Automated text messaging isn’t just a convenience - it’s a strategic advantage. Whether you’re delivering login codes, appointment reminders, crisis alerts, or customer surveys, automated texts help you reach the right people at the right time, on the channels they trust most.
In this article, we explore how Telerivet makes it easy to build, manage, and scale your automated messaging - reliably, globally, and without needing to write reams of code.
When we talk about automated texts, we might also be talking about - or using language like - programmable SMS, programmatic texting, transactional messaging, or a whole range of different terms.
Automated texts are, quite simply, where you have connected text messaging, such as the Short Message Service (SMS) channel, to send a new message triggered by logic or by an action elsewhere in another system.
This could be a very, very simple system - whereby you automatically send an SMS back if someone sends an SMS to you.
Or, more likely, it could be a very sophisticated system, where - using a programmable SMS API - you've integrated the SMS channel into your product, so that certain actions in the product trigger the sending of messages to customers, prospects, or other stakeholders.
In this article, we're going to focus principally on sending SMS text messages.
Though, through a series of different protocols and instant messaging platforms, there are many other ways to send text messages to your customers - or other members of your audience.
We’ll have a look at a few of these later on.
The simplest way to start sending automated texts today is to sign up for Telerivet and explore the different ways in which you can leverage the product to send automated texts - where you are, or to anyone all around the world.
Telerivet isn’t just a platform for sending SMS.
You can send SMS, WhatsApp messages, messages on Viber, conduct voice calls, use Interactive Voice Response, or even send airtime and mobile rewards.
You can also build the infrastructure to communicate on by creating custom gateways and integrating your own hardware with the system.
The range of communication options is incredibly broad.
Beyond this, Telerivet is a platform for connectivity completeness - meaning it is a central command system into which you can plug all of your other channels and providers, maximizing your coverage and optimizing your connectivity spend.
Because of course, if you want to send messages on WhatsApp, you simply need to plug WhatsApp into Telerivet.
But if you want to send SMS messages, you might need to connect to different providers - for example, one provider if you want to send a message in Canada, versus a different provider if you want to send a message in the Philippines.
All around the world, there are different providers, different mobile phone carriers, and different regulations.
By using Telerivet, you can plug all of these different providers in - and you can also, if you're already using platforms like Telesign or Twilio or Vonage or Africa’s Talking, connect them into Telerivet too, to help manage everything centrally.
One of the benefits of being able to manage things centrally from within Telerivet is that the feature suite is designed to make it easy for you to send automated texts - both as one-off instances and as ongoing or recurring campaigns.
You can design a campaign with a decision tree and logic, to be sent upon certain product triggers via SMS - and then plug WhatsApp in, and simply deploy the same campaign exactly as it is onto WhatsApp. You can even have failover logic in place, falling back onto a universal channel like SMS if a contact doesn’t have a WhatsApp number.
You don’t need to remake things fresh for each channel you use, or each provider you must connect.
That’s the true advantage of using Telerivet.
Simply get started today, and discover how easy it can be to send automated texts with Telerivet.
There are a near-infinite number of use cases for automated texting.
In this article, we’ll simply look at three categories of automated texting that are the most popular, most impactful, and most in demand.
However, I should give you a quick word of warning.
If you are going to put automated texting into practice, you do need to be aware of the regulatory landscape.
Sending a text message for the purposes of sales and marketing, or engaging in large-scale telecommunications activity - which applies to automated text messages in particular - all falls under telecommunications regulations. These vary by country, and should be kept in mind.
A further use case for automated text messaging is in instant reminders and updates for appointments or deliveries.
This is its own category - even though it contains a few related but potentially disparate use cases - because these all represent examples of SMS adding value to the customer as if it were part of your product.
The SMS the customer receives is adding significant value and keeping them up to date - with something they’re waiting for, or by making their life more convenient.
My dentist normally sends me SMS reminders of upcoming appointments.
And I’m pretty sure they use a no-code solution of their own design to send these messages and program the sending.
This is very resourceful of them, and I applaud them for it.
However, this time around, the automation clearly didn’t fire, and they never notified me of my appointment.
Sadly, being the typical consumer, I am completely reliant on notifications and alerts.
As such, I missed my dentist appointment.
This was very inconvenient for me, and I’m going to have to reschedule it at another time - where something else is going to have to be bumped.
And this will create a whole load of unnecessary stress, which I really don’t need.
Had they instead used Telerivet to program their automated sending, they would have found a much more reliable and professional system - one that would have saved their blushes… and also one of my Wednesdays in March.
Sending automated texts around these moments is an ideal example of what regulatory bodies view as a good use of the channel.
This is communication with people who have opted in - so they receive text messages as part of a product or service.
You receive value from those text messages, and your life is better for having received them, rather than worse for having been spammed.
Another example - and a category that, again, is very popular with Telerivet - is utilizing SMS alerts for emergencies and crises.
The reason why this is such a popular use case for sending automated text messages is quite obvious: the universality and reach advantage of SMS is unparalleled.
This makes SMS the most reliable and important channel for situations of emergencies or crises.
You want to be able to reach everyone - not just those who use your preferred brand of messaging app.
Telerivet is a very popular platform for this use case - principally because its reputation for reliability, resilience, and security is so high. And its services can reach rural locations, regions in crisis, and even war zones.
Plus, with Telerivet, you can send that emergency notification via SMS, but also via other channels as well - because they all integrate into Telerivet, meaning that you can achieve even greater coverage by contacting each person on their preferred platform, as well as the default backup of SMS that those messages would fall back to.
One of the most simple automated text messages that you're likely to set up - and that you're likely to receive regularly, maybe even daily for people who work across multiple SaaS apps in their normal day-to-day - is two-factor or multi-factor authentication.
Using programmable SMS for authentication is a very common use case.
The heightened security offered by sending an automated text message to your phone - with, for example, a six-digit code included - is an easy way to keep people safe.
Is it the perfect way to increase security?
No.
Ideally, in true best-practice scenarios, you would utilize a system of multi-factor authentication, perhaps leveraging:
However, these approaches are often costly and very complex.
It’s much easier to send the code through SMS, or even through email.
Sending a code through SMS, in some ways, is more secure than email - not because SMS is a more secure channel necessarily, but because if you're working on a laptop or computer, sending a code via SMS has a better chance of confirming a person’s identity through a secondary device.
If someone really, really wanted to - and was targeting you personally - there is a chance they could intercept an SMS sent to your phone.
But for the vast majority of people, that seems like a very unlikely outcome.
For most people, two-factor authentication will be sufficient to stop mass attempts to access their accounts.
You can easily set up SMS to send a message with a code in crucial moments - such as login, or even access to secure parts of a platform, like the settings or administration panels.
There are, of course, alternatives to SMS when it comes to sending automated texts.
Many countries - from Kenya to Brazil to Spain and beyond - are heavily dominated by WhatsApp.
Whereas in the Philippines and Nepal you have huge portions of the market on Viber. In Ukraine, too, you can find about 98% of people using Viber, which also had similar coverage in Russia prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
All these different platforms represent different user preferences.
And if you want to connect with your customer in a way that will be most impactful for them, you should respect their preferences - and try to reach them where they are.
So, if your customers are in a geography that primarily uses WhatsApp, try to reach them on WhatsApp.
This can also add greater trust - as a verified sender on WhatsApp, connected to the rest of their Meta profiles, can help build your credibility in the eyes of the customer.
It helps them feel like this message is definitely from you, and keeps your customer inside their preferred messaging platform, where they tend to spend time anyway.
Taking a customer-centric perspective like this will earn you greater trust, and as a result, it’s likely to earn you greater revenue.
This is simple business fundamentals.
With Telerivet, you can connect WhatsApp or Viber to your Telerivet account, and continue sending your SMS campaigns straight out from those platforms.
And again, you can even have failover logic in place, falling back onto a universal channel like SMS if a contact doesn’t have a WhatsApp number.
It’s never been easier to reach your customers where they are.
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