When the Internet Goes Down, SMS Messaging Can Save the Day

A few weeks ago, Amazon’s S3 cloud server on the east coast of the US went down. According to an article on mobilemarketer.com, 54 of the top 100 online retailers went with it. Some of the hardest hit are recognisable American retailers like Disney, Target and Nike. Also, Docker’s Registry Hub, Twitch.tv, Autodesk’s cloud, Twilio, Mailchimp, Adobe’s Cloud were affected. Even DownDetector.com, a website that keeps track of whether websites and online services are up or down, went down.
What would you do if your online presence went down, or suffered a 1165% slow down like Disney did? Do you have a plan? There are many ways you can deal with the technical issues, but a likely bigger problem is your customers. How will you communicate with them and restore their trust? Here’s a hint: use SMS messaging.
Have a Plan
In the Mobile Marketer article, Justin Bougher, a vice president at SiteSpect said, “The key is to be prepared and have a response that has a minimal negative impact on customer experience or can convert the negative impact to a positive one.”
He goes on to say that those responses could be via text message, email, or even direct phone calls in certain situations. Which one is appropriate can depend on several things, including the “life time value of the customer”.
The time sensitivity of the downtime matters too. If your site goes down during a critical period (like Cyber Monday), or a whole portion of the Internet goes down (as has happened recently), you might want to assume that people’s access to email or social media could be hampered too.
That means any communication you try to have in those channels may go unheard. Even if social media channels do work for some, there’s no guarantee the message will be seen by your customers. People’s feeds fill up so quickly, and getting noticed is hard.
So, when you need to be sure your customers know what is going on, and what you’re doing about it, send them SMS messages.
SMS Messages Will Work
The SMS protocol doesn’t rely on the Internet. It was designed to work on cellular networks. That means even if websites or servers are down, or if hackers are trying to break the Internet, your message can still get through. Cellular networks can have outages too, but historically it’s much less likely. And when it happens, it’s usually due to a natural disaster damaging towers or from people overloading the system in a wide-spread emergency. And even then, SMS messages can often make it through when voice calls can’t.
When an online disaster affects you, then, you have the choice to use SMS messaging or a combination of different channels. Which one you choose will depend on the circumstances. But SMS is a reliable method you know will work, almost always no matter what is going on elsewhere. The sooner you let the customers or clients that rely on you know what is going on, the better it will be for you, and for them.
Of course, if you’re sending SMS messages, you’ll need to have a reliable service provider. In the context of online disasters, this means a service provider whose services will still be working when other parts of the Internet may not be. This is because most providers use the Internet for some portion of their SMS delivery.
At Fastsms, we have both a main data centre and a disaster recovery location. This means if our servers go down for any reason, our second location will pick up where they left off with little delay (you can contact us if you want to know the details and our service level agreements).
In addition to being prepared, our primary data centre is just one hop away from the main Internet exchanges and SMS gateways. This means that our use of the Internet to send your SMS messages is just a tiny little piece of the whole journey. So, messages sent from our service get into the cellular networks super-fast and delivered to your customers and clients fast too.
Nothing is Perfect
In this day and age, it’s hard to know what will happen with technology. It turned out that Amazon’s issue stemmed from a staffer who mistyped a command into their system. That small mistake cost businesses millions of dollars based on the approximately five hours of downtime experienced. Amazon’s reputation as a cloud provider is certainly damaged, but they are such a large company that they will weather it well.
For everyone else though, it pays to have a plan to notify customers, employees, service providers, or clients when the worst happens. SMS messaging can be one of those options you turn to when you absolutely need the message delivered.
Related Articles
Daily SMS Reminders Can Help Improve Health
Before the winter cold and flu season hits I decided to do what I can to get healthy and stay healthy. Last week I began a 21 day cleanse that involves eating lots of fruits and vegetables as well as taking supplements. A lot of supplements. So many that I really have trouble keeping track. But luckily the company that makes the cleanse I'm using offers support via SMS reminders.
How are A2P SMS, P2A SMS, and Notifications Different?
A2P SMS, or Application to Person SMS, messaging is when an application sends a person a text message just like you’d send a text to your mates. P2A SMS, or Person to Application SMS, messaging is when a person send texts to an application.
SMS Marketing in the Financial Sector
With the rapid increase in technological development that defines the 21st century, companies across all sectors are looking for ways to stand out from the crowd. In the modern, technological economy, a company’s ability to connect with its customers and provide top-quality user experience (UX) is fast becoming an essential component of any successful business. Customers now have the ability to thoroughly search the market to find a company that can provide them with the best possible deal. In a corporate environment that is more competitive than ever, what is the best way to truly stand out from the crowd? One of the fastest growing techniques is the use of SMS marketing.
How Wayne Dyer Inspired SMS Messaging
If you’re tuned into the self-help industry at all, you know who Wayne Dyer was. He spent decades writing transformational books to help people improve their lives and find happiness. He died summer 2015 at his home in Maui at the age of 75. It’s probably an understatement to say he inspired millions of people. So when I came across an article about a publisher using SMS messaging to let people know about a new book discussing his legacy I wasn’t too surprised. Not at first anyway.
How To Use SMS Messaging To Fill Your Health Club And Keep It Full
At the end of every year, people all over the country will be making resolutions to get fit, lose weight, eat healthier, or start practising yoga. In January, health club memberships will soar before mid-February when an estimated 88% of resolutions fail. SMS can help you keep more members, here's how...
8 Ways Veterinary Practices Can Use SMS Within Their Business
Although SMS services are usually associated with retail marketing campaigns, you can also use these communication tools across many other industries. SMS text messaging can be used to provide a perfect veterinary patient/clinic communication tool, and because of this it is becoming increasingly popular within the specialist animal care sector.
How One Small Business Keeps Her Customers Happy – and On Time!
People have their mobiles within arm’s reach about 22 hours of every day. That means even while they are sleeping! It makes sense then, that if you want to remind someone of an important event (an appointment with your small business for example) you should use their mobile.
21 Ready-to-Send Business Text Messaging Alerts
SMS marketing is a great addition to your business and overall marketing efforts. It can be daunting to get going, however, and the 160 character limit (or 456 characters if using fastsms) leaves a lot of people wondering exactly what they should say. To help you out, we've compiled 21 ready-to-send business text messaging alerts.
How to Use SMS for Patient Engagement and Better Healthcare
There is something of a revolution occurring in the UK, and worldwide, where healthcare is concerned. Gone are the days of patients idly sitting and waiting for doctors to dole out advice. With 93% of the population holding a tool in their hands, anybody can use a mobile phone to access a wealth of information, just at our fingertips. SMS can maintain that feeling of instant information without causing the confusion, panic and misunderstanding so often associated with self-diagnosis.
5 SMS Messaging Ideas for the Print Industry
SMS messaging is not just a powerful marketing tool for reaching and engaging with consumers; it is also immensely valuable to companies operating in both the B2C and B2B sectors. With some imagination and creativity, SMS messaging can work well for any business, whatever the sector and is highly attractive not just because of its exceptional open and response rates, but also the low costs, high ROI and ease of use. If you are looking to build your market penetration in the print industry, SMS messaging has a lot to offer. Read this article from the team at Fastsms to see how your print business can help keep its competitive edge and stay profitable with SMS messaging.