Business walks fine line between communicating with consumers and annoying them

Consumers are generally annoyed by the frequency that companies contact them, prefer email and expect personalization, according to a survey by Twilio.

Twilio, a communications as a service provider, surveyed 2,500 consumers to gauge best practices for enterprise messaging. Among the key findings:

• 94% of consumers are annoyed by business communications.
• 61% of consumers say the frequency of contact was annoying and 56% cited a lack of relevance. 41% said they didn't remember opting in.
• 83% of consumers say they prefer email for business communications.
• 12% prefer a company's mobile app for receiving communications. Less than half of corporate mobile apps make it to a consumer's home screen.
• Gen Z and Millennials want content personalization and prefer promotion messages and sales notifications more frequently than Baby Boomers.
• 71% of consumers penalized a business when the communications experience isn't what they wanted.
• A third of consumers will make a purchase from a business if it communicates them in their preferred way.

Based on Twilio's survey, the company crafted a series of best practices that revolve around respecting customer preferences, using different channels for different purposes, considering urgency, adopting omnichannel and knowing demographics.  

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