Global Leader in International Express

The global leader in international express, overland transport and air freight have been one of HSL's most loyal, long term customers. Currently, the company operates approximately 6,500 offices worldwide and handles more than 1.5 billion shipments per year.

The company's customer services department receives a high number of requests relating to the status of shipments, which have a costly demand on the department. Whilst such expense was required to be minimised, the company were also looking to extend their existing self-service package tracking capability to mobile users, being first to market with such a service ahead of its competitors.

Separately, the company were also looking to increase communication between its staff, most of whom have mobile telephones, and to provide a means for IT systems to initiate SMS messages to the mobile telephones of appropriate staff and customers. Such a requirement for IT systems was intended to enable integration into automated systems for notifying customers of events relating to operational systems.

HSL were therefore selected to provide services for shipment tracking by customers, communication to customers and internal communications between staff and with IT systems. The tracking service enables the company's customers to send an SMS text message containing the shipment number from their mobile telephone, the company's application then processes this request and initiates the shipment status back to the customer as an SMS text message.

The decision to select HSL was based on HSL's experience in providing services to world class organisations and their ability to fulfil customer requirements.

HSL's technically capable and highly reliable SMS delivery infrastructure comprises three geographically separate and independent customer facing sites, and links directly into the infrastructure of multiple mobile network operators. The configuration includes geographic redundancy and redundant links via different suppliers between all sites. This infrastructure enables HSL to offer clients over 99.9% availability Service Level Agreement.

The company has used the services provided by HSL to fulfil existing and new requirements which have arisen subsequent to the company's original requests being fulfilled. A large contributor to increased usage has come from business units within the company becoming aware of the availability of the SMS messaging service, the ease of use, and how this service can be applied to their own specific needs.

As such, multiple services are now provided by HSL to the company. For example, SIM hosting is used to provide inbound numbers to which the company's customers can send their tracking requests. SMTP email one-way utilising an alphanumeric source address is used to send outbound SMS messages to mobile telephones branded with the company's name so that customers can easily identify the company as the originator of the SMS. SMTP email two-way is also used to send SMS to mobile telephones using an inbound number as the originator address which enables replies to be sent from the recipient, which are then received by an email address within the company.

Leading Islamic Financial Institution Makes Use of SMS

One of the leading Islamic fast growing financial institutions in Saudi Arabia, serving affluent individuals and successful national companies in the region, have been making use of SMS services from HSL for a number of years as part of their mobile banking service.

Over the years the financial institution has achieved progressive growth providing customers with innovative, high quality Sharia-compliant banking and investment products in conventional and Islamic finance sectors. The bank currently operates 16 branches covering all major business areas throughout Saudi Arabia.

The financial institution, as part of their innovative approach to customer services, wished to communicate financial updates to their customers quickly and easily. As such, the financial institution identified SMS as an ideal communication method to meet their requirements.

HSL were therefore approached to provide SMS services that would allow them to communicate with their customers quickly, reliably and securely. The decision to use HSL was based on HSL's technically advanced and highly reliable SMS delivery infrastructure.

HSL's SMS delivery infrastructure comprises three geographically separate and independent customer facing sites, and links directly into the infrastructure of multiple mobile network operators. The configuration includes geographic redundancy and redundant links via different suppliers between all sites.

The financial institution have been making use of HSL's mobile messaging services for a number of years with their volumes of SMS continuing to increase. A branded originator address / source address is configured on the account which allows the financial institution's customers to immediately identify who the SMS message is received from. These information alerts allow the customer to be fully up-to-date on news quickly and conveniently.

The growth of SMS within the Middle Eastern marketplace and worldwide has been phenomenal over the last number of years with further growth anticipated. A number of corporate enterprises globally, both within the financial sector and various other sectors, are realising the potential of SMS as a corporate communication tool allowing them to increase efficiency and to help better serve their customer needs, delivering often critical messages quickly, reliably and in a time-sensitive manner.

SMS Used in Customer Relationship Management

Take A Byte runs an online customer relationship management system called ‘In-Contact’ which is used by a wide range of companies to keep track of their own customers and to record all contact with them. The system keeps track of all forms of contact – phone, email, posted letters, and of course, SMS text messages.

Given the popularity of mobile communications and the many advantages it has to offer, it makes sense to use SMS as one of the methods to keep in contact with customers. However, for a business this can present a problem – keeping a track of exactly what has been sent to any given customer.

When Take A Byte looked at providing an SMS service they needed a low cost method of integrating the ability to send text messages from their ‘In-Contact’ application and to keep a record of exactly what had been sent. HSL’s SMS service was perfect as it allowed Take A Byte to send a text message immediately from their application and to return a unique reference number to track the message to its final destination.

According to Damien Bhanji, Director of Take A Byte, “the best 2 things about the HSL SMS service are its speed and reliability.” He also commented that, “it always makes me smile when we demo our system to potential customers and a message is sent from our application to their phone in less than 4 seconds.”

As Take A Byte’s customers rely on their servers being operational 24/7 they built a server monitoring application 3 years ago to alert their support staff if there was a problem with a server. They needed a 100% reliable method of alerting staff and decided to use the HSL SMS service to send messages to support staff. This has worked very well and allows Take A Byte’s staff to ensure servers are operational again before impacting on service.

At present the ‘In-Contact’ application only allows messages to be sent to individual customers. Take A Byte are planning an extension to the in-built querying facility that will allow messages to be sent to groups of customers. They are going to be integrating HSL’s SMS messaging service into this as well as although email is the primary choice of distribution there are cases where sending to a phone is preferred, or is required in addition to email.

Take A Byte have considered other SMS services from other companies both at the beginning and whenever they review running costs. However, HSL’s highly reliable SMS service far outweighs any small savings in cost that have been offered by rivals so far and as a result Take A Byte have remained a client for over 4 years and are committed to HSL for all their current and future SMS requirements.

SMS Used for Emergency Weather Alerts

The Newmont Mining Corporation is one of the world's largest gold producers with operations on five continents. One of their mining operations, PT Newmont Nusa Tenggara (PTNNT) lies on the remote and tropical island of Sumbawa in Indonesia, close to the beaches of the Indian Ocean. The area is susceptible to Tsunamis and tropical cyclones so HSL (Hay Systems Ltd) was asked by the mine to install a new emergency alert warning system for over 7000 staff and the local communities to benefit from using their robust mobile messaging networks.

PTNNT uses information from the Indonesian Bureau for Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics to monitor tropical cyclones and potential Tsunamis in the area. If there is a warning, a command is activated through HSL’s mobile messaging technology which triggers a siren which is installed in 10 locations around the mine, each with a sound reach of up to five kilometers. The siren system immediately alerts the miners and the local communities to evacuate the area. PTNNT also use HSL’s technology to issue text messages to employees to give them further, more specific notifications.

Newmont carry out a drill of this procedure every month. Peter Ferrigno Sr. Manager Operations Support from PTNNT said: “The safety and safeguarding of our employees and communities is one of our core values and missions as a Mine and a Corporation. This technology has been used to aid us in achieving this by providing early warning system platforms for Tsunami’s in the hopes of providing sufficient time for reaction and evasive measures to be taken should an actual event occur. The technology helps the warnings to be more immediate and effective in alerting our communities and staff in case of an emergency.”

Global Security Company

HSL were selected by a leading global security company to provide essential components of two of their services used in high risk environments. The security company provides integrated risk mitigation solutions to multinational corporations, governments, non-governmental organisations and private individuals.

The security company has implemented a central control centre and tracking system for people and assets, comprising of units fitted into vehicles and devices which are carried by users. All of the devices include both GPS functionality to enable the vehicle or user to be tracked, and contain an "alert" button which is activated by the user should assistance be required. Upon activation the security company responds as per process previously agreed with the user's organisation. These responses range from phone calls to the user or user's organisation through to the despatch of an armed response team to the vehicle or user's location.

In order to achieve maximum global coverage and communication speed, the majority of these devices utilise GSM mobile phone networks for communication. SMS text messaging is utilised for remote configuration and for reporting location tracking information and any alert status to a central control centre.

To ensure any location tracking and alert status information is reliably delivered from the devices to the central control centre, HSL were selected to provide the SMS infrastructure and interfaces for the security company's tracking system. This decision was based on HSL's robust and redundant infrastructure and the availability of 24x7 technical support.

HSL's technically capable and highly reliable SMS delivery infrastructure comprises three geographically separate and independent customer facing sites, and links directly into the infrastructure of multiple mobile network operators. The configuration includes geographic redundancy and redundant links via different suppliers between all sites. This infrastructure enables HSL to offer clients over 99.9% availability Service Level Agreement.

The security company has also implemented an SMS text message customer alert system based on HSL's infrastructure and HSL's AlertBroadcast application.

When the security company is made aware, by both employees and intelligence sources, of the need for extra security due to an increased level of threat in at risk environments the HSL AlertBroadcast solution is favoured as a means of communication. As necessary, authorised security company staff can initiate an SMS text alert to a group of customers in any potentially affected locations by sending one SMS text message containing the required information from their mobile telephone to the HSL AlertBroadcast number, at any time, from anywhere. HSL's technically capable infrastructure then ensures that these time sensitive messages are delivered to users reliably and promptly.