RCS for Business offers a comprehensive suite of features meticulously crafted to optimize user experiences, ensuring efficient and effective communication on the native messaging platform. Dive deeper to explore each of these features detailed below, all designed to elevate the way businesses interact via RCS.
Rich Content Features
RCS moves beyond plain text to support rich, interactive content, creating a more dynamic, app-like experience.
- Rich Cards: Rich cards provide a structured way to present content, combining media, text, and interactive buttons into a single message. RCS supports two primary layout orientations to best fit the brand's visual goals:
- Vertical Layout:
- Designed for a "hero" experience where media is stacked on top of the text and buttons.
- Customizable Media Height: For vertical cards, businesses can explicitly set the height of the media within the card.
- Horizontal Layout:
- Designed for a compact view where media is positioned alongside the text.
- Image Alignment: Agents can specify the thumbnail image alignment to ensure the preview is positioned correctly within the card.
- Fixed Height: In this layout, media height is not customizable, and the field is ignored by the system.
- Core Card Components
- Media Content: Supports images and videos to create a more dynamic, app-like experience.
- Rich Text: Includes a title and a description, with the description supporting up to 2000 characters for detailed information.
- Suggested Actions: Each card can be configured with buttons—such as Request Location Action or Create Calendar Event Action—to trigger native device functions.
- Thumbnail Optimization: Includes the ability to provide a thumbnail URL for quick loading and consistent aspect ratios.
- Rich Card Carousels: Carousels provide a high-impact, horizontally scrollable interface consisting of multiple rich cards (up to 10) within a single message. This format is ideal for showcasing product catalogs, multiple service options, or step-by-step guides.
- Customizable Card Width: To ensure visual consistency with your brand's design language, card widths can be set to Small, Medium, or Unspecified.
- Media and Thumbnail Integration: Each card in the carousel supports its own media (image or video) and a dedicated thumbnail URL to ensure fast, optimized loading even on slower networks.
- Content and Interaction:
- Rich Text: Each individual card includes its own title and a description of up to 2000 characters.
- Native Actions: Individual cards can be configured with up to four suggested actions, such as Create Calendar Event Action or Open URL with WebView, tailored to the specific content of that card.
- Enhanced Discovery: Because carousels are horizontally scrollable, they reduce vertical clutter in the chat transcript while maintaining a high volume of interactive options for the consumer.
- Quick Replies: Present customers with a set of tappable buttons to guide the conversation. When a user taps a reply, a pre-defined text value is sent back to the agent, making it ideal for menus or yes/no questions.
- Suggested Actions: Send buttons that trigger specific native actions on the user's device:
- Open URL: Launches the user’s default web browser to a specified link.
- Open URL with WebView: Loads a webpage directly inside the messaging app for a seamless, in-app experience.
- Initiate a Phone Call: Opens the user's phone dialer with a pre-filled number.
- Share Location: Allows the user to view a specific location on their default map application.
- Request Location Action: Triggers a native prompt for the consumer to share their precise current location back to the agent for real-time services.
- Create Calendar Event: Opens the user's default calendar app and starts the new calendar event flow with the agent-specified event data pre-filled.
- File Sharing: RCS for Business supports the seamless, two-way exchange of standalone files to provide high-value resources directly within the conversation transcript.
- High-Fidelity Media: Supports high-definition media delivery without the compression typical of traditional SMS/MMS.
- Native Audio Interaction: Audio files (e.g., .mp3, .aac, .ogg) render with a native widget, allowing users to play, pause, and seek directly in the messaging app.
- Document Handling: PDF files render with a preview, enabling consumers to download or open the file in their device's default viewer.
- Visual Previews: Agents can provide a thumbnail for media files to show a preview while the full file downloads, ensuring the aspect ratio matches the original file to prevent distortion.
- Technical Limits & Configuration
- Agent-to-Consumer File Sizes: For files sent from an agent to a consumer, all media files are limited to 5 MB. PDF documents are supported with a higher limit of 15 MB.
- Message Payload: Only one file may be sent per individual message.
- Supported Formats:
- Images: .jpeg, .jpg, .gif, .png.
- Videos: .mp4, .mpeg, .webm, .m4v.
- Audio: .mp3, .aac, .ogg, .3gpp.
- Documents: .pdf.
- Detailed Documentation: For more specific details on agent-side configurations and requirements, refer to the Agent File Sharing Overview.
- Engagement Indicators: Foster trust and transparency by providing real-time feedback during the conversation:
- Read Receipts: Consumers and brands can see exactly when a message has been read, confirming their query is under review.
- Typing Indicators: Agents see when a consumer is typing to prevent overlapping messages. Consumers see when an agent is typing, providing assurance that a response is underway.
Key Benefits
- App-Like Experiences: RCS moves beyond plain text to provide rich, interactive, and structured content—such as high-fidelity media and carousel navigation—directly within the native messaging platform.
- Streamlined Workflows: Interactive buttons, quick replies, and direct file exchange remove the friction of manual typing, accelerating resolution times and simplifying complex tasks like document verification.
- Native Device Integration: Powerful suggested actions like Open URL, Initiate a Phone Call, Request Location Action and Create Calendar Event Action leverage native device capabilities to provide real-time services and seamless scheduling without leaving the app.
- Verified Security & Transparency: Real-time engagement indicators and the ability to share uncompressed, high-fidelity resources foster consumer trust and significantly reduce conversation abandonment.
- High-Impact Conversions: Structured rich cards and carousels with clear, visual calls to action drive higher engagement and conversion rates compared to standard text links.
Configuration & Enablement
- Engagement indicators and File Sharing: These are enabled by default for all RCS agents.
- Quick Replies and Suggested Actions: These are configurable via the Universal Interaction in Conversation Builder or via a widget in the Agent Workspace. For more information, refer our Developer Portal.