Innovation
Business walks fine line between communicating with consumers and annoying them
A Twilio survey highlights how email is a preferred channel of consumers for brand communication with text in the mix. Businesses shouldn't overdo it though.

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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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