Specialized: Impactful SMS Messaging When it’s Needed Most

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When you think of SMS messages sent from a business, what’s the first thing that comes to mind?

If we had to guess, we’d say marketing promotions entered your thoughts. If not that, then perhaps you thought of appointment reminders.

Both are solid responses, given so many brands are leveraging SMS for these reasons. 

However, our customer Specialized, which manufactures bikes and accessories, relies on SMS as a channel that can actually help to save lives. The business, a trailblazer in riding since 1974, sells ANGi-equipped helmets that automatically texts for help when they sense a potential crash.

Saving Lives with Character-Saving SMS Messages

So, how is it done? 

Specialized’s unique helmets are paired with a mobile app, Ride. The app allows you to keep a list of contacts you’d want to share ride information with, as well as a list of emergency contacts. 

If the helmet senses an impact, it sends an email and SMS notification to your emergency contacts alerting them that you’ve crashed. It also sends them your last known location. 

As you can imagine, the urgency of these alerts is very high. So, the reliability of messaging system is not just important, it’s absolutely critical. 



And for the message to be synthesized quickly by the recipient, it has to be short and to the point. With customers all around the globe, Specialized needed to make sure they weren’t wasting characters on URLs, so they could provide as much safety information as possible in the SMS.

Read the Full Case Study

By connecting their custom domain, “go-ri.de,” to Bitly, and leveraging our powerful API, Specialized is able to:

– Build their brand with every text 
– Share trusted short URLs that enable clear and concise SMS messages

Want to learn more? Read the full customer story.