Get Started with RCS and Twilio

Get Started with RCS and Twilio

Now that iOS joined Android to support RCS Messages, business communication traditionally served by SMS can be effortlessly upgraded to branded messaging through RCS, Rich Communication Services.

RCS is a protocol used to deliver rich messages from verified senders over your internet connection or carrier networks, and messages arrive directly in the recipient's native messaging app. RCS supports larger media files, interactive and clickable elements, longer messages, read receipts, and more. If your phone and carrier support it – and your recipient's carrier, as well – the messaging app on your phone might show the distinction like this:

Do you see the little chat bubble over the profile icon for the second recipient above?

When you’re texting with traditional SMS, the prompt at the bottom of your messaging app might look like this:

However, if you and your intended recipient are both using RCS, then it might look like this:

More and more businesses are taking advantage of RCS messaging to increase customer engagement. That’s because RCS allows for branded communication. You can send RCS messages with your brand name and logo, which increases customer trust.

Is it hard to set up? Not at all. Twilio recently launched its public beta for RCS messaging, and in this article, we’ll walk you through the steps to send your business’s first RCS message. Here’s what we’ll cover:

1. Joining the Twilio RCS Public Beta
2. Creating an RCS Sender profile
3. Setting up a test recipient
4. Sending your first RCS message
5. Tracking message delivery insights
6. Submitting an application for sender compliance review

Ready? Let’s go.

Join the Twilio RCS Public Beta

Your first step in this process is to sign up for a Twilio account. It’s free. Then, visit Twilio’s RCS Business Messaging page and click Get started.

Complete the form to request access to the RCS messaging beta. You’ll need to provide your Twilio account SID. You can find this on the Account Dashboard page in your Twilio Console.

After Twilio receives and reviews your request, you'll be added to the beta and notified by email. Now, in the Twilio Console, you'll see the RCS beta listed under the available products for programmable communications.

You can click the icon to pin the RCS feature to your quick nav on the left side of your dashboard.

Create an RCS Sender profile

After joining the RCS beta, you need to create an RCS Sender for your account. An RCS Sender is associated with your business and needs to pass certain sender verification and compliance requirements. Larger businesses may create multiple RCS Senders, representing different business units or marketing groups or for reaching different customer segments.

For our walkthrough, we’ll create a single RCS Sender for our business. Begin by clicking Create new.

The fictitious business for our demo is a company called Coding + Coffee, a coffee merchandise company for coders. When you create your RCS Sender, provide a display name for your Sender. This should be your business (or brand) name, as this is what will be displayed to recipients whenever they receive a message from you.

Next, you’ll need to provide additional profile information. Provide a description of your company (up to 100 characters).

Then, provide some information and links related to your branding. First, select a border color that matches your business design guidelines. Then, you will need to provide a logo image and a large banner image. The specifications for each image are provided for you.

You will need to provide a link for both assets that is publicly accessible so that Twilio and our RCS providers can download them. If you do not already have a publicly accessible URL for these assets, you may use Twilio Assets to upload them to Twilio and generate publically accessible URLs.

After setting up your sender profile, Twilio previews what your brand will look like in a messaging application:

Set up a test recipient

Next, send a test RCS message from your newly created RCS Sender. After creating your sender, click Add device to test this sender.

You’ll be asked to provide the phone number of a test recipient. It must be one whose carrier and device support RCS messaging.

After you enter a number and click Invite, the recipient at that number will receive an invitation to be a tester. Here’s what it looks like on that device:

On that test device, click the link to Make me a tester, which accepts the invitation and authorizes your RCS Sender to send test messages.

Send your first RCS message

Back in the Twilio console, you’ll see that the test recipient has accepted your tester invitation. Now, you can send your first RCS message. Provide some basic content for a test message, like this:

Click Send test message. Your test device will receive the RCS message:

You’ve sent your first RCS message!

Notice that the brand name, logo, and description are displayed, along with the blue check mark indicating a verified sender.

Once you have full RCS sending ability (not just testing, like we’re doing here), you’ll be able to take advantage of sending rich content, large media files, and interactive elements.

Track message delivery insights

Twilio also offers detailed information about your message delivery, which you can use for tracking and metrics. Message Delivery Insights is available for all programmable messaging facilities, including SMS and RCS. To access it from the Twilio Console, you can search for it in the product search bar at the top of the page.

When you click on Message Delivery Insights, you’ll see the feature now available under the Monitor tab of the quick nav on the left side of your page.

The Messaging Insights page provides an overview of all your messaging stats. If you click on the Delivery & Errors tab, you can see a dashboard with the delivery status for your outbound messages.

You can drill down to see a list of specific messages and their statuses on a given day.

Click View List of Messages to pull up the messages that fit your criteria. In this case, we’re looking for all messages with “Read” delivery status that were sent on a specific day.

You can drill down even further by clicking on a specific message in the list.

These message details can help you troubleshoot failed message sends, capture campaign metrics, and track cost and timing numbers.

Submit an application for sender compliance review

We’ve walked you through nearly all the steps to get your business up and running with RCS messaging. However, before your RCS Sender can message users in a given country or region who are not added as testers, it needs to be approved by Twilio’s RCS providers.

Before continuing to the compliance step, make sure your RCS Sender’s profile information meets your brand’s guidelines by using the Test feature. Once you submit the compliance information in the next step, the RCS Sender’s profile will no longer be able to be edited.

In this step, you’ll be asked to choose the country (or countries) where you will be sending RCS messages. One benefit of RCS (highlighted again on this screen) is that the same RCS Sender can be approved to send messages to users in different countries.

Next, you’ll need to provide screenshots or a video showing sample messages along with your opt-out flow. In order to avoid re-approval when expanding to new use cases, you’ll need to include both promotional and marketing messages as well as transactional and utility messages. You can use the Test feature from the previous step to help with this.

Next, provide information about how your users will interact with your RCS Sender.

Finally, submit your contact information. Twilio’s RCS providers may reach out for additional information, so this should reach a person who is authorized to represent your RCS Sender’s brand.

After completing this form, take one more look over everything including your Sender’s branded profile. Once you submit you won’t be able to edit the Sender. Once you’re satisfied, check the box and click Create. Your newly created RCS Sender will then be sent to Twilio’s RCS providers for review.

While this final step of compliance review may seem like a lot to go through, it’s a necessary step. As a business, you want the review team to vet all RCS Senders thoroughly before they grant a verified sender check mark. This protects customers and helps build trust, and it sets legitimate businesses apart from scammers and spammers.

After completing the compliance review step and receiving approval, you can begin leveraging the incredible messaging features unavailable to you with other messaging channels.

Conclusion

RCS messaging can help modern businesses take a giant leap in how they communicate with customers to drive engagement. As we’ve seen, getting started is straightforward – you can start the process now.

Get started today by joining Twilio’s RCS public beta!