One of the difficulties with PSR was its "one text, one entry" format. Not many consumers bothered to text in the full complement of raffle entries their OR was entitled to.
Imagine, for example, if you had bought a P100,000 laptop entitling you to 1,000 raffle entries. You might text in once, maybe even a few more times, but after awhile, you just couldn't be bothered to keep texting.
We quickly realized the need for a "single text, multiple raffle entry" enhancement to PSR. We decided to call this 9778, as the texters would now text in to a different number from 9777.
Getting this implemented was more difficult than we thought. A new Service Description (SD) was necessary and this had to be approved by Smart's VAS, finance, legal, tax, etc. groups. The number of sign-offs was incredible.
The programming was by no means simple either. For the first time, Smart would have to deal with a variable charge per text, since the price would depend on the value of the OR being texted in.
Discussions were held on what to do if the texter did not have enough load for the charge. This wasn't a key issue at P1.50 per text, but became a debate considering the average texter's load is only P30.
The first raffle draw was scheduled for August 1, 2006 and with entries crawling in at the 9777 pace, it was critical to get the new enhancement started up quickly. Our 9778 print ads were already being developed even before we knew the service could begin.
Finally, on July 28, just three days before the draw, the service was opened up to the public. Amazingly, the volume of entries in 9778 overtook the 9777 entries within a couple of weeks of launch.
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