Rich Communication Services (RCS) is a type of messaging that allows businesses to engage with their users more dynamically and interactively. As a marketer using RCS, you can leverage rich media, such as images, videos, and interactive elements, to create more engaging and visually appealing messages.
With RCS, you can create personalized and targeted campaigns that can be delivered directly to your users’ messaging app. This allows for a more seamless and convenient communication experience for the end user, as they can easily interact with your brand. RCS also offers advanced analytics and reporting capabilities, allowing you to track the performance of your campaigns and make data-driven decisions.
The following image shows an RCS message delivered to a user's messaging app:
Advantages
As a marketer, you can consider RCS as an engagement channel for the following reasons:
- Enhanced customer experience: RCS allows for more interactive and engaging conversations. Features such as suggested replies and actions can guide a customer through a transaction or support inquiry smoothly, improving the customer journey significantly.
- Rich media capabilities: RCS can include high-resolution images, GIFs, videos, and audio messages, making communication more appealing and informative.
- Branding opportunities: RCS messages can be branded with logos, color schemes, and other visual elements to maintain brand consistency and recognition.
- Verified sender: RCS includes verified sender status, which gives customers confidence that they are interacting with a legitimate business, increasing trust and security.
Use Cases
Following are some business use cases that can be achieved using RCS:
- Retail promotions: Retailers can send rich, interactive promotions that allow users to view images of products and even make purchases directly within the messaging app.
- Appointment reminders: Healthcare providers or service-based businesses can send appointment reminders to customers so they can confirm, cancel, or reschedule their appointments directly through the message.
- Banking alerts: Financial institutions can send secure account alerts and enable customers to perform simple banking actions like checking balances or fraud alert verification through RCS messaging.
- Personalized marketing: Marketers can create personalized campaigns based on customer behavior, interests, and purchase history, delivering tailored recommendations and offers.
- Event tickets and check-ins: Customers can receive their event tickets through RCS and even check into events seamlessly.
RCS in MoEngage
- Creating RCS campaigns in MoEngage follows the same steps as other channels. Simply select RCS only or RCS with SMS as fallback as the message type when creating RCS campaigns.
- MoEngage offers a comprehensive view that aggregates analytics for both RCS and SMS, in addition to providing distinct engagement funnel visualizations for each messaging channel. This functionality enables the optimization of user engagement and amplification of campaign effectiveness. For more information, refer to SMS & RCS Campaign Analytics.
- Using the RCS with SMS as fallback message type, you can send RCS campaign with SMS as a fallback. This means if the recipient's device or network does not support RCS, the messages will automatically be sent through traditional SMS, thereby ensuring 100% delivery of these messages. This capability ensures that every segment of the target audience is reached, enhancing the reach and impact of your campaigns.
- You can send RCS campaigns using the current user profiles; it is not necessary to create new user profiles specifically for RCS campaigns.
Compliance
The compliance of RCS is the same as that of SMS. For more information, refer to the following articles:
- Understanding Explicit vs. Implicit Consent
- Messaging Regulations for Europe
- Messaging Regulations for Canada
- Messaging Regulations for India
- Messaging Regulations for US
RCS Partners
MoEngage RCS partners are intermediaries that enable you to procure a number and then send messages. For more information on RCS partners, refer here.