Success Billing Ratios (SBR)

Here's one of the industry's dirty little secrets. Not all Premium SMS transactions succeed. As a matter of fact, many will fail. Each failed message is lost revenue for the customer, and brings down significantly the average outpayment per message. The ability of a gateway provider to actively manage SBRs and minimize failure rates is therefore one of the most important criteria anyone should use in their selection of a gateway provider. It is significantly more important than the outpayment rates themselves.

The average SBRs we have seen for 2005 are as follows:

Verizon Wireless: 93.4% (i.e. 93.4% of PSMS transactions succeed)
Cingular Orange: 72.3%
Cingular Blue: 60.7%
Tmobile: 54.1%
Nextel/Boost: 54.4%
Sprint: 55%
Alltel: 52%
Dobson: 69.8%

What explains these failure rates ? The reasons tend to be carrier specific, such as:
Cingular/Tmobile: Prepaid phones are not supported (Tracfones, or other). Hence all PSMS messages sent to prepaid subscribers will fail.
Nextel/Boost: Subscribers need to set up an eWallet with the carrier before they are allowed to receive Premium billed messages. Many subscribers don't do that.
Sprint: Sprint's outpayment statement now have a 'pending validation' clause, meaning that the carrier reserves the right to retroactively correct any mistakes in their outpayment statements. This is due to the fact that Sprint used to accept and pay out on MSISDNs that did not belong to their network.
Alltel/Dobson: If a subscriber complains to Alltel or Dobson customer support, they will automatically be blocked from receiving ANY Premium SMS messages

The biggest reason why PSMS messages fail (can account for up to 20% difference between success and failed messages) is because customers submit the wrong carrier information along with the Premium SMS message. Quios has solved this problem for its customers by looking up the carrier in its LNP (Local Number Portability) databases, hence ensuring that the message always gets delivered to the right carrier. As a result, the Quios SBRs are one of the best in the industry.

Summarizing:
SBRs are the single most important determinant of success and profitability of any PSMS campaign. Select a gateway provider based on its ability to manage SBR ratios. Ask your provider about their average SBRs. If they don't know, they probably don't manage it very well....