Messaging has become the preeminent way we interact with friends, acquaintances, and the businesses we patronize. Particularly SMS - a channel that started out as a place for quick notes among friends, has now catapulted itself into the most powerful way for brands and businesses to engage consumers.
Rich Communication Services (RCS) has long held the promise of supercharging the value of SMS, and the hype has only been growing since Apple officially joined Android and Samsung (who already supported RCS) and made RCS available on all iOS devices when they rolled out iOS 18.
At Vibes, we are already seeing a lot of very useful strategies brands will be able to augment using RCS. Without further ado, let's dive in.
What is RCS?
RCS messaging, sometimes referred to as RCS chat, is a protocol that enhances peer-to-peer (P2P) messaging by bringing enriched, interactive experiences you typically find in a separate messaging app like WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger, directly into your native messaging app. It improves upon SMS to make it more interactive and visual. If sending and receiving silly GIFs and videos via text was your idea of messaging 2.0, then RCS can be considered your messaging 3.0.
What is RCS Marketing?
RCS marketing is the application-to-person (A2P) version of RCS for brands to communicate with their customers. 'RCS for business' is to 'RCS' as a 'short code' is to 'SMS'.
If you’re an Apple user, think about how the launch of iMessage changed your life: the quality of pictures and videos you could send and receive improved drastically; you could drop pins to share your precise location, and can you even imagine a future world where you cannot see a message bubble with 3 dots (called an ellipsis!), indicating someone in progress of texting you back? That’s the type of impact RCS marketing can bring.
RCS marketing elevates the interaction between brands and customers with key features such as:
- Read receipts, including the time a user reads a message
- Richer image and video visuals
- Suggested one-tap actions that use a mobile device's native functionality (Open URL, Dial a Number, View a Location, Share a Location, and Create a Calendar Event) and suggested one-tap replies to help users navigate through the RCS conversation
- Rich cards that can provide images, videos, and more detailed information, and carousels of up to 10 rich cards that users can scroll through
- “Verified sender” checkmarks, so users feel confident that they’re talking to the brand they expect
- Typing aware ellipses that allow users to see when a brand is writing a message back to them (as a brand this is important to think about – ask any teenager about the importance of ellipses!)
RCS vs. SMS/MMS marketing: what are the key differences?
Here are a few key differences between RCS and SMS/MMS.
How messages are sent and received.
SMS and MMS messages are sent through your wireless carrier (e.g. Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, etc.), while RCS messages are sent via an internet connection.
The number of features.
There are key features only offered by RCS, including:
- Rich cards that can provide images, videos, and more detailed information, and carousels of up to 10 rich cards that users can scroll through
- Read receipts including timestamps
- Suggested actions and replies users can engage with in just one tap vs. typing
- “Verified sender” checkmarks
The available data insights.
RCS delivers insight beyond what SMS can provide. RCS gives you more visibility into the engagement funnel via more in-depth information about the status of messages, such as read receipts, interaction timing, reactions, multimedia element engagement and conversion rates. This information enables hyper-personalized messages for more effective campaigns.
Does RCS marketing cost more than SMS/MMS?
This will be determined once all of the wireless carriers finalize their pricing on pass-thru fees, but given it’s a richer experience we could expect it to be more expensive than traditional SMS or MMS. RCS messages are also expected to get sorted into different billing categories depending on how rich the message experience will be, e.g. if the RCS message includes rich media or just plain text.
With the way Vibes structures our pricing, our different packages offer flexibility via a bucket of message engagements that can be used however the customer chooses to depending on their size and volume.
Benefits of RCS Marketing
There are several key advantages we expect RCS messaging to offer businesses to improve the customer experience.
Richer customer servicing experience.
Things like read receipts and typing indicators (i.e. animated ellipses!) elevate the authenticity of your brand having an actual conversation with your customers. RCS also offers the feature of suggested quick-reply buttons for customers to easily tap their next action vs. having to type it out - enabling crisper, faster conversational messaging that will keep your customers highly engaged.
Reduced buyer journey friction.
RCS supports browsing, purchasing and other functions within a smartphone's native messaging platform, which means less toggling between apps and web browsers. This enables a more seamless customer journey that motivates users to follow through with transactions.
More interactive.
While SMS relies on text, RCS messages offer more interactive elements like high-resolution images and videos, suggested action buttons, and chat-like features (e.g. emoji reactions) that feel more modern and align with today's consumer expectations.
Messaging with app-like functionality.
SMS and MMS have certain channel capabilities that are not available in mobile apps, and vice versa - RCS merges key features from these channels into one overall communication experience, providing your customers app-like features without the hassle of downloading something.
Improved issue resolution.
Without having to be redirected to a separate app, RCS can also offer an improved customer servicing experience for helping solve issues for things like order exchanges or returns.
Limitations of RCS Marketing
Currently, there are two limitations to RCS marketing in the U.S. that stand out to me.
Market coverage.
While 100% coverage seems near given all smartphones now sold in the U.S. have RCS by default, reaching that full coverage will still take time - especially since not all wireless carriers have fully rolled out their support of RCS for businesses. I predict 60-70% market coverage by fall of this year, but things can change quickly in this space.
Undetermined increase in ROI.
Several Vibes customers just started launching their RCS campaigns, so we need to give this channel time out in the market to aggregate data and establish quantifiable benchmarks to effectively measure how much better it does with driving revenue vs. SMS or MMS.
Is RCS marketing replacing SMS?
Gradually, over time yes, RCS could eventually replace SMS and MMS – probably over the next 3-5 years. The hope is that RCS just becomes what we all use to send and receive text messages. We won’t call it RCS just like we don’t really call it SMS today. It will just be text messaging.
RCS Marketing Strategies (With Examples)
Here are a few uses primed for RCS (and why this should excite you if you’re a marketer).
1. One-Time Password (OTP)
OTPs are algorithmically generated, single-use codes that businesses send to their customers who are trying to log into their accounts. Customers typically use these codes in addition to their regular login credentials, to easily verify their identity.
Why is this a big deal? The verified sender checkmark gives users the assurance and confidence that they're hearing from the brand they expect vs. being fraudulently hacked.
2. Customer Preferences Data Collection
This example of capturing customer profile data demonstrates the chat-like, conversational functionality RCS offers as a channel, making the data collection experience much easier for consumers who just have to click on the button that resonates most with them instead of having to type their responses out.
Why is this a big deal? If you think about collecting subscriber preferences in the SMS world, often times subscribers are driven to a webform to fill out the details, which disrupts the messaging experience by taking them out of their messaging app. RCS's ability to add a menu with suggested reply buttons that can generate user engagement with just one tap instead of typing makes it a more seamless interaction, and the conversational nature of RCS feels more authentic that the brand wants to genuinely get to know their subscribers.
3. Online Ordering
This is an example of what the online ordering process could look like for restaurants - offering a more interactive messaging experience with images, buttons with suggested responses (instead of the user having to type their response out), payment confirmation, and more, to provide the gold standard user experience.
Why is this a big deal? It’s more interaction with fewer clicks, and less toggling between a messaging app, web browser, and brand app - all of which eliminates steps in the buying process, helping to decrease drop-off. It helps guests complete their buying mission faster and easier which helps marketers drive more revenue. We see a day when consumers don’t even need an app to order from their favorite restaurant.
4. Product Recommendations
Similar to online ordering, this is an example of how RCS elevates the messaging experience for a retailer's audience, enriched with product images and relevant information about the featured products, like color and price. The visual elements make it more enticing to interact with, and serve as helpful reminders of the products the users have been browsing. And, the suggested action buttons make it super simple for shoppers to take the next step to add items to their carts.
Why is this a big deal? This experience mirrors what consumers are more familiar with experiencing on social media, or directly on a brand's website or in their mobile app, but now it's happening directly in their native messaging app.
5. Cart Recovery
This is what the buying process could look like for retailers who use cart recovery as part of their digital communication strategy, enriched with product images that show what was left in the shopper’s cart plus recommendations that pair nicely and would be good cart additions.
Why is this a big deal? This RCS marketing use case delivers a better customer experience with fewer clicks, meaning less drop off and incomplete transactions. It helps shoppers complete their buying mission faster and easier which helps marketers drive more revenue.
6. Adding a Digital Wallet Pass
Another example of an experience that RCS marketing will improve that feels very near and dear to Vibes: adding a pass to your Mobile Wallet.
Why is this a big deal? It's more interactive without toggling between the user's messaging app and digital wallet app like we see today in SMS.
4 RCS Marketing Best Practices to Follow
These are the top best practices to follow as you work to get your RCS campaigns off the ground.
Always get consumer consent.
In the world of SMS text message marketing, there are strict industry rules that define specific parameters regarding what businesses can and cannot do with their text message marketing, including who you can contact via SMS and what those consumers need to know and do in order to successfully opt in to begin receiving marketing messages.
While official guidelines for RCS have yet to be rolled out by the relevant parties that establish mobile marketing laws – the FCC or CTIA, for instance – Vibes expects to see compliance policies put in place similar to that of SMS/MMS to honor the consumer’s right to tell a brand how they do and do not want to communicate with them.
For brands that have an existing SMS subscriber database, it’s possible that your SMS subscribers would need to “re-opt in" to begin receiving RCS marketing messages from you, but that's still to be determined.
Test and optimize.
Conduct A/B testing or similar testing methodologies to experiment with RCS. Brands who learn faster will have a distinct advantage over those who lag against their competition.
Have a fallback strategy.
If an RCS agent attempts to send a message to a user who does not have an RCS-enabled device, you'll want to ensure you're working with a messaging platform that is able to enable logic between RCS-enabled and non-RCS enabled devices, allowing for you to easily set up a fallback message that the non-enabled devices can accept.
For example, where an RCS online ordering experience has a nice carousel of images to pick from, an SMS version can be created that asks users to text in specific keywords.
Ensure your fallback strategy translates.
Not all RCS flows will necessarily translate effectively to an SMS fallback experience. Going back to the online ordering example, instead of trying to recreate the ordering RCS agent a brand may want to direct those users to order via their website or mobile app instead.
Vibes' Customer Success team is armed with strategic expertise and are working closely with all of our customers using RCS to guide them on the best alternate experience to set up to ensure it’s the most impactful experience for exchanging similar information.
How to Start Sending RCS Marketing
Just like a brand would send a text message on a short code to engage with your list of SMS subscribers, you will need to register an RCS agent and then initiate an RCS conversation from the messaging platform provider you're working with.
There are a few layers that will need to be considered from a timing perspective to get your agent launched to begin sending RCS messages:
- Building the agent itself, which may differ depending on if you want to use RCS for more promotional, marketing-focused interactions vs. more transactional-based interactions, like one-time passwords (or OTP)
- Submitting to a 3rd party for brand verification
- Getting U.S. carrier approvals, a process they are still finessing in terms of how they will review and approve campaigns as they are created and submitted
With our years-long relationships with the carriers as a Tier 1 aggregator, brands working with Vibes for RCS will be able to get agents provisioned faster, launching live in market faster than those working with non-Tier 1 aggregators.
How to Choose an RCS Marketing Platform
With RCS being a carrier-based technology at its core, ultimately the carriers lead the pace of change with RCS. That's why working with a Tier 1 messaging aggregator with strong carrier relationships is critical at this tipping point of RCS.
For a brand, working with a reliable Tier 1 aggregator like Vibes to launch RCS marketing offers a variety of benefits including:
- quicker resolution of issues and lower latency of message delivery (for those less familiar with the concept of message latency, think airline travel and how you get to your destination faster going direct vs. having a layover)
- not having to jump through multiple hoops or work with other 3rd parties to get your campaigns approved
- being one of the first to know when new RCS features will be available and other important updates
We are actively launching RCS campaigns in market for brands right now, and have a playbook ready for you to get started with this next exciting chapter in the evolution of digital messaging. Let's talk!
Time to Take Advantage of RCS Marketing
I’ve been in the messaging world for over 25 years. I remember when we moved from triple tap on flip phones to typing on Blackberries, to the buttonless iPhone. These step function changes were monumental in making SMS marketing the size it is today.
RCS can potentially be the next step function for mobile message marketing – it’s a big deal. As we continue to launch more RCS campaigns for our customers, we are excited to see all of the ways they use it to create better customer experiences.
Learn more about how we help our customers use the power of other impactful messaging channels today, including SMS, MMS and Mobile Wallet.
