid penalties and unreliable sending.
Businesses that send traffic from an application can receive the best reliability from a shortcode or validated 10-digit long code (10DLC) SMS for application-to-person (A2P) sending. Shortcode and validated 10DLC SMS numbers allow for mass-texting to recipients nationwide.
Grey 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 traffic may be flagged as spam, resulting in poor reliability and legal issues. Using a reputable SMS API to send your client or company’s messages will ensure your traffic is routed for reliability.
Related: Are There Any Good Free SMS APIs?
How Can a Business Use an SMS 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. Implementing an API can provide a solution for the following:
- Mask In-App Text Messaging: Apps that share support and services between users benefit from phone number masking, an SMS API feature that allows users to text anonymously. E-commerce, food delivery, ridesharing, and dating apps can use this feature to prevent unwanted exposure.
- Service Appointment Reminders: Service technicians, contractors, healthcare providers, and salons can manage customer interactions and reduce no-shows by sending appointment reminders using an automated SMS service. An SMS API allows the company to integrate SMS appointment reminders into its digital calendar or CRM.
- Login Authorization: Sensitive customer data that requires additional protection can benefit from using an SMS API to send MFA to authenticate user logins. Organizations, from social media platforms to banks, rely on MFA to ensure logins come from a credible user.
You can integrate an SMS API into your client or company’s CRM, apps, and software to provide solutions and unique communication experiences. Organizations can receive a message detail record (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 SMS API.
Related: How To Compare SMS API Pricing for Value and Savings
Choosing the Ideal Platform for Your SMS 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 grey 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.
Do More with a Flowroute SMS API
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 grey routes and aggregators, we can send messages worldwide using almost 15,000 rate centers. Get started with an API from Flowroute today.
