Imagine getting an SMS from a random number. How likely are you to trust it? No matter if it is a special promo code, a sales offer, or an important message containing personal information, if the sender of the message is unknown, it automatically becomes less trustworthy.
This is why big businesses and companies use the Verified SMS, to send their customers branded messages and make their SMS more credible.
What Is Verified SMS?
Verified SMS or vSMS is a special Google Messages feature which is adding branding and sender verification to the company’s SMS programs, by making their messages safer and easily identifiable with their brand.
Some of the useful features the Verified SMS are:
- With Verified SMS your company will send messages with the VSMS badge, signaling your customers that they can trust the message.
- You can ensure the branding of your messages via including the brand name, brand description, and brand logo so that your customers can identify your company from the very first glance.
- Your customers get detailed link previews allowing them to understand which web content you’re serving
- You can easily identify which of your messages got successfully verified with the metrics tool
- You can be sure that the communication between your company and Google is secure as Google does not have any access to your message content.
How Does Verified SMS work?
Verified SMS’s main function is to verify the content that the business sends with the per-message method. Once done, at the top of the message, the customers will see the brand name, brand logo, and the verification badge.
In more technical terms, businesses make a hash ( which is a string of text that uses a mathematical function) for the message by using a special combination of keys that are unique to that specific business and submit it to Google.
So every time the user receives a message, Google checks whether that message has a special hash and if it does it shows the brand’s name and logo along with its content.
You can also benefit from the Verified Call services, which is a new feature offered by Google in the phone app. This works by authenticating the calls which come from trustworthy businesses and again displaying the branding, verification, and even the reasons for the call on the call screen of your customer.
Are vSMS and RCS the same ?
People usually confuse vSMS with the RCS(link here to RCS article), but they have almost nothing in common.
RCS protocol which stands for Rich Communication Services protocol is made to make SMS messaging more modern and interactive by gathering features from Messenger, iMessage, WhatsApp, and other popular online messaging platforms in one place.
Verified SMS, on the other hand, is a service offered by Google which does not necessarily make the communication more engaging, but rather adds branding to it to make it more secure.
In short, if you want to build trust between your business and your customers, by making your messages more reliable, Verified SMS is a perfect solution, as it will make the communication with your clients more secure and at the same time will boost your brand awareness.