To help provide essential Internet access to workplaces, virtual classrooms, and medical resources during the Covid pandemic, the FCC set up the Emergency Broadband Benefit Program (EBBP) for qualifying families. This program offers hard-hit households a monthly discount toward Internet service through their local carriers. One of PerfTech’s ISP customers recently used in-browser messaging to remind delinquent EBBP users of their benefit and how to continue uninterrupted service.
The EBBP campaign used a nested message to first determine if the message recipient was the service account holder, and if so, to ask the viewer to call the displayed phone number for customer service. Two actionable buttons were included to acknowledge by “Ok, thanks” or to “Remind me later”. Results follow:
Percent replying to account holder question:
Yes: 55.9%
No: 44.1%
Percent of account holders who replied:
Ok thanks: 58.6%
Remind me: 16.6%
Total response: 75.2%
While PerfTech’s in-browser messaging platform does not record call-ins, the response to the messaging campaign was extremely high. As the EBBP transitions into a newer, long-term program passed by Congress called the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), in-browser messaging will play a continued central role in outreach.