Case Study: How August Solutions Is Using Email To SMS Service

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Question: What kind of services August Solutions provide?

Richard Ayres, August Solutions: We build bespoke web sites and content management systems. We integrate the Email to SMS service into the back end MySQL/PHP scripts that generate the matching SMS alerts.

Question: How are you using TextMagic text messaging services?

Richard Ayres, August Solutions: We run a couple of sites for property management/letting agents. Potential tenants register their property requirements on our sites picking their preferred locations, #bedrooms required, budget, etc.

We previously sent out nightly e-mails matching up tenants preferences with new properties as they became available to the website/letting agent. As you are probably aware a lot of e-mails get ditched or simply ignored.

Now using the Email to SMS services we run hourly processes during the course of the working day to match new properties with prospective tenants and send the matching SMS alerts each hour (instead of one per night). We find that we have a much higher response rate with the SMS alerts compared to the e-mails. The results are apparent in the increased number of property viewings for each property, the speed with which they are booked, and ultimately a reduced lead time from properties becoming available to them being let with new tenants.

This new approach has proved a hit with the letting agents, their customers – the landlords and obviously the tenants.

Question:  What are your plans in the near future?

Richard Ayres, August Solutions: We have also just recently integrated Email to SMS into the letting agents CMS (Website Content Management System), the facility to compose and send SMS messages to individual tenants/landlords. I know we could use TextMagic Messenger or TextMagic Online but it now fits neatly into the same CMS.

We plan to also introduce early morning automated texts to potential tenants reminding them of any viewing appointments they may have that day. This again should save a lot of time for the staff of the letting agents and hopefully keep the number of ‘no-shows’ to a minimum.

We have also introduced Email to SMS service to another client based in Dubai (a legal firm specialising in wills and financial services for expats). They plan to use TextMagic services for marketing expats located within the Emirates. Again as and when appropriate, we will integrate TextMagic solutions into the bespoke CRM (Customer Relationship Management software) and CMS systems we have developed for them.

We are in discussions with another client to introduce similar alert systems for room rentals rather than whole property lettings.  It is envisaged that in this project the e-mail to sms service will be a source of site revenue, as ‘room match alerts’ will be sold to registered site users in credit bundles.