How 10DLC Trust Scores Impact Throughput

January 11, 2024 // Product

10DLC Trust Scores and Throughput

10DLC is a much-needed standard for the industry in order to combat the rise in robocalls and spam messaging. For software development teams, 10DLC has also put new pressure on day-to-day operations – ensuring 10DLC compliance standards and organizational performance metrics are both upheld.

In this article, we’ll cover how 10DLC Trust Scores impact messaging throughput.

What is throughput?

Throughput for SMS messaging is measured in message segments per second (MPS). Our modern phones do a remarkably effective job of making it appear as if the massively long texts we receive from our aunts in Tennessee with the cats are sent as one single message. In reality, a single message segment only consists of a maximum of 160 GSM-7 encoded characters.

Your maximum allowed throughput and delivery speed are determined by your Brand’s Trust Score.

What is a Trust Score?

When a Brand is registered with The Campaign Registry (TCR), the third-party authority on 10DLC registration, the Brand undergoes a vetting process. Each 10DLC Brand receives a Trust Score from 0-100 based on your Brand’s reputation — as determined by the TCR. The Trust Score dictates each Brand’s peak message delivery speed as well as the maximum daily message volume that can be sent over certain mobile carriers.

Calculating throughput is different for SMS and MMS for both Delivery Speed and Daily Message Volume. As mentioned above, SMS messages are counted by segment, meaning longer messages have a greater impact on delivery speed and max volume. Since message segments do not apply to MMS, each unique MMS message is counted.

When you exceed your limit, your messages will be slowed down or not delivered at all, greatly affecting customer experience.

Are you sending SMS to numbers on T-Mobile? If so, and you likely are, note that T-Mobile enforces a daily cap on message volume over 10DLC routes according to each Brand’s Trust Score. Click here for a more in-depth look at T-Mobile’s daily messaging volume.

How are Trust Scores determined?

Trust Scores are determined by TCR through a holistic assessment of the Brand in question. Unfortunately, TCR does not provide much clarity on what exactly affects a Brand’s Trust Score but there are few major themes that are widely known to affect the Trust Score:

• Discrepancies in the information submitted during A2P registration, like a different address than your official business registration number (e.g. EIN)
• Brand footprint, such as web presence, how well established the company is and how long the business has been in operation.
• Is the company providing a legitimate service to their customers?
• Smaller businesses, in general, consistently receive lower Trust Scores. Big corporations that have been around for decades generally receive higher scores. Any company listed in the Russell 3000 is automatically assigned the highest trust score.
  
  

Why do Trust Scores matter?

Since a Brand’s Trust Score determines the message delivery speed and the maximum daily volume of messages that can be sent per campaign, a lower Trust Score directly impacts a company’s ability to contact their customers — no matter the campaign type.

For an exhaustive list of campaign types, click here.

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