RCS (Rich Communication Services) in partnership with Google would be bringing its service to all Android. RCS is a Mobile industry that allows business brands to send messages in form of multimedia-rich messages to Android users.
Quite impressive right? With the help of RCS, business brand would be able to communicate with their customers directly without obstructions. Google has also worked with businesses so they can send out interactive messages to users, rather than standard text messages; businesses hope that this will increase customer interaction.
So, instead of receiving a text from short-numbers informing about your example, hotel room that it has been book, RCS will help business send you the hotel’s address, a picture of your room, and quick-reply buttons where you can immediately chat with somebody probably, to get more attractive environment.
The downside here is that only a dozen or so companies are on board after a year of work, including the likes of 1-800-flowers, 1-800-contacts, DHL, Booking.com, and Subway.
Google partnered with Booking.com where they can send customers text and some hyperlinks, and that’s it. But with RCS messaging, Booking.com can send a photo, formatted text, and even buttons to add the customer’s booked trip to their calendar.
For the availability for all, it seems continuous struggling, though, Google has a handful of companies on board for the business-to-consumer connections, and for the system to work correctly, users need to be on specific devices, using specific apps, on specific networks. If any one of those criteria isn’t met, the RCS message defaults back to a regular text message.
Meanwhile, they are a lot of companies supporting this RCS view and of course, it is enlightening to hear about, many Android users are already waiting for the official release, saying they are tired of the OLD SMS.
The customers they are trying to connect to must be running an updated version of Android Messages as their default SMS app, and their devices must be on the (US) Sprint network.
In the announcement, Google said:
“With RCS, businesses can send more useful and interactive messages to their customers. This means, for example, that a retailer can send beautiful images to their products, rather than a text message, and even let the customer select and buy something, all without leaving the messaging app. Best of all, customers who have already opted into SMS messages from a business get this upgraded experience automatically in Android Messages.”
Google said that some businesses in the U.S. are already benefiting from RCS, but that it will bring the functionality to businesses in more regions in the future. Which would be amazing to hear about as we would welcome any upgrade.
According to their blog, the follow mobile phone manufacturers TCL, Alcatel, Blackberry, Transsion, BLU, Positivo, Multilaser, Mobiwire, Azumi, and Essential are joining Google to ship Android Messages as the default messaging app to customers on new devices, in order to get it into the hands of as many people that it can.
Anyways, Google is promising to speak more of the RCS news during the MWC 2018 that will kick-off on the 25th, Sunday and officially commence on 26th, Monday.
