Airship Launches RCS Messaging

Mobile-first customer experience company Airship now supports RCS (Rich Communication Services) mesasaging to help companies create rich, two-way conversations that build customer trust, combat the rise of SMS fraud, and accelerate business outcomes.

RCS upgrades traditional texting within the native messaging app on consumers' phones. The channel provides verified sender profiles that display company name, logo and a verification badge. It also supports rich media like carousels and high-resolution images as well as interactive elements like suggested replies, buy-now buttons, and actions that guide customers to their next steps.

Airship has embedded RCS natively into its platform, allowing marketers to use existing SMS workflows to send RCS messages. The platform intelligently determines if customer devices support RCS and automatically falls back to SMS or MMS if they don't. This allows teams to orchestrate end-to-end journeys that coordinate RCS with push notifications, email, mobile wallets, and personalized content embedded in apps and websites. Companies also gain access to engagement metrics unavailable with SMS, such as read receipts, which, together with actions RCS recipients take, provide deeper insights to fuel ongoing engagement and optimize campaign performance.

"Trust is the currency of today's digital economy, and it's most often won or lost starting where customers are—on their mobile devices," said Brett Caine, CEO of Airship, in a statement. "The addition of RCS to our platform provides our clients with a powerful new way to create the trusted, seamless experiences customers expect and accelerate conversions, growth, and lasting loyalty."