SMS delivery errors

What’s the number one worry for SMS API users?

For many of our SMSAPI customers, the SMS alerts that they send are a vital part of their business. 

Whether they’re sending crucial account notification texts, job alerts even server status updates, in most cases it’s essential that these texts arrive.

For many, the number one niggling concern that they have is…what happens if I run out SMS credits on my account? 

Will my account stop working?
If so, how quickly can I get it up and running again?

Running out of SMS is credits is the last thing anyone wants, so we’ve put in place 3 lines of defence that will help keep your texts flowing.

Low credit email warning

This may seem a rather obvious mechanism but it’s the most effective. Within your account you can set up low credit warning emails to as many contacts as you wish.

You simply set the credit level at which you want the warning emails to be triggered. Then all the specified contacts will be sent an email every day that the SMS credits are below the set threshold.

We recommend that you set the level to be approximately one month’s SMS usage. This should give you plenty of time to organise buying more credits for your account.

SMS credit overdraft

If the low credit warnings weren’t acted upon, then we have an additional tool that will keep your account sending texts. 
 

The SMS credit overdraft, which is agreed in advance, will allow your account to operate below 0 credits.

This means that even though your account has run out, your texts will continue to be sent as normal. We normally agree the SMS credit overdraft to be about one month’s normal usage, which gives you plenty of time to top up your account.

Please note that accounts do not automatically have an agreed overdraft limited, this needs to be organised with us in advance.

Help, I’ve run out of credits!

Imagine a worse case scenario, where both the low credits warnings and the SMS overdraft have both failed to prompt a top up. (We completely understand how sometimes admin can take a back seat.)

If you contact us in the event of ‘credits crisis’ and your SMS systems have ground to a halt, we will always immediately add a bundle of credits so that you can start sending again.

Our approach is to help you get your texts sending as soon as we can and sort out the admin later. We’ll do all we can to get you out of a tight spot.

Safety net in place

With these features, we hope that you never have the panic inducing experience of running out of credit. 

If the worse does happen, we’ll always be on hand to act swiftly to get your systems back on track.

(Although prevention, so the cliché goes, is better than cure.)

Something else from the blog perhaps?

Is this the best SMS marketing message we’ve ever seen?
I believe it is.

author avatar
Henry Cazalet Managing Director
Co-founder and Director of The SMS Works, a low cost and powerful SMS API for developers. About Henry