No longer “Virgin”…
On July 6, 2009, I popped my ‘mobile cherry,’ and entered into the world of real time data, real time response, real time updates, and real time issues. I was always ‘teased’ by mobile marketing, PSMS, WAP, Applications, Short Codes and SMS but never went all the way. Well, now that I’ve done it, I must say, this is going from a one-night stand to a full on committed marriage!
As in every new marriage, you learn things about your significant other that you never knew before. Some things are exciting, others are less exciting, but you strive and struggle for common ground. Such is the case with mobile. The industry is still young, procedures and processes are often changing which require flexibility to accept, implement, and sustain changes until further notice.
Premium SMS data is a prime example of something ‘less exciting’, but vital. One of the challenges in premium SMS data is to obtain that data consistently. Being able to provide accurate and dependable premium SMS data is vital to our clients because this is their revenue.
Premium SMS data comes to us through our aggregator. They receive this data from each carrier. Each carrier has their own process in which they release data to aggregators, meaning that on a monthly report that I receive a carrier may not have submitted their data because of a multiple of reasons. One of the main reasons for this is to allow a ‘reasonable’ amount of time allocated to allow end users to complain and receive refunds. This causes a chain reaction; Carriers don’t submit data to aggregators, aggregators don’t submit data to us, and we aren’t able to provide data to our clients causing delays in revenue which may cause our client business models to change.
Recently I received data regarding billed premium SMS messages for our clients, and as I went through the report I came across data from a carrier that was already included in the previous months report! And, to make matters more confusing, the number of billed messages on the current report was more than previous stated on the prior months report! If the number on the current report was lower than the previous report, that would make sense because of refunds and/or rejected messages. But how on earth can it be more?! Did the carrier just assume the previous months numbers?
Even though issues like these are not that common, they still occur, and at this point there seems to be no resolution to the process or adjustments that can be made to the system. So, we deal with it the best we can, however, at the same time we educate our clients and make adjustments to our system and implement creative methods to ensure our clients success and longevity.
Mobile has definitely satisfied my needs and I’m sure it’ll do the same for you, give it a try, pop your mobile cherry.