SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Zipwhip, the leading provider of texting for business, today released its 2019 State of Texting Report, which looks back at the texting-for-business trends of 2018 while revealing key opportunities for the medium in 2019. Based on a poll of 1,000 consumers and 1,000 businesses, the SMS research highlights how both groups use texting to communicate, and identifies best practices for the more than 60 percent of businesses that have not yet tried texting but see the value of the communication tool. With 76 percent of consumers already receiving texts from businesses and 75 percent of them feeling frustrated when unable to reply to a business’s short-code text message, valuable opportunity lies in providing businesses a conversational communication experience.
Text statistics and trends from the report include:
- Businesses are swiftly adopting text messaging as a communication tool. While 39 percent of businesses use some form of texting to communicate with customers today, industries such as real estate (73 percent), agriculture/veterinary (65 percent) and entertainment and leisure (63 percent) have realized the value of texting.
- Until chatbots become more sophisticated, consumers prefer engaging with a real person. Almost three quarters of consumers prefer to communicate with a real person rather than a chatbot.
- To avoid playing phone tag, consumers turn to texting. More than half of consumers have tried to reply to a missed call via text, but for businesses that are not text-enabled, those messages go unreceived, ending the conversation with consumers. Further, 75 percent of consumers are particularly frustrated when they can not respond to a text message from a business due to limitations with certain kinds of texting tools, such as short-code texting.
“The future of business and consumer communication isn’t voice, email or messenger apps. It’s in text messaging,” said Scott Heimes, chief marketing officer, Zipwhip. “What differentiates texting – and what gives it such a competitive advantage for businesses that embrace it – is consumer preference and the capability built natively into every single mobile phone.”
While texting for business will continue to grow in popularity and scale, the report identified areas of improvement, for both businesses currently texting and those planning to adopt it in the near future. Notably, consumers enjoy the ease of texting the same business number they call and expect a seamless communication experience between the two mediums. Businesses should feel empowered to text-enable their current business line and avoid consumer frustration. Further, for the businesses currently messaging exclusively through short-code texting – which only allow for one-way messages – more conversational methods should be embraced to keep consumers engaged.
“There’s no doubt consumers love text messaging and businesses must find a way to embrace it as one of their key communication channels,” continued Heimes. “While most of us are guilty of overflowing email inboxes and screening phone calls from would-be robocallers, texting has established itself as a short-format, high-priority medium that reaches consumers in the most effective way possible.”
Zipwhip provides enterprise organizations and SMBs with cloud-texting software using their existing landline, VoIP or toll-free phone number. A suite of leading software integrations further help Zipwhip customers communicate more efficiently, securely and reliably.
For more on how businesses can better map out their communication strategies and incorporate texting for business, download the full 2019 State of Texting Report here. To hear insights from the researchers who conducted the report, listen to the latest episode of Zipcast, Zipwhip’s podcast about communication strategies, technology trends and texting for business. Video insights from the report are available on Zipwhip’s YouTube channel and on mobile devices by texting SOT to 844-713-7312.
Methodology
Zipwhip’s 2019 State of Texting Report surveyed a total of 2,000 people in December 2018 including 1,000 responses from consumers and 1,000 responses from businesses from nationally representative Americans ages 18 and over.
About Zipwhip
Zipwhip empowers companies to communicate with their customers in the most effective and preferred way possible – text messaging. As the pioneer of texting for business, Zipwhip first enabled text messaging to and from existing landline, VoIP and toll-free phone numbers in 2014. Zipwhip’s direct network connectivity, intuitive cloud-based software and an enterprise-grade API mean businesses can use any computer or mobile device to securely and reliably reach their customers, every time. Your customers are only a text away: www.zipwhip.com.
