Surinder Singh Anand, CTO, Dotgo, shares insights on the company’s vision to transform the way businesses communicate and engage with their consumers.
- Can you demystify Rich Communication Services (RCS) for our readers?
Though SMS has become the ubiquitous messaging channel for billions of mobile users over the last 3 decades, it hasn’t kept pace with advancements in technology. RCS is the long-awaited upgrade from SMS. It delivers a feature-rich communication and engagement experience to mobile users at par with or better than popular messaging apps – such as Whatsapp, Telegram, and iMessage. RCS allows users to share rich media such as images, videos, audio, and location information, all using their phone’s native messaging app.
- What is the role of RCS Business Messaging (RBM)?
RCS is helping businesses reach more consumers and improve customer experience, leading to increased ROI. RBM enables brands to send rich and interactive messages. These can include images, GIFs, videos and carousels, as well as suggested replies and suggested actions – all sent to customers from a verified sender id with a trust mark – thereby improving trust and convenience in business-to-consumer communication. Some of the most useful suggested actions include opening a website, dialing a number, viewing or sharing a location, and adding events to the phone’s calendar.
RBM is transforming the way businesses are engaging with their customers. In many markets, both large and small-scale businesses are using RBM to build richer conversational experiences for their customers. The adoption of RBM is being fueled by APIs and platforms that enable various use cases, such as sharing of transactional information (eg. one-time passwords), promotional campaigns, and conversational messaging (through chatbots).
- In terms of impact, how do you see RCS changing the fortunes of mobile network operators (MNOs)?
RCS is a GSMA standard and the default messaging channel for 5G networks. MNOs play a crucial role in enabling RCS for their subscribers, and RBM provides an opportunity for MNOs to monetize their investments in RCS.
An MNO needs to roll out RCS for their subscribers using an RCS platform provider, such as Google, and then deploy an RCS Messaging as a Platform (MaaP) to monetize RBM. Dotgo is a global leader in RBM with an industry-leading MaaP, that integrates with all the major RCS platforms, including Google Jibe. We offer our MaaP to MNOs along with a full suite of managed services to equip the MNO to sell RBM to brands and aggregators who want to engage with their subscribers.
In Nigeria, Dotgo has strong partnerships with all MNOs. Dotgo has partnered with multiple MNOs and with Google, to launch RBM with a common portal for brands and aggregators to exchange messages with all RCS-enabled subscribers in Nigeria.
- Despite the interest, many industry experts believe the reach of RCS is still limited. How is Dotgo helping businesses address this?
While the reach of RCS is growing rapidly amongst Android device users, RCS is currently not supported on iPhones. As a result, the reach of RCS is limited in several markets, including those with a high iPhone base, as well as markets with older Android devices, where users need to upgrade the Messages app in order to enable RCS.
At the Mobile World Congress 2022 in Barcelona, we launched Universal RCS – an innovative solution that helps businesses address this challenge, by delivering an RCS business messaging experience to all iPhone and Android users. This expands the reach of RCS to iPhones as well as Android devices that don’t have an RCS-capable client. The Universal RCS solution can be leveraged by any RCS agent, without the need for any additional development cost or delay. This is helping accelerate the adoption of RBM by businesses to transform the business messaging experience – from plain transactions and notifications on SMS to rich two-way conversational experiences.
- Dotgo was recently acquired by Gupshup. What synergies will this combination bring about?
Gupshup is a global leader in conversational engagement. Dotgo’s leadership in RCS Business Messaging significantly strengthens Gupshup’s conversational messaging platform that enables businesses and developers to build rich customer experiences. Gupshup’s leadership in conversational messaging is, in turn, helping the rapid adoption of RCS by its existing customers. Gupshup is also leveraging Dotgo’s strong experience and presence in Africa to expand in this region. Together, we are able to offer a richer and broader range of conversational engagement solutions to businesses and developers.
