The Compelling Case for SMS
First things first: I am absolutely against texting while driving. Don't do it. Seriously.
Be honest, you've at least once sent a text message while driving (or at a stoplight). While it's illegal in Minnesota (and a majority of other states), 9/10 Teens still do it. If it's illegal, why do you think so many still do it?
Consider listening to music, watching a video or having an actual conversation. You have to manually do something to stop or pause those activities. With reading and writing, there is no pause button, and it's not rude to zone out. Sure, if you're really distracted, it may take you a lot longer to do, but you can still read or write 160 characters in a timely fashion. Text-based communication is really efficient. You can be reading an article, have a phone call come in, answer and talk through it, and then go right back to reading the article.
See, you probably just did.
This is why a SMS-based channel of communication is such an important way to hear from your customers. Even email doesn’t cut it as it’s generally after-the-fact rather than at the point-of-experience.
Furthermore, text messages are limited to 160 characters, so you have no option but to be quick and concise.
I’ll be the first to agree mobile apps have way more potential than passing strings of characters back and forth. However, smartphones have about a 38% penetration rate (which doesn't mean the user is going to download your app). And as cool as apps are, over 90% of smartphone users text. Further, text messaging has an install base of, for all intents and purposes, 100%. That is, 100% of all the 302 million mobile subscribers can interact via text message.
Now, what if you and your team could respond to all of this feedback instantly? How many frustrated customers would you save?
Once again, to be perfectly clear, I am completley against texting while driving.
-Geoff
