I’ve noticed a couple of times in the past week restaurants in random places advertising an SMS short code for people to text and receive coupons in return. The first was last week up in Cedar City, Utah — a town of about 25,000 people — and the second was just the other day here in Las Vegas. Both were small, independent places, not part of big chains, which makes me wonder if this practice is becoming more widespread across the country.
Obviously this is no great technological feat, nor anything advanced on a global scheme. But to see it in places like Cedar City, which really is a small town (though one with 6600 college students and half its population 24 or younger) makes me think it’s really beginning to take off.
I did not get it. The guest sends an SMS to a short code and gets a coupon. Why should the restaurant owner want that? Is this the permission to send more SMS in the future?
hi, carlo.
greetings from amsterdam.
during the past couple years we worked on the retail experience for our client and could experience the use of short codes in some applications.
our client decided to reduce its implementation, because it becomes very unreliable for international users.
we tried this in Helsinki, NY, Chicago, etc.
many times different operators don’t allow short code numbers interoperability,
and that kinda sucks when you want the user to participate actively to a retail installations.
I keep liking the opportunity, though.
[...] MobHappy » Blog Archive » A Growing Trend, or Maybe Just a Coincidence (tags: LeftAComment) [...]