Mass messaging is one of the most effective marketing tools for retaining customers. The mass messaging mode allows you to automatically inform customers about promotions, send birthday greetings, notify them about the status of an online order, or remind them that accumulated bonuses are about to expire.
However, when setting up automation, business owners often face technical nuances and ask specialists the following questions: «Why do my customers receive the same SMS or Viber message three times?», «Why did the customer receive a notification that 0 bonuses will expire?», «How can I make the customer’s real name appear in the message instead of the text <name>?» and «Why was a Viber mailing scheduled for a specific time sent immediately?».
In this article, we will take a detailed look at the technical scenarios for how mailings work and answer all these questions.
Scheduled tasks and the root cause of message duplication
Notification automation, for example, about bonus accrual or bonus expiration, is performed in Torgsoft by the Application Server in the background through «Scheduled tasks». The Application Server uses the configuration file ReloadDB.ini, which stores the list of databases that must be launched to perform automatic tasks.
The most common issue users contact support about is duplicate SMS or Viber messages. For example, a customer receives three identical messages in a row, while the service, such as TurboSMS, blocks them with the status «Message rejected. Duplicate message».
Why does this happen and how can it be fixed? The issue occurs because duplicate connection records for the same database appear in the ReloadDB.ini file. This happens when users experiment with connection settings, for example, entering the server name in different letter cases: SERVER-PC\SQLEXPRESS and server-pc\sqlexpress, and the program creates new connection strings without deleting the old ones. As a result, the Application Server sees «three» databases and performs the same scheduled task three times.
Technical solution scenario:
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Stop the TorgSoftService and TorgsoftAutoService services on the main computer, that is, the server.
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Open the ADConnectionDefs.ini file in the program directory and leave only one correct database connection setting.
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Delete the ReloadDB.ini file from the Torgsoft program directory.
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Start Torgsoft and wait for the services to be reinstalled. The program will automatically create a new, clean ReloadDB.ini file that will contain only one correct connection in the format {"items":[{"server":"...","database":"..."}]}. After that, the Application Server will generate only one mass mailing, and duplication will stop.
Variables in templates and transliteration issues
To personalize a message, Torgsoft uses variables, for example, <name>, <bonus amount>, <discount percentage>.
Issue with variables not being substituted
Sometimes business owners ask why in the Ukrainian localization, the text <name> itself is inserted instead of the customer’s name. Previously, this issue occurred because the application server could not correctly process Cyrillic variable names during automatic mailings. The developers changed the algorithm: now, before the template text is written to the database, all variables are parsed and converted into Latin letters, and when displayed to the user, they are shown again in the interface language. This ensures stable substitution of the customer’s actual data. It is only important to make sure that variables are added through the «Insert variable» button and are not typed manually with errors.
Transliteration and cost savings
A message typed in Latin characters can contain up to 160 characters, while a Cyrillic message can contain only 70. Using transliteration, that is, converting Ukrainian text into Latin characters, allows you to save significantly. However, there used to be a technical issue: during transliteration, the Ukrainian letter «Ч» was converted into the characters «Сh», where «С» remained Cyrillic. Because of one Cyrillic character, the entire message was charged by services as Cyrillic and therefore became twice as expensive. This error in the transliteration algorithm has already been fixed.
In addition, templates now include a choice of SMS counting method: Standard, according to the GSM standard, and Alternative for TurboSMS, because this provider has its own specific table for calculating message size.
The «zero bonuses» anomaly
A very common question from retailers was: «Why does the program send customers a message that 0.00 bonuses will expire?». This happened when a customer had bonuses with a limited validity period but had already spent them before the automatic write-off. The program still generated a scheduled notification about the expiration of those bonuses and inserted the amount «0.00» into the variable.
In current versions of Torgsoft, this logical flaw has been fixed: bonus write-off notifications are no longer sent if the amount of bonuses to be written off is zero, that is, if the customer has already used them. In addition, a visual error was fixed: if a customer went through card verification and had no bonuses on the account, the <bonus amount> variable previously left an empty space. Now the message correctly displays the digit 0.
Viber mailings: scheduled tasks and additional SMS sending
Viber mailings, especially promotional messages with images and link buttons, are very popular because they are cheaper and more informative than SMS.
Immediate sending instead of scheduled sending. Business owners asked why the «Delivery time» specified in the mailing form was ignored and Viber messages reached customers immediately after pressing the «Send» button. This was a software error in interaction with the TurboSMS API. Previously, Torgsoft sent messages to the service without taking the delay time into account. In current versions, Viber message sending is strictly synchronized: the mailing is triggered exactly on the date and at the time specified in the mass mailing settings.
Hybrid mailing: additional sending via SMS. Since not all customers have Viber installed, or they may be outside internet coverage, Torgsoft provides the «Additional sending via SMS» function. If a Viber message receives the Error status or rejected_status, the system automatically sends an alternative short text through the SMS channel. This helps ensure that the customer receives important information regardless of whether the messenger is available.
With correct technical configuration of configuration files, understanding of transliteration principles, and the use of current Torgsoft updates, mass mailings become a reliable, stable, and cost-effective tool for customer communication.
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