Accelerating Next-Generation Customer Engagement: From SMS to RCS and App-Powered Personalization

Customer engagement is moving beyond simply sending messages.

Customers expect brands to respond to their behavior, context, and intent, not just their contact details. This requires moving beyond traditional SMS to richer, interactive Rich Communication Services (RCS) messaging experiences. Meanwhile, Software Development Kits (SDKs) embedded within mobile apps help capture customer behavior and engagement signals. Connecting these insights across channels enables brands to deliver more relevant, contextual, and personalized interactions.

The opportunity is not simply to add another messaging channel. It is to create a connected engagement journey where RCS makes interactions more interactive, app SDKs provide behavioral context, and customer data helps determine what happens next.

Gartner predicts that 60% of brands will use agentic AI to facilitate streamlined one-to-one interactions by 2028, reflecting the broader shift toward more personalized and autonomous customer engagement.

How can businesses move from traditional SMS to RCS?

SMS remains effective for notifications, alerts, reminders, and personalized messages. However, it has limitations when it comes to rich media and interactive experiences. RCS builds on traditional messaging by allowing businesses to share images, videos, branded messages, interactive buttons, and other rich content without the traditional SMS character constraints.

Businesses can use RCS for:

• Rich media and branded messaging: Share product images, videos, and branded content.
• Interactive buttons and quick actions: Let customers confirm appointments, make selections, or access relevant links.
• Product or service carousels: Showcase multiple products or services within a single message.
• Appointment confirmations and changes: Offer options to confirm, reschedule, or view details.
• Offers and recommendations: Present promotions and relevant product suggestions through engaging formats.

Consider the difference:

SMS:

Your appointment is tomorrow at 10 AM. Reply YES to confirm or call us to reschedule.

RCS:

Your appointment is tomorrow at 10 AM.

[Confirm] [Reschedule] [View Details]

The difference is not that SMS cannot be personalized. It is that RCS gives businesses more ways to present information, incorporate rich media, and enable customers to take action directly within the messaging experience.

The goal should not be to replace every SMS with RCS. Instead, businesses should identify customer journeys where richer content, visual communication, and interactive features can meaningfully improve the experience.

How can app SDKs turn customer behavior into personalization?

RCS makes messaging more interactive, but app behavior provides the context needed to make that interaction relevant.

Mobile app SDKs provide real-time behavioral signals that reveal customer intent, journey progression, and engagement across critical digital experiences, enabling more timely and relevant business actions.

For example:

Product viewed → Calculator used → Offer explored → Application started

Each action provides another signal about customer intent.

A customer exploring home loan options could receive relevant information in the app, an RCS message prompting them to continue their application, and an email with supporting information.

Instead of treating every customer the same, the brand responds to what that customer is actually doing.

LevelShift helps organizations use Salesforce Marketing Cloud and personalization capabilities to turn behavioral signals into more relevant customer experiences.

Salesforce Marketing Cloud services

How can RCS and app behavior work together across channels?

The real opportunity comes when RCS and app experiences are connected rather than managed separately.

Imagine a customer exploring an insurance product in an app. With appropriate consent and privacy controls, relevant engagement signals can help inform their customer profile, enabling future interactions to be more relevant to their expressed interests.

App behavior → Customer signal → Intent identified → Messaging platform determines next interaction → RCS message → Customer action

As customers move across channels, each interaction can inform the next best experience. A customer returning to the app from RCS can continue their journey seamlessly. Once a purchase is completed, promotional outreach can be suppressed, while a request for assistance can shift the experience toward service and support.

The result is a connected journey that adapts to customer context and actions rather than following a fixed campaign schedule.

Why is unified customer data critical to personalized engagement?

Personalization becomes difficult when customer context is fragmented across channels and systems. Digital engagement provides one view, CRM provides customer history, marketing provides communication context, and service provides insight into current needs.

Bringing these signals together creates a more connected understanding of the customer. Salesforce Data 360 can unify customer and behavioral data, enabling relevant signals to inform and activate experiences across channels.

LevelShift Salesforce Data 360 services

The principle is straightforward:

More connected data → better context → more relevant interactions

That context is what allows an RCS message, app experience, email or website interaction to feel like part of the same journey.

How should businesses create a connected RCS and app engagement journey?

Start with the customer journey, not the technology.

Consider a customer exploring home insurance. They begin researching online, continue exploring coverage in the mobile app, and, with appropriate consent and privacy controls, their engagement signals help indicate where they are in the journey.

A relevant RCS interaction can provide the next step, such as getting a quote or speaking with an advisor. If the customer continues in the app, the experience picks up naturally. If they need assistance, the advisor has the appropriate context. Once they complete the journey, subsequent communications adapt accordingly.

This is where next-generation engagement becomes tangible: the channel is no longer the strategy. The customer journey is.

How can businesses make these experiences measurable?

A richer message is not automatically a better customer experience.

Businesses need to connect engagement with outcomes:

Message → Interaction → Action → Conversion → Business outcome

For RCS, this could mean measuring:

• Message engagement
• Button or CTA interactions
• App opens
• Quote or application starts
• Conversions
• Revenue or retention impact

For app personalization, businesses can measure whether a behavioral signal actually leads to a more relevant experience and better customer action.

This makes the shift from SMS to RCS more than a technology upgrade. It becomes a measurable customer engagement strategy.

Where does AI fit into the next generation of customer engagement?

AI can make connected engagement more responsive once the underlying customer signals are available.

It can help identify intent, recommend the next best action, personalize content, and determine when a customer should receive an interaction.

But AI should support the journey, not become the journey.

The foundation remains the same:

RCS creates interaction.
App SDKs capture behavior.
Unified data provides context.
AI helps determine what happens next.
Analytics measures the outcome.

Together, these capabilities can move businesses from broad, campaign-based messaging toward experiences that respond to individual customer behavior.

Conclusion: Building More Contextual Customer Engagement with LevelShift

The transition from SMS to RCS is not simply about richer messages.

The bigger opportunity is to connect RCS, app behavior, customer data and cross-channel journeys so every interaction reflects what the customer actually needs at that moment.

SMS provides reach. RCS enables richer interaction. App SDKs provide consented behavioral signals. Connected customer data brings those signals into context. Personalization turns that context into relevant, timely experiences.

LevelShift helps organizations bring these pieces together across Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Data 360, integrations and AI-powered engagement capabilities. The company has also been recognized in Forrester’s Q4 2025 Salesforce Consulting Services Landscape for expertise across Agentforce, Data 360 and Field Service.

The goal is simple: move from sending messages to creating connected customer experiences that are contextual, interactive and measurable.

Talk to LevelShift’s experts

Common Questions

What is the difference between SMS and RCS?

SMS is primarily text-based, while RCS supports richer, interactive experiences such as media, buttons and carousels, CTA, Longer URL and length capability.

Why should businesses move from SMS to RCS?

RCS can make customer interactions more actionable by allowing customers to respond or complete specific actions directly within the messaging experience.

How do app SDKs support personalization?

SDKs capture consented in-app engagement signals that can help businesses understand customer interests, intent, and journey progression, enabling more relevant experiences.

Can RCS and app personalization work together?

Yes. App behavior can provide the context that determines which RCS interaction a customer receives and what happens after they engage.

Why is unified customer data important?

It connects signals from apps, CRM, marketing, service and other systems so customer experiences are based on a more complete view of the customer.

How can LevelShift help businesses implement Rich Communication Services (RCS) and personalized engagement?
LevelShift can help connect customer data, mobile app behavior and Salesforce marketing journeys to create more contextual and personalized experiences across messaging, apps and other digital channels.

Why choose LevelShift for Salesforce-powered customer engagement?
LevelShift combines Salesforce expertise with data, personalization, integration and AI capabilities to help businesses build measurable customer journeys. LevelShift was also recognized in Forrester’s Q4 2025 Salesforce Consulting Services Landscape for expertise across Agentforce, Data 360 and Field Service.