Loop Mobile, a GSM service provider in Mumbai, has launched the QuitSmoke Tips Service for its subscribers who want to give up smoking.
Subscribers can now get text messages and tips that motivate and prompt them to perform day to day actions that will help them quit smoking.
Loop Mobile is providing this service in association with PurpleTeal Technologies India Private Limited, a health Messaging services provider. For a small fraction of the cost of a pack of cigarettes, subscribers can get assistance to help them stop smoking and develop long term smoking avoidance habits.
Cigarette-smoking is pervasive, with more than 20 per cent of males in the 20 to 60 age group as smokers. As it takes significant motivation to quit smoking, Loop Mobile and PurpleTeal’s QuitSmoke Tips service program acts as a support tool for subscribers looking cut the habit out their lives.
The service embeds the principles of awareness, preparation, action and repetition in order to ultimately delink smoking from triggering events and to form new smoking-avoidance habits. The program also focuses on reinforcing the new habits and offering hints and tips to avoid smoking triggers.
The service sends daily SMS messages with hints, tips, information and alerts to help smokers stay focused on quitting, and on dealing with cravings, urges and withdrawal symptoms, as well as tips and hints to avoid triggers and remain smoke-free.
The total service is of 24 weeks duration, with an initial phase of 8 weeks, followed by two additional 8-week phases. To subscribe to this service, subscribers must send “QS” to 50505 (prepaid) or 50800 (postpaid). Charges of the program are Rs 10 per week.