# Overview

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Only available in Nigeria and South Africa.
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Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) is a messaging channel that integrates with [Chat Flow](https://clickatell.gitbook.io/flow/overview) (Clickatell's workflow-building platform) to enable high-speed, interactive communication. 

With USSD, customers can interact with remote applications from their mobile devices in real-time, without an internet connection. 

## Using USSD

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USSD is an effective channel for services such as mobile banking and mobile commerce.
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The USSD channel equips businesses to do the following:

* **Self-services**: Allow customers to do service registrations, make service queries, and make reservations.
* **Acquisition services**: Allow customers to sign up for services, and facilitate customer acquisition through campaigns and advertisements.
* **Financial services**: Allow customers to manage bank accounts (e.g., check account balances, change pins, and make payments and transfers), top-up prepaid products, and generate OTPs.
* **Information services**: Send news, weather, or sport updates to customers.

### USSD benefits

**Businesses** get the benefit of:

* Simple, engaging messaging with customers.
* Reaching customers via a low-cost channel.
* Support for a high volume of transactions and throughput.
* Secure interactions, as information is not stored or entered on the customer's mobile device
* Seamless integration with APIs.
* New business opportunities in USSD banking and mobile commerce.

**Customers** get the benefit of:

* Self-service experiences.
* A channel that's affordable and easy to use.
* Secure transactions.
* Access to 24/7 support and time-critical notifications.
* Usage without any internet connection, data, or smartphone. 


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# Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation

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Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter:

```
GET https://help.clickatell.com/ussd-user-guide/getting-started/overview.md?ask=<question>
```

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The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation.

Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.