- Original Poster
- #1
Whilst most companies have suffered at the hands of the postal strikes, we've benefited quite a lot. We've seen more than a 15% increase in mobile terminated messaging, an almost 20% increase in customer acquisition and more sales enquiries than usual. All of this points to the facts that businesses are, and will continue to, consider text-messaging as an alternative to the traditional methods of communication.
Following on from that though, I had an idea to provide an affordable and reliable alternative to postal mail. If it worked, it would save companies a lot of money and ensure that the damage of postal strikes like these were minimised.
The idea is that, rather than posting out mail, companies simply put their mail outs in PDF form or as standard web-pages. An SMS then gets sent to the recipient telling them they've received mail from Company X. The SMS contains a URL and a document code.
When the recipient visits the URL, the website asks them for their phone number and document code and then shows them their document for viewing/printing.
Obviously, anyone using this method would have to be very careful with it and could not use it for every type of mail. After all, I would be very angry having to go through so much hassle to view junk mail, when I would have otherwise thrown it in the bin without even opening the envelope.
It could be limited to certain, important, documents which customers are willing to, or have no choice but to, receive (e.g. bills, reminders etc.).
Obviously, there's an argument of why not send email, but not every one uses email whilst mobile penetration in the UK is over 100%.
Our company couldn't do this because it involved too much diversity from our core business (providing infrastructure), but if we have any entrepreneurs on the board, this might work as a business idea.
You could regulate the types of documents which can be delivered like this and consumers can learn to trust the methodology. They can save all of their bills etc. on their computers and companies can save printing and mailing costs.
Anyone have any opinions and is anyone interested in taking it up?
Following on from that though, I had an idea to provide an affordable and reliable alternative to postal mail. If it worked, it would save companies a lot of money and ensure that the damage of postal strikes like these were minimised.
The idea is that, rather than posting out mail, companies simply put their mail outs in PDF form or as standard web-pages. An SMS then gets sent to the recipient telling them they've received mail from Company X. The SMS contains a URL and a document code.
When the recipient visits the URL, the website asks them for their phone number and document code and then shows them their document for viewing/printing.
Obviously, anyone using this method would have to be very careful with it and could not use it for every type of mail. After all, I would be very angry having to go through so much hassle to view junk mail, when I would have otherwise thrown it in the bin without even opening the envelope.
It could be limited to certain, important, documents which customers are willing to, or have no choice but to, receive (e.g. bills, reminders etc.).
Obviously, there's an argument of why not send email, but not every one uses email whilst mobile penetration in the UK is over 100%.
Our company couldn't do this because it involved too much diversity from our core business (providing infrastructure), but if we have any entrepreneurs on the board, this might work as a business idea.
You could regulate the types of documents which can be delivered like this and consumers can learn to trust the methodology. They can save all of their bills etc. on their computers and companies can save printing and mailing costs.
Anyone have any opinions and is anyone interested in taking it up?
