Blocked or Opt-out Contacts: Who are they, what can you do & tips on how to retain them

Blocked or Opt-out Contacts: Who are they, what can you do & tips on how to retain them

Blocked or Opt-out respondents are those who have unsubscribed from your service by opting out to your short-code. Each contact on mobile has a right to agree and confirm whether they would like to send or receive any SMS communication from your short-code or Sender ID. This means that once contact has made this decision, you will be unable to send further communications to them.

Who are the Opted out Contacts?

Once a contact is opted out from your short codes or sender ID, you will be unable to see this contact(s) from your groups and they will no loner be available to receive any communication such a surveys, notices or outbox messages. To see who has opted-out in from your service each of your groups:
  1. Go to Groups, click on “Contacts”
  2. Click on the additional menu on your top right of the screen, 
  3. Click on “Show Opted Out Respondents”
  4. You will then see a list of the respondents who have opted out of your service. 
  5. Upon clicking on a contact’s profile,  If you have a respondent that you would like to be added back to your list of active users, you will have to request for an opt-in from Echo Mobile.
Echo Mobile also informs you of the number of people who have opted out of your service on a daily basis through the Email Digests. 

How does a contact opt out or block SMS from a Short code?

Opt out by sending an SMS with the word "STOP"

To comply with the Communication authority guidelines across the various countries, the Echo platform allows contacts to OPT out of receiving SMS from a short code by sending the word STOP. 
What happens when a contact sends the word STOP to a short code?
  1. Once a contact sends the word stop they are opted out. 
  2. Opted out contacts have a black dot. 
  3. No further messages will be sent to an opted out contact.
To opt this contact back into your communications with your short code, the contact MUST give their consent to your organization to do so. Once this is done, you will need send a written request to our support team by sending an email to support@echomobile.org  and the support will opt the contact back into your account.

Opt out by Spamming

Spam Messages (mostly is observed on SMS) refer to messages that are unusual, unwanted and suspicious from unknown contacts. Sometimes a phone number may generate high amounts of incoming traffic repeatedly over a short period of time that will be directed to your private service. Such messages can be identified on the Echo platform through our anti-spamming feature which blacklists the phone numbers and stops any incoming messages.
What the difference between Spamming vs Unsolicited Messages?
Unsolicited Messages (mostly is observed on SMS) refer to unexpected messages that come from contacts who are inadvertently sending messages to your private service  e.g. unrelated messages received as a result of a call to action from a radio program advertising which is promoting a short-code with the same prefixes as your private service. See more information on tips on handling unsolicited messages. 

How does the Echo platform's anti-spamming feature work?
  1. A contact sending the same message 8 times in a 5 minute period is marked as a spammer and are automatically opted out.
  2. Opted out contacts have a black dot. 
  3. No further messages will be sent to an opted out contact.
To opt this contact back into your communications with your short code, the contact MUST give their consent to your organization to do so. Once this is done, you will need send a written request to our support team by sending an email to support@echomobile.org  and the support will opt the contact back into your account.

Opt out by Blocking Premium SMS

Sometimes contacts cannot reply to any SMS messages from your short code. This is is because sometimes contact choose to block interactions with SMS on their own mobile devices and this blocking normally applies to short codes (such as 20788). Short codes are primarily used for premium rated services which charge consumers a higher SMS cost when sending messages. Short codes can be also configured to offer a toll-free experience to contacts and this is exactly how Echo Mobile uses this service.

Unfortunately, phone manufacturers do not recognize toll-free short codes versus premium-rated ones and the contacts may have blocked sending messages to short codes to avoid premium-rated services. Once this setting is enabled on the device, the contact from that point on cannot reply to any SMS messages from the short code and will affect all incoming messages or messages that will be sent from the contact's phone.



Why aren't these contacts are flagged on Echo Platform?
 As this is a phone device related process which may vary by phone manufacturer, this information cannot be collected or gathered to third party systems such as the Echo platform. Therefore it is important that the contacts disabled this functionality on their own if they want to interact with SMS messages from a short code.

For this contacts to opt back into your communications with your short codes, the contact must deactivate the blocked premium SMS feature on their phones. Searching Google for "how to unblock premium SMS permissions on X brand" should give you/ the contacts the necessary information on how to go about it.

Opt outs by Blacklisting 

Kenya and *456*9*5# 

To counter increasing complaints of spamming within the Republic of Kenya, the Communication Authority of Kenya introduced additional requirements to protect mobile users against unsolicited marketing messages and  premium codes that deduct airtime from the users  phones.  

Mobile Network Operators ( also known as MNO's) are now required to provide mobile users with an option to opt out of receiving unwanted messages from a short code or sender ID. For Safaricom, users can opt out of receiving messages from a specific short code or sender ID by dialing *456*9*5# and entering the short code on sender ID they want to stop receiving messages from. 

When a contact dials the *456*9*5# , the following actions are taken:
  1. Once a user dials *456*9*5# and enters a short code, that short code's blacklist. 
  2. The blacklisting is done at the Mobile Network Operators  level. 
  3. A blacklist is a list of short codes or sender ID's that a user does not want to receive SMS from. 
  4. When an SMS is sent to a user from a short code in their blacklist, the mobile network operator for example Safaricom, does not deliver the SMS. The SMS fails and Safaricom gives "UserInBlacklist" as the delivery failure reason.
To opt this contact back into your communications with your short code or sender ID, the contact  can dial *456*9*5# to view their blacklist or to add or remove codes from their blacklist. ONLY the contact can add or remove or instruct mobile network provider to add or remove codes from their blacklist. 

Why aren't these blacklisted contacts are flagged on Echo Platform?
This is because the blacklist data sits with the mobile network providers e.g. Safaricom. Safaricom does not avail blacklists to vendors. The only way for Echo to know that a User is in a blacklist is after trying to send an SMS and the SMS fails and the mobile network providers gives "UserInBlacklist" as the failure reason. 

Uganda and *196#

Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) requires all Telecommunications service providers, Information and Content providers to implement an opt-out method using 196. ( Do Not Disturb (DnD) register).
What is a Do Not Call / Do Not Disturb registry? It is a registry i.e. *196# that allows the phone user to opt-out of telemarketing messages and calls addressed to your phone number.
What happens when a contact dials the *196# , the following actions are taken: ?
  1. The mobile subscriber in Uganda *196#
  2. The contact provides which Sender IDs and short codes they would like to block or restrict
  3. All or some messages sent from Sender IDs and short codes will not be delivered the phone number. 
To opt this contact back into your communications with your short code or sender ID, the contact  can dial *196# to view their Do Not Disturb (DnD) register and allow communication from the short code or sender ID. ONLY the contact can add or remove or instruct mobile network provider to add or remove codes from their  Do Not Disturb (DnD) register.

Why aren't these Do Not Disturb (DnD) register contacts are not flagged on Echo Platform?
This is because the Do Not Disturb (DnD) register data sits with the mobile network providers e.g. MTN or Airtel. MTN or Airtel does not avail blacklists to vendors. One of the ways to identify if your contacts have your short code or sender ID on their Do Not Disturb (DnD) register is if none of the messages sent out are delivered to the phone. 

Tips to Minimize the number of Opt-outs from Your Services:

  1. Target your mobile campaigns. Leverage Echo Mobile’s segmentation features to better communicate with a specified group of respondents.
  2. When you run a mobile campaign make sure you only reach out to respondents who will most likely want to know more about your product or service.
  3. Provide useful content to the people who you are communicating with. If they see the value of the information you are providing them, they will not unsubscribe.
  4. Have a consistent and well-planned communication strategy.
  5. Build a relationship with your clients. Many times, it takes the question of “Are they listening to me” to get a respondent to opt-out if the answer to the question is “No”. Be responsive when respondents reach out to you and they will return the favor.
Let us know other tips you have that could possibly reduce the number of opt-outs you have or if you have any questions on this, please feel free to drop an email to support@echomobile.io.  




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