How do you monitor your own SMS sending?

Most SMS problems are only noticed when a customer calls. Three figures are enough to know sooner.

1. Volume against expectation

If you normally send a hundred messages a day and three go out today, something is broken in your own chain. An alert on unusually low volume catches that — and it is the measurement most often missing.

2. Delivery rate

A sudden drop points to a route or destination problem. Track it per destination, because a problem in one country disappears in an average.

3. Age of the queue

How old is the oldest message still waiting? This is the figure that warns you first about a blockage.

What you do not do

Alert on every failure. A few failures are normal. Alert on deviations from a pattern, not on isolated events — otherwise somebody switches the notifications off within a week.