Most consumers want businesses to text them more often

Businesses are always looking for effective ways to connect with their customers and close the sale.

But if emails and phone calls are no longer effective when communicating to customers, how are companies supposed to reach out to their customers and hear back from them?

Also: Millennials demand more social media engagement in exchange for loyalty

According to a new survey released by texting company Zipwhip, texting is becoming more and more effective to connect with customers. 

It polled 538 US citizens in fall 2018 to find out how they wanted to be contacted by brands.

Texting between businesses and consumers is growing in popularity. Around 85 percent of Generation X, Y, and Baby Boomers said that they had received a text from a business.

However, almost four out of five consumers said that they wished that businesses would text them more. 

When given the option of receiving appointment reminders over text, phone calls, or email, a large majority of participants from each generation preferred texting.

We check our phones for messages often. Almost two out of three baby boomers (61 percent) check their phone notifications one to three times per hour, but four out of five (79 percent) of Generation Z do the same.

Appointment reminders topped the popularity list. Four out of five Generation X respondents were most likely to indicate they prefer a text over other channels for such reminders.

Survey results showed that each generation is OK with emoji use from businesses, as long as they are used in the appropriate context.

Must read

• What you can do to stop robocalls and spam texts (CNET)
  
• How to enable spam call filtering on your Android phone (TechRepublic)
  

Generation Y is the most emoji-friendly generation: Four out of five (80 percent) indicated they are comfortable with the use of emojis by businesses within text messages.

Knowing what your audience wants is a good rule for any sized business. In order to sell a product or service, companies need to know what consumers like and do not like.

Understand customer behavior is important -- and communicating with them in the way they want you to is key to brand success.

Most respondents said they wished that more businesses texted them, which offers a massive opportunity for organisations to connect wit their customers..

Perhaps companies could think about how their business can use this information, and deliver the most targeted and effective message to their customers.

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