Tall Bob trials our new automated numbering ordering and porting for bulk messaging services.

The booming messaging market

In the digital economy, the simplest tools are often the most powerful. There are dozens of ways businesses can engage with customers directly or via social media. But messaging – particularly SMS – remains an important means for how businesses and customers connect.
The statistics are compelling. One recent survey found that 57% of respondents preferred SMS for business communications, and with reported high open rates, it’s clear why enterprises are investing heavily in this channel.

This boom creates a significant opportunity for message service providers. It also creates a critical challenge: as demand and message volumes scale, the underlying platforms must be seamless, scalable, and simple. Customers expect instant, reliable communication, and providers need the tools to deliver it without friction.

Enhancing our messaging platform

To support this demand, we continuously evolve our messaging platform to help service providers offer superior products and customer experiences.

A key part of our approach is automating manual processes and offering more self-serve capabilities.

We recently collaborated with leading and trusted Australian messaging solution provider, Tall Bob, on a trial of our new, automated number ordering and porting processes. The goal was to transform what were once complex, manual tasks into a streamlined, digital-first experience, giving our partners more control, speed, and visibility.

For Telstra Wholesale, collaborating with customers who share our commitment to customer experience is key. Tall Bob is a perfect example. As their team puts it, Tall Bob exists to "make mobile messaging simple, powerful, and effective." They provide businesses across automotive, real estate, retail, and eCommerce with the tools to create real experiences and measurable outcomes through SMS, MMS, and emerging rich communication channels like RCS.

What sets Tall Bob apart is their blend of technology and partnership. They combine Tier-1 connectivity and smart integrations with hands-on, local support. This mindset means they collaborate closely with their customers to set a strong SMS or MMS foundation and design strategies that deliver, while helping brands get future-ready for the next generation of messaging experiences. It also makes them an ideal partner to help us test and validate our new platform enhancements.

Rebuilt processes with automation at the core

For any messaging provider, scale and speed are critical. Tall Bob is no different. "With the level of growth we have experienced in the last few years, we are continuously needing more and more numbers for our customers," explains Brenton Murray, Head of Technology at Tall Bob. "The numbers get used almost instantaneously, so to have a system that allows for this process is critical."

Just as important is the end customer's desire to maintain their brand identity by keeping their existing numbers when they switch providers. Previously, this porting process could be "cumbersome," as Brenton describes it. The process often involved multiple emails, forms, and follow-ups.

Our new platform enhancements, delivered via MESH, are designed to solve this exact problem. We've rebuilt the process from the ground up, placing automation and self-service at its core. The enhanced MESH portal now empowers partners to self-serve number orders and port requests. By simply entering and selecting service configurations, the platform now automates the backend validation and provisioning.

The trial experience: "So much simpler"

The true test of any new platform is its usability. For Brenton, the experience was immediately positive.

"Now it's not an exploding email chain of 20 people,” Brenton notes. “It's just so much simpler, and scalable.”

The most significant impact was the immediate gain in efficiency and empowerment. "The fewer hands that processes like this need to touch, the quicker you can move things along, and it is ultimately better for the customer," Brenton says. "Now we can do more ourselves, we remove a couple of steps from the process and give ourselves better visibility, too."

This new capability fundamentally changes the conversation Tall Bob can have with their customers.

"Before this system was in place, it was always a matter of saying to customers: ‘You could keep your old number, but we'd rather issue you a new number' because it was far simpler," Brenton says. "This capability smooths out everything. Now we can tell our customers: “Yes, we can do that. That's fine, and behind the scenes, we have the confidence that it will get done in a timely manner.”

That shift from a "no, but" to an immediate "yes" is at the heart of a great customer experience. The new platform also allows Tall Bob to scale their own operations more effectively.

The Telstra Wholesale team wanted to make the new experience intuitive and hide the complexity of the processes away behind a design that’s easy for new customer team members to use.

"In true developer fashion, I did not read the documentation," Brenton admits. “But that’s good news. I didn’t need to.” He found the platform intuitive and easy to pick up, a testament to a user-centric design.

A future-ready foundation

This trial was about more than just number porting. It's about building a platform that can adapt to our customers' needs and a rapidly changing regulatory landscape.

"Telstra Wholesale has implemented the new platform at an opportune time, given regulatory changes," Brenton notes. "Having that self-service capability benefits both your team and us as users."

The new platform has the "bones," as Brenton puts it, to potentially handle upcoming industry requirements, like the management of sender IDs. By co-designing these tools with partners like Tall Bob, we can ensure they are robust, intuitive, and ready for what's next.

This collaboration has been invaluable. By listening to partners like Tall Bob, we can build tools that don't just solve today's problems but unlock new possibilities for tomorrow.