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“Thank you Bidvest team for your great service throughout 2024.”
- MTN
“Working with the Bidvest team is a real pleasure. We've thoroughly enjoyed partnering with a local provider for our business' WhatsApp profile - invoicing is simple and our templates are loaded and approved speedily. Prepaid24 would highly recommend Bidvest. Such a seamless process from setup to production!”
- Prepaid24
“We're incredibly grateful to the Bidvest Data Team who go above and beyond to support us with vital customer communication. Their commitment and innovation has kept us at the forefront of electronic customer engagement.”
- Sanlam Retail Mass
“Dear Bidvest team, Just wanted to take the time to say a very special thank you to TEAM BIDVEST. Everyone at OUP thanks all the people involved over the last few weeks and trust me, everyone in our organization now knows how much we can depend on Bidvest and we're all truly grateful for your efforts. Your responsiveness to our changing needs and requests is truly appreciated”
- Oxford
Explore the key differences between zero-rated SMS and traditional SMS services in South Africa. Learn how to make informed communication decisions for your enterprise.
In the digital communication landscape, South African enterprises face a pivotal decision when it comes to message delivery options: the choice between zero-rated SMS services and traditional SMS services. This comprehensive guide aims to elucidate the fundamental differences between these two options, providing a detailed analysis for IT decision-makers and procurement managers. Understanding the nuances can help organizations streamline their communication strategies while maximizing cost efficiency and compliance.
Zero-rated SMS services allow users to send and receive text messages without any data costs incurred. For enterprises operating in sectors like telecoms, healthcare, and financial services, employing zero-rated SMS can significantly enhance communication strategies, offering a cost-effective solution to reach clients and stakeholders.
Traditional SMS services operate on a pay-per-message model, where each sent message incurs a charge. While evidently more straightforward, traditional SMS services might not always align with the cost-reduction strategies enterprises seek.
When evaluating zero-rated SMS versus traditional SMS services, several critical factors come into play:
Zero-rated SMS provides significant cost advantages, particularly for bulk messaging and outreach programs targeted at budget-sensitive customer bases. In contrast, traditional SMS can lead to higher costs for extensive campaigns.
Zero-rated SMS ensures accessibility, as it reaches customers without incurring costs. Traditional SMS may limit outreach based on recipients’ willingness to pay for message reception.
Both systems provide reliable delivery, but traditional SMS may offer predictable delivery times due to established telecommunications standards.
Zero-rated SMS is particularly suited for government communications, healthcare outreach, and educational notifications aimed at reducing barriers to information access. Traditional SMS remains essential for targeted marketing campaigns, transactional alerts, and customer service communications where sender customization and brand visibility are vital.
Zero-rated SMS can effectively disseminate health information, reminders for appointments, and public health alerts without charging patients.
Traditional SMS is ideal for sending personalized transactional alerts and security notifications in a secure manner.
Ultimately, the decision between zero-rated SMS and traditional SMS services should be guided by the specific communication needs, customer demographics, and budget constraints of your enterprise. Evaluating the unique advantages and challenges of both options will empower your organization to optimize its messaging strategy effectively.
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Get answers to common questions about Sms And Svsms
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Bidvest Data sends on average more than 10 million personalized SMS/SV SMS messages per month, with daily peaks exceeding 2 million messages. This comprises mainly of transactional notifications and hosted transactional data.

The SMS channel delivers a secure, shortened personalized URL to the consumer, directing them to their unique microsite. All consumer activity can be tracked.

PDF documents, HTML content, videos and animations can be hosted on our Zero Rated Data domains. Reverse billing of data on these domains ensure access for end users to content at no cost. Bidvest Data offers this service on all South African and Namibian mobile networks.

Bidvest Data offers custom-built, screen adaptive, HTML environments, enabling features like animation, rotating GIFs, and interactive buttons.

Our service includes automated large file batch sending through sFTP data transfer. The data can selectively drive template messaging. Near real-time SMS sending is facilitated through our API, using templates or dynamic text.

Where another channel in our omnichannel platform is unsuccessful in delivering a message, we can automatically fail over to SMS. Priority and fail over channels are configurable.

Bidvest Data provides near-real-time and periodic aggregate batched reporting on consumer engagement, including link tracking, SMS and SV SMS delivery status, and customized reports on microsite access.
“Thank you Bidvest team for your great service throughout 2024.”
- MTN
“Working with the Bidvest team is a real pleasure. We've thoroughly enjoyed partnering with a local provider for our business' WhatsApp profile - invoicing is simple and our templates are loaded and approved speedily. Prepaid24 would highly recommend Bidvest. Such a seamless process from setup to production!”
- Prepaid24
“We're incredibly grateful to the Bidvest Data Team who go above and beyond to support us with vital customer communication. Their commitment and innovation has kept us at the forefront of electronic customer engagement.”
- Sanlam Retail Mass
“Dear Bidvest team, Just wanted to take the time to say a very special thank you to TEAM BIDVEST. Everyone at OUP thanks all the people involved over the last few weeks and trust me, everyone in our organization now knows how much we can depend on Bidvest and we're all truly grateful for your efforts. Your responsiveness to our changing needs and requests is truly appreciated”
- Oxford