SMS vs email reminders for document requests
When should you reach for SMS over email? This is the practical breakdown — including how GSM-7 transliteration affects SMS pricing and what RequestLoops does about it.
Email is for first contact
Email is cheap, formal and threadable. For the first reminder and most second reminders, email is enough.
SMS is for the last mile
For stragglers, SMS lifts response rates significantly. Use it for the third or fourth reminder, or sooner for clients who never check email.
GSM-7 and segment count
Standard SMS uses the GSM-7 character set with 160 characters per segment. Characters outside GSM-7 (most accented Latin, all Cyrillic, all CJK) force UCS-2 encoding which drops to 70 characters per segment.
How RequestLoops handles encoding
RequestLoops transliterates accented Latin characters into their GSM-7 equivalents where it does not change meaning, keeping most reminders in a single segment. CJK content remains UCS-2.
When to escalate channel
Configure cadence per request: email at day 0, day 3 and day 7; SMS at day 10 and day 14. Reminders stop on submission.
FAQ
- Is SMS GDPR-compliant?
- Yes, when sent for a legitimate purpose (engagement performance) and with the recipient’s phone number provided by the account holder.
- Why do my SMS reminders cost more in some regions?
- Carrier rates vary by destination and by encoding. UCS-2 messages (Korean, Chinese, Cyrillic, accented French in some cases) use shorter segments and so cost more per equivalent message length.
- Can I disable SMS for specific recipients?
- Yes — recipients can be set to email-only, or can opt out themselves from the portal.
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