AIME Sponsor Member OpenMarket chosen to power mobile donations for Sport Relief

Comic Relief, the UK charity that uses entertainment to raise money to help poor and disadvantaged people at home and overseas, has chosen leading mobile engagement company and AIME Sponsor Member OpenMarket to drive SMS mobile donations for its 2014 Sport Relief fundraising campaign.

“We chose OpenMarket for its proven track record in the charity sector, delivering a reliable mobile platform that can scale to support  multiple concurrent fundraising projects, all running nationwide,” said Jacqueline Hill, Head of Campaign Management at Comic Relief.  “We were particularly impressed by OpenMarket’s in-depth knowledge of the mobile donations domain and the speed with which they delivered a solution that met all of the needs of our 2014 Sport Relief campaign.”

The OpenMarket platform supports text-based donations for more than 20 separate Sport Relief fundraising projects across the UK. OpenMarket is providing four charity donation SMS short codes so that donors have the choice of donating different amounts of money via SMS.  The SMS donation campaign began on January 13 with special Sport Relief editions of the BBC show “The Great British Bake Off”. The programme featured an on-screen message that invited viewers to donate money by sending a text message to a short code supplied and managed by OpenMarket. The campaign will continue with other shows and events, culminating with the Sport Relief Games on March 23.

Comic Relief is the latest charity to enlist OpenMarket’s help for its mobile requirements. The Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) is currently using the OpenMarket Mobile Engagement Platform for donations made via Premium SMS for its Philippines Typhoon relief appeal. Children in Need, the BBC’s charity for disadvantaged children and young people in the UK, also used OpenMarket for SMS-based mobile donations for its 2013 campaign.

“Our selection to support Sport Relief reinforces OpenMarket’s market position as the mobile provider of choice for major charities and high profile broadcast campaigns,” said Adrian Sarosi, Director of Marketing and Business Development at OpenMarket EMEA. “With the experience and insight of our team, plus the tried-and-tested reliability of our technology, organisations can properly capitalise on the value of mobile devices as an affordable, convenient and flexible channel to reach and engage with large numbers of end-users.”

Sport Relief is one of the UK’s biggest fundraising events, and encourages people to raise money through sponsored sport-related events and activities leading up to the weekend of Friday March 21 to Sunday March 23 2014.  The money raised is spent by Comic Relief to support projects helping poor and disadvantaged people in the UK and around the world. Supporters of the cause can text FIVE to 70510 to donate £5, terms and conditions apply. Texts cost £5 plus the standard network charges and donors must be 16 or over and have the bill payer’s permission.

 

AIME Sponsor Member Oxygen8 launches multi-channel card payment solution

o8_logoAIME Sponsor Member Oxygen8 has launched Oxygen8PAY, a PCI compliant e-commerce, mobile and IVR card payment solution designed to simplify merchants’ card payment operations through a range of communication channels.

Complementing and integrating with Oxygen8’s current portfolio of products, such as mobile marketing platform Evolve and its Web Page Builder tool, Oxygen8PAY provides a full service proposition to businesses looking to engage with customers across multiple channels.

The solution creates a quick and easy method of paying for products without the need for costly human resource. As a PCI compliant solution, Oxygen8PAY also holds a highly robust infrastructure with established policies and processes in place to ensure optimal security.

Commenting on the launch, Maria Grant, Head of Product Development at Oxygen8 said: “We are delighted to be enhancing our product portfolio with the launch of Oxygen8PAY, which offers customers a complete and incredibly feature-rich payment proposition. The solution will introduce significant benefits to merchants, ranging from improving the measurement of ROI to full visibility of real-time reporting on transactions. It will also minimise human error and improve consumer confidence, which will help improve brand reputation.”

Oxygen8PAY includes:
• A flexible and scalable cloud platform: Oxygen8PAY can be integrated with existing payment solutions quickly and easily. The low set-up costs and high levels of stability ensure that merchants are provided with a cost-effective and reliable platform

• Multi-device capabilities: Businesses can view Oxygen8PAY on the move. The platform is not only viewable on a desktop, but is also available on a mobile device and tablet, making the solution easily accessible at any time

• Trusted global payments: Oxygen8PAY has the capability to authorise and settle card payments promptly from anywhere in the world, increasing global reach

• Real-time dashboard: Oxygen8PAY’s dashboard, which can be viewed on any device, provides quick and easy analysis of transactions, meaning that businesses can measure ROI in an efficient and timely manner

Oxygen8 has the capacity to help businesses add new payment channels to existing services efficiently, providing support through the application, set up and implementation process.

AIME sponsor member IMImobile and O2 launch Twitter Self-Care service ‘#TweetServe’

download (8)IMImobile, a global provider of end-to-end mobile engagement software and solutions to telecom operators, enterprises and media companies, is partnering with O2 to launch #TweetServe, a new innovative Twitter based customer service offering from O2.

Believed to be a world first in the mobile operator world, #TweetServe merges the mobile and social channels to allow O2 customers to use Twitter for a range of customer service enquiries. The new service, developed in partnership with Telefónica, forms part of IMImobile’s wider multi-channel contact strategy solution offering, which is focused on enabling customer self-care services to help mobile operators and enterprises reduce operational costs of in-bound calls into call centres whilst increasing loyalty and improving customer satisfaction.

With a fundamental shift of consumer behaviour, companies now need to take the next step into digitally led Customer Service in order to make it easier for customers to interact with a business. #TweetServe is O2’s response to this change in consumer behaviour, forming part of their customer service transformation and call avoidance strategy, which has already achieved a redu

ction of one million voice calls per month compared to two years ago.
“With our customers’ expectation of customer service fundamentally changing and with the largest number of Twitter followers across mobile operators in the UK, we are excited to keep pushing the boundaries of social media.” said Feilim Mackle, Sales and Service Director at Telefónica UK.

#TweetServe is available to Pay Monthly and Pay & Go customers in the UK. After completing a simple and secure sign up process, custome

rs can send hashtag commands via Twitter’s Direct Messaging ( DM ) functionality to gain instant access to the most common customer service enquiries, such as balance enquiries for texts, minutes, data usage or future upgrade information.
Jay Patel, CEO of IMImobile explains: “We are excited to have developed #TweetServe in partnership with Telefónica. The service for

ms part of the next generation of digital customer services, delivering easy and direct access to the most common service requests. We are committed to keep supporting Telefónica as they transform their digitally led customer service strategy.”

To find out more about #TweetServe please visit www.imimobile.com/twitterselfcare

 

AIME sponsor member TxtNation connects in Uruguay for mobile billing

As a part of a push to increase global reach with its mobile billing and messaging solutions, txtNation is now connected in Uruguay, enabling businesses to accept mobile payments in the country.

With a population of around 3.3 million, Uruguay is a comparatively small country, however, it is a regional leader in both fixed and mobile telecoms, with a mobile penetration of more than 150%. Figures from the World Bank show that Uruguay’s GDP per capita reached $13,866 in 2011.

Internet users in Uruguay are moving to mobile at a high rate, especially compared to other countries in South America. According to the Unidad Reguladora de Servicios de Comunicaciones ( URSEC ), mobile broadband use in Uruguay is has been greatly increasing in recent years, with 5 million mobile connections in the country in December 2012, a 5% increase on the previous year.

txtNation can now offer mobile operator billing across the networks Ancel, CTI and Movistar with customer price points / tariffs available across 10.000 To 27.000 UYG. The new shortcode for Uruguay has been added to txtNation platform and is live now.

Ashley Cross, COO at txtNation explains: “We are delighted to announce our connectivity in Uruguay. We will now be looking to introduce current and clients into that market. Mobile use in Uruguay is still growing, so this is a great opportunity for businesses to reach new customers.”

This follows a successful year of increasing connectivity on a global scale for txtNation, as the award-winning provider of mobile billing and messaging solutions has launched direct operator billing in Switzerland and Belgium as well as connecting in various countries around the world.