Last week I attended the Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2019 in LA which brought great insights about the changes on the horizon for mobile expanding functionality, 5G and in particular the SMS evolution to RCS -- Rich Communication Service. If you haven't heard about RCS, don't fret. The technology has been in development since 2007 (rcrwirelesss.com), but had some obstacles to overcome such as price confusion and rollout through mobile operators. The message at MWC2019 is that there are no longer barriers and that RCS is real and rolling out even as we speak.

Built on the backbone of 5G the operators who recently made a commitment to drive global usage with alignment via the GSMA, RCS allows businesses to create experiences for their customers that enable them to get their "work to be done" or "fun to be had" in a much more interactive, seamless and frictionless way. According to Tatango.com, "RCS is essentially a better text messaging protocol as it allows you to add rich media elements, such as buttons, chatbots, and high definition images to a message. This is a great enhanced messaging solution for mobile marketers."

This is indeed an amazing opportunity for both product developers and marketers to explore and build this future that is moving to "conversational communication" that allows a customer to speak directly to their beloved (hopefully) brands. One brand already created a great "beer in your seat" ordering app for stadiums that is both fun, practical, conversational and showed 80 - 85% conversion rates in the very first use. And a train system in Europe has successfully used it to enhance its rider's commuting experience by combining on demand schedule information right in the message vs. a link out to a webpage and a chat feature when you realize you really did miss your train (or stop).

I encourage anyone who hasn't heard about it to start getting informed about RCS and start imagining what's possible!

Images from MWC2019 - Los Angeles as presented by Liz McCord, Principal Product Manager at Vodafone.