How leading brands enhance customer messaging with RCS.
Discover how RCS messaging helps brands like SMARTY build meaningful, app-like customer communications that drive loyalty and growth.
Ramy Riad
4 minute read
Contents
Rich Communication Services (RCS) takes Short Message Service (SMS) to the next level, delivering the secure, native messaging experiences in an app-like, media-rich environment. And for many businesses, it’s fast becoming a key component in their omnichannel messaging strategy.
As you may have noticed, today’s consumers are very particular about brand interactions. They want every engagement to be personalized, connected, and contextually relevant. Disappoint them, and a competing experience is only a tap away.
In this blog, we’ll take a quick look at what makes RCS such a compelling tool for joined-up conversational messaging and how businesses across multiple industries are using it to enhance the end-to-end customer journey.
What is RCS messaging, and what can it do?
RCS is a GSMA-defined messaging standard natively supported by many major network carriers as a proposed successor to SMS.
Widely compatible with modern Android smartphones, users can engage in live media-rich conversations without downloading over-the-top (OTT) apps like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. As of 2024, there are more than 1.1 billion active RCS users, making it a compelling way to scale up your conversational business messaging.
Compared to SMS, RCS offers greater functionality with integrated support for branded UI components, contextual buttons, and high-resolution media content—including image carousels.
Connecting RCS to your back-office systems enables a seamless exchange of data, helping you measure campaign engagement, glean actionable insights, and inform personalization efforts. It also benefits from superior engagement metrics to SMS, giving you a better chance of reaching your customers at the right time.
But what does RCS look like in practice? Let’s see how three brands use it to enhance the customer experience.
SMARTY orchestrates personalized journeys with RCS
SMARTY is a fast-growing UK mobile operator on a mission to provide simple, honest, and affordable services. However, its disconnected communications technology proved at odds with its goals, making it difficult to join-up conversations across channels.
That’s why SMARTY chose Webex Connect, our Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS) solution, to connect its disparate systems and enable regular business users to build personalized journeys using RCS that retain context across every channel.
Webex Connect syncs with SMARTY’s Trust Pilot reviews program, enabling users to quickly and easily share reviews with RCS. It also automates retention campaigns by triggering RCS-based “win-back journeys” when a customer requests a PAC code.
What’s more, CRM integration with the latest digital channels—including RCS—helps the mobile provider create a central record of every customer.
Results:
100% uplift in customer engagement using RCS compared to email
500% uplift in customer engagement compared to single-channel messaging
70% of its Trustpilot reviews now have a 5-star rating
Pharmacy2U an early adopter of RCS
Pharmacy2u is the UK’s largest dedicated online pharmacy, helping more than half a million patients manage their prescriptions remotely.
After years of using email and SMS, its technology partner, O2, suggested using RCS to help enhance patient communications. This would also let the pharmacy expand its digital messaging reach without needing a dedicated app. A successful RCS trial using Webex Connect saw customer engagement double that of its email results.
Results
More than double the engagement rate compared to email and SMS
Nine out of ten users say they’d recommend the service to a friend
RCS drove 36% more customers to return compared to email and SMS
Southwark Council builds citizen trust with RCS
Southwark London Borough Council, which is responsible for the area’s local public services, is developing a strong reputation for its innovative use of emerging technologies.
However, an industry-wide rise in fraudulent emails and SMS phishing scams had knocked citizen confidence in the council’s messaging, with many questioning its legitimacy. In response, the council and its partner, Telsolutions, chose Webex Connect to build customer journeys using verified RCS messages with custom branding.
Following a swift onboarding process, the council rolled out RCS messaging to help its citizens manage debt recovery, including proactive payment reminders, personalized support, and in-channel payment options. Leaders plan to extend this use case across the end-to-end user journey to ensure everyone benefits from the same personalized service.
Results
90% of citizens felt more reassured and better served
51% increase in citizens taking action to resolve debt
31% increase in citizens choose to pay after contact
Leading brands are evolving their customer messaging with RCS, but for those just starting out with SMS, review our SMS marketing guide and how to leverage SMS notifications to increase customer reach.
To learn how to integrate RCS and create joined-up, data-driven customer journeys with an enterprise-grade CPaaS solution, please get in touch.
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