Why Mobile Communication Reigns Supreme In Retail

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When was the last time you went to a store without checking their hours and mask policies first? Going shopping these days is harder than ever, but smart retailers know how to reach potential customers with the information they need to get in the door (or place an order for pickup). Increasingly, customers are using mobile devices to look up information and communicate with businesses, and it’s almost always via text messaging these days.

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Customers who own smartphones don’t want to talk on the phone or even receive an email. They want to send and receive SMS messages because that is the easiest way to communicate.

Text Messages vs Emails

Text messages have a 98% open rate compared to a 20% open rate for emails - that’s five times higher for SMS messages. People are finding their email boxes increasingly overloaded, and as a result, very few emails actually ever see the light of day. The response rate for text messages is eight times that of emails - 45% for text messages compared to 6% for email. Response time is also significantly higher for text messages than for emails. The average response time for email is 90 minutes, whereas the average response time for text messages is 90 seconds - that’s 60 times higher.

There are a lot of reasons why consumers prefer text messages over other types of communication. When you call a business, you will either have to navigate through a maze of automated prompts to connect with the person you need or else you might have to wait on hold for a long time or leave a number for a callback who knows when.

In some cases, businesses have set up the ability to text customers things like appointment reminders but neglect to enable two-way messaging, and as a result one in three customers have sent messages to a business without receiving a reply.

Messaging shows customers that businesses care about them and about their communication preferences. What’s more, it shows customers that businesses care about convenience for their customers, allowing them to communicate in a less cumbersome way. Text messaging increases customer satisfaction and along with it the likelihood that customers will recommend a business to their friends and family.

Text messaging has become a staple in the pandemic economy, allowing people to know when their curbside or delivery orders are ready and allowing customers to message stores to tell them they have arrived for their pickup. What’s more, most customers say they plan to continue to use these services after the pandemic is over.

Learn more about the importance of mobile communication from the infographic below.

mobile messaging