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Study confirms that SMS is more effective than voicemail | BulkSMS.com

October 30, 2008

New research bears out that people are more likely to respond sooner to an SMS than to a voicemail message. While the study focused on cellphone users in the USA, these findings correspond to a similar move toward using SMS rather than voicemail among South Africans.

“The survey confirms my views on the advantages of SMS over voicemail and how SMS messaging promotes efficient and effective communications in the business environment. It also points to the fact that this is a global and not simply a local trend,” says Dr Pieter Streicher, managing director of global mobile messaging firm BulkSMS.com.

The study was conducted by Opinion Research Corporation on behalf of Sprint, a mobile network operator based in the USA. Key research findings are:

• Those under 30 years of age are four times more likely to answer back within minutes to an SMS than a voicemail.
• 91 percent of this same age group respond within the hour to an SMS message.
• Adults 30 years and older are twice as likely to reply within minutes to an SMS rather than to a voicemail message.
• The only people who tend not to reply in SMS messaging form were those above the age of 65.

Furthermore, insights from the survey show that persons between the ages of 55 to 64 are more likely to SMS their children. The main reason for this is that children reply faster to an SMS than to a voice message. Of interest is this finding that while adults in the above age group are less likely to send an SMS to a co-worker than to their children, the younger co-workers preferred responding to an SMS than a voicemail.

“This is a clear indication that the way children stay in touch with their parents is altering the communication habits of adults. In addition, we can expect that as the current generation of youth become adults they will carry their SMS habits into their work-related communications,” says Dr Streicher.

Some local messaging habits

The move to adopting SMS as a preferred messaging medium among South Africa cellphone users is becoming evident.

“While it is indeed easier to leave a voicemail when you call someone, more and more people are hanging up and SMS'ing instead. It seems that the quicker response from an SMS is worth the effort,” observes Dr Streicher.

Further cellphone habits are identifiable in the local market. Dr Streicher points out that some people are de-activating voicemail completely while others are changing their voicemail greeting to prompt callers to SMS them instead of leaving a voicemail message.

According to Dr Streicher, “SMS is even more compelling for businesses in the services sector who constantly deal with clients. Imagine someone working at the customer services desk whose full-time job is to contact clients and update them on the progress of an order, when a vehicle can be collected, or to confirm an appointment. It is far more effective for them to use SMS to get hold of their clients.”

“Sending SMS messages from a computer at your work desk is also lot easier than sending messages from a cellphone. The increased use of application-to-person SMS messaging solutions is testament to the increased use of SMS for business communications more generally and a possible reason why voicemail messages are not as popular as they used to be,” concludes Dr Streicher.