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The SMS Problem
Businesses have relied on SMS for order confirmations, shipping updates, and appointment reminders because it works everywhere. The trouble is, it’s stuck in the past.
You get 160 characters. No images. No buttons. No way to show customers what you’re actually selling. MMS tried to fix this years ago, but the costs killed it before it got anywhere. For online retailers, that’s a problem.
What RCS Actually Does
Rich Communication Services isn’t rocket science – it just brings messaging into this decade. You can send high-quality photos and videos. Text messages can be longer than a tweet.
And here’s the important part: you can add buttons and interactive elements right in the message.
That means customers can browse products, click through options, and buy stuff without leaving their messaging app. It’s a shorter path from “I’m interested” to “I bought it.”
A paint manufacturer switched some of their SMS campaigns to RCS. Revenue jumped 115 percent. Click-through rates went from under 3 percent to 21 percent.
That’s not a small improvement – it’s a fundamental change in how customers engage with the messages.
Why it Works Better
RCS messages show sender verification – customers see the company logo and name, so they know it’s legitimate. Messages are encrypted. And unlike SMS, RCS doesn’t depend on carrier networks prioritising your messages. It runs over any internet connection, which means fewer delays and lost messages.
Apple added RCS support in September 2024 with iOS 18. Android already supported it across carriers. Twilio data shows that by mid-2024, 46 percent of phones could handle RCS messages. If someone’s phone doesn’t support it, the message falls back to SMS automatically.
RCS gives you detailed delivery and read receipts. You can see what’s working and what isn’t, then adjust accordingly. That’s first-party data customers agree to share, so you’re not guessing about campaign performance.
For online retailers testing different approaches, that visibility matters.
Where This is Headed
RCS is becoming standard for mobile business messaging. For e-commerce companies, it turns basic notifications into actual shopping experiences. The combination of visuals, interactivity, and analytics makes it a practical tool for improving conversion rates.
With nearly half of all phones already supporting the technology and automatic SMS fallback for the rest, businesses can adopt RCS without losing reach. As adoption continues to grow, the gap between companies using RCS and those still relying on plain SMS will show up directly in conversion metrics.
