SMS changes – useful tips

Hello xMatters community members,

Some of you may have seen the changes we’re making to SMS message lengths.  The community wanted to share some useful tips for crafting usable and mobile friendly SMS messages.

1. Try to keep your SMS notifications short and to the point – shorter notifications help your recipients get to the meat of the message quickly.
2. If you need to have a longer SMS message we recommend 300 to 450 characters.
3. Use a plain text editor to write your SMS. Notepad is included with Windows, TextEdit is the default for Mac’s.
4. If you’re having trouble staying below 450 characters, remove extra spaces or carriage returns, also think about removing special characters.
5. If your SMS includes disclaimers, check to see if there are shorter versions you can use.
6. Most mobile phones display between 33 and 36 characters per line for SMS messages, including spaces, knowing this will help you write a readable SMS notification.

See this knowledge article for more detail: https://support.xmatters.com/hc/en-us/articles/360028516691-xMatters-and-SMS-Best-Practices