Businesses Call, People Text
What started out as simple text exchanges have evolved into expressive and engaging conversations between people. Consumers exchange more than 50 billion messages a day and the continuing explosive growth suggests that messaging will be a lasting phenomenon. But, what does this mean for businesses?
We asked 6,000 people in US, UK, Germany, India, South Korea, Singapore and Japan how they use messaging to talk to businesses. Here is what we found:
Most businesses continue to reach people over the phone and email when consumers want to communicate via text messages via SMS, in-app chat, push notifications, and messaging apps.
Messaging ranks #1 customer service channel preferred by consumers in South Korea, India, Singapore and US, and among top 3 preferred channels around the world.
Millennials choose messaging over email to talk businesses. Messaging is 3–8x more preferred than face to face communications across all generations.
Phones are the primary messaging device no matter what part of the world you are in.
Consumers’ choice for messaging app is affected by age, geography and who they are messaging. Half of the consumers prefer using SMS (native, iMessage, Android) to message businesses. Therefore, brands looking to connect with customers over messaging should get started with native SMS.
While consumers keep notifications on for the messaging apps they use the most, native SMS (including iMessage and Android) has a high opt-in across all regions:
Consumers find messaging to be a convenient, familiar and immediate channel of communication. But, messaging is not just a one-way communication channel. More than eight in ten (85%) consumers would like to reply to a message from a businesses or engage in conversation.
Businesses around the globe need to make messaging a priority to stay connected with their customers.
