Transitions to new technology infrastructure always involve a degree of risk. Even when your existing SMS provider is delivering underwhelming performance and cost-efficiency, there’s short-term stability and comfort in the status quo.

But that comfort comes at a long-term cost. Faced with the opportunity to transition its SMS API to a superior platform, many enterprise businesses get hung up on the following concerns:

The potential cost of changing providers

No matter how much money your business can save in the long run, change requires an upfront investment. Enterprise IT must commit time and resources to managing this switch. Your SMS messaging strategy may be impacted, forcing you to hit pause on campaigns that generate revenue for your business.

The growing pains of switching your API provider are only worth it if you’re moving to a competent, proven partner. Not only will you benefit from better long-term performance and ROI, but you’ll also enjoy a smoother transition thanks to your new partner’s built-in support and resources. 

The right SMS provider can help you achieve new messaging cost-efficiencies while controlling some of the costs associated with this up-front investment.

Resource-intensive development workloads

Many businesses switching their SMS provider need to schedule development work to fully integrate their own technologies with the new SMS API. Some of this development may be focused on API connectivity, but other development workloads may be focused on integration with the company’s CRM and other tools.

However many businesses, even those at the enterprise level, may not have the appropriate development resources to allocate for this project. Some internal developer teams won’t have the bandwidth to take on an SMS migration.

Without a partner that offers experienced tech assistance, your business will be on your own to tackle this development work—and if your company doesn’t have the capacity to handle this project internally, you’ll have to find outside help at an additional cost.

Compliance headaches

Switching your SMS API can involve a lot of extra work ensuring compliance for your messaging strategy. Short codes must be migrated, and a growing number of countries require businesses to receive whitelist approval before they can send messages. 

Some countries make these processes more complicated than others: in the United States, for example, short code approvals can be very difficult if you’re attempting this on your own.

Meeting country-specific compliance requirements can take a lot of time and effort, and your messaging campaigns can get stuck in limbo waiting for approvals. While countries like the United States have very complex compliance requirements on their own, the task of managing compliance throughout your API transition will inevitably be more daunting when sending SMS globally.