Looking at the development of Internet in the past one and half decade, we can see the role of Internet users changing, from mere consumers of information in the 90′s, to producers and publishers of information on the Internet nowadays!

Just think about it.  In the good old days, we surfed the World Wide Web to read up what the site owner wrote. Then with the development of web authoring tools, the more technical people among us learned to design and publish web pages on the Internet.  Around the turn of the millennium, any IT student (including me) could do up a web page!

With the flourishing of social networking web sites in past few years, even non-technical people got to express themselves on the Internet.  Nowadays, more than 9 out of 10 college students own a piece of virtual property on Facebook or Friendster!

When blogs were popularized in more recent years, we change from owning a member page on Friendster to owning a blog!  Now virtually any Internet user can express themselves and shout on the Internet by blogging.  Even those who used to consider Internet as a scary place started to speak up!  Think about it.  It’s easier to learn WordPress than Microsoft Word!

So the Internet population has been transformed from content consumers to content “prosumers” (producer-consumer).  The technologies have turned non-users of the Internet to voice our thoughts, to using the Internet to rave about anything!

But many people in this country are still not using the Internet yet.  But watch and see.  When mobile Internet becomes so pervasive in our mobile phones, there will be more people surfing the Internet on mobile than through PC.

If most mobile users know how to send an SMS message now, they will know how to “micro-blog” in the future.  Microblogging tools such as Twitter may not be so popular and useful now.  But it will be in the future as more non-Internet users become Internet users via mobile phones.  At that time, even more people will publish content on the cyberspace!

For example if you fill up an enquiry form on my web site, you will not only receive a confirmation by email, but a thank you message by SMS instantly as well.

In another example, if you make payment for a product, you will receive a confirmation message by SMS immediately. You will also receive a follow-up SMS exactly one month later, reminding you of my brand

Some customers think I send out every SMS message manually from my handphone. But sooner or later they will find out it’s all automated. I can’t be sitting there to sticking to my phone to send out every SMS so quickly in response to every enquiry, 24 hours a day!

How to create such autoresponders by SMS? There is actually nothing complicated. You just need to subscribe to a bulk SMS messaging system, and then program your system to send out SMS messages using the system’s application programming interface (API). My system has been so programmed to make heavy use of SMS for customer service, branding and marketing as well.

There are many SMS bulk messaging service providers out there. Each SMS message sent costs money. Some charge very cheap rate per SMS, but your message might not reach your recipients at all. So don’t just look for cheap providers.

For me, I’m happily using Redisoft SMS System at the moment. Their system is good and stable. Macrokiosk is another good choice. Are you using any better provider? Please share with me.

Giving instant feedback to your customers can “wow” them and make them think your response is so prompt. So surprise your customers by innovating your online business by SMS today!

SMS is easy to implement in an online business. But it seems many people still do not know about this and so under-utilize it. Recently I helped develop an online registration system for a sports event and proposed using SMS in the system. The idea wowed many people thinking it’s one of the latest technologies!

Here are a few ways I’m using SMS to help automate my web sites and improve customer service. Let’s see whether any of these can be helpful for you too.

• Whenever you have got a new enquiry, a new order, request for support or any other matter that requires your immediate attention, use SMS to notify you. Time is money!
• Whenever your customer does something important on your web site, such as registering as member or placing an order, send an acknowledgment to them by SMS. They could be wowed by your immediate response!
• Whenever you need to send a reminder to customers, or want to do follow up, send them SMS!
• Build a permission-based SMS mailing list and broadcast to your prospects or customers for promotion and branding reasons. But don’t send too frequently.
• Use SMS so that your users can register with your service by SMS, instead of going to your web site!

SMS can be sent from mobile to mobile, mobile to web, and the other ways round. There are many potential ways of using SMS to innovate your business. Why not contact me if you are interested?