SMS the language of 6 billion people
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OpenMarket-Portio-Research-SMS-the-language-of-6-billion-people
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<strong>SMS</strong>: <strong>the</strong> <strong>language</strong> <strong>of</strong> 6 <strong>billion</strong> <strong>people</strong><br />
Now many <strong>people</strong> find email to be a ‘double-edged sword’. On <strong>the</strong> one hand, email is still an immensely<br />
useful tool, but on <strong>the</strong> o<strong>the</strong>r hand it is increasingly difficult to filter out what we want from <strong>the</strong><br />
overwhelming mass <strong>of</strong> junk mail that we don’t.<br />
What email has lost is <strong>the</strong> feeling that it is personal. Today, when companies communicate with <strong>the</strong>ir<br />
consumers by email, <strong>the</strong> messages rarely ‘feel’ personal. Now add to that <strong>the</strong> great plethora <strong>of</strong> new<br />
ways to communicate, broadly termed ‘social media’, that have all come to market over <strong>the</strong> last 8 or 9<br />
years, and we find ourselves living in times <strong>of</strong> communications overload like never before.<br />
It is not uncommon <strong>the</strong>se days for a company to find out it has upset a customer when <strong>the</strong> story <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong>ir<br />
poor customer service is going viral on Facebook. It’s not uncommon for Twitter to be <strong>the</strong> best<br />
customer service channel an organisation can use. It’s become commonplace for YouTube to act as a<br />
viral product review site, and we are all familiar with companies now using social networking sites as<br />
<strong>the</strong> ‘friendly face’ <strong>of</strong> public relations. Increasingly, consumer purchasing decisions are influenced by<br />
TripAdvisor reviews, <strong>the</strong> number <strong>of</strong> 4-star and 5-star Amazon Customer Reviews and ‘what your friends<br />
on Facebook think’.<br />
From this overwhelming glut <strong>of</strong> communication channels, one message screams out louder than any –<br />
address me personally! Consumers are using <strong>the</strong>se channels in order to be heard, in order to be<br />
treated as an individual. Gone are <strong>the</strong> days that a dissatisfied customer will write a physical letter and<br />
<strong>the</strong>n wait weeks for a response, or send an email and settle for an auto-responder reply saying ‘We’ll<br />
be in touch within 7 working days.’ This kind <strong>of</strong> service is outdated, and now consumers will not wait,<br />
<strong>the</strong>y will take to Twitter or Facebook or YouTube and start shouting until <strong>the</strong>y are heard.<br />
It is because <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> saturation <strong>of</strong> email, and this glut <strong>of</strong> social networking options, that we are so overwhelmed<br />
with communications, and this is why consumers shout louder and louder to be treated as an<br />
© 2015, Portio Research. All Rights Reserved 11
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