By providing a shortcode keyword to let them know of outages both planned and unplanned, as well as providing an additional shortcode to check on the status of the service in real time you provide your customers piece of mind as well as proper communications.
Set up a keyword (e.g. SMSGATEWAY) for users to subscribe to hear about outages. This allows users to opt in for communications and messages from you.
Add the operator STATUS so that when SMSGATEWAY STATUS is texted the current status is provided. Users can now text you when they need to get the system status automatically.
Now every time there is an outage all you have to do is go into the SimplyCast campaign and change the response text to SMSGATEWAY STATUS to reflect whatever the issue is.
You can also send scheduled SMS blasts to subscribers when expecting outages or when outages have occurred unexpectedly. This way you keep users updated without them having to text you.