“Today, the vast majority of customer communications goes over the mobile communication channels,” Jay Patel, Group Chief Executive of IMImobile, told Information Age. Patel was speaking soon after it was confirmed that British provider IMImobile PLC, announced that it has conditionally agreed to acquire 3Cinteractive Corp, a private US, cloud-based mobile customer engagement platform company.
The deal would see IMImobile acquiring complementary product capabilities and a new blue-chip customer base in North America.
Patel explained further that communication can be “chat, messaging, email, etcetera.
“Therefore mobile needs to be the central consideration when it comes to managing customer interactions.
“The challenge many companies face is that mobile wasn’t originally on the agenda when their IT systems were put in place, which has resulted in a ‘best effort’ mobile experience to date.
“RCS is the next evolution of mobile messaging, enabling enterprises to deliver rich customer experiences to today’s digitally engaged consumers. The combination of 3Cinteractive’s mobile engagement solutions and pioneering RCS experience, alongside our enterprise CPaaS (Communications Platform as a Service) offering, will enable companies to design, build and launch interactive mobile messaging journeys at speed and scale.”
According to industry analysts Mobilesquared,over 3.5 billion people will use RCS by 2023 and business spend will grow to more than $11.4 billion. For the past three years, 3Cinteractive has been working in close partnership with the GSMA and global mobile carriers to make RCS the preferred messaging channel for brands and enterprises. 3Cintereractive has deployed RCS with customers including Walgreens, Best Buy and Express.
IMImobile’s enterprise CPaaS (Communications Platform as a Service) cloud communications platform, IMIconnect, enables businesses to intelligently create, manage and automate end-to-end digital customer communications across multiple channels. Earlier this year, IMImobile announced the release of its unified RCS messaging API. Through the API and alongside IMIconnect’s low-code tools and visual workflow builder, enterprises can design, build and launch RCS messaging journeys at speed and scale.
“3Cinteractive adds impressive experience in dealing directly with the most sophisticated consumer-oriented brands, while working closely with the mobile operators in the US on RCS and more. Together we will be ideally positioned to serve the needs of the entire enterprise communications ecosystem with RCS and the IMImobile enterprise CPaaS offering,” commented Bruce Bales, North American Chief Executive of IMImobile.
John Duffy, Founder and Chief Executive Officer at 3Cinteractive, commented, “We believe RCS is the next evolution of mobile messaging, enabling enterprises to deliver rich customer experiences to today’s digitally engaged consumers. IMImobile and 3Cinteractive share the same vision and core values, so we are excited to be joining the IMImobile Group to move faster and on a global scale to address this rapidly growing and exciting market.”
See also: Rich communication services: the SMS reboot – Just before this year’s MWC in Feb, Google announced a significant step forward in messaging with its answer to Apple’s iMessage – Android-based messaging based on the RCS standard
