We found that 9 out of 10 consumers globally want to message with brands. But is your business ready to start texting? We ran a survey along with Vanson Bourne to understand how consumers use messaging to talk to businesses.

1. Sources:
Twilio and Vanson Bourne Mobile Messaging Consumer Survey 2016
Dimension Data’s 2016 Global Contact Centre Benchmarking Report, © Dimension Data 2013-2016
Business Intelligence
Kahuna Mobile Marketing Index
Read the Global Mobile Messaging Consumer 2016
Report to learn more about how consumers around the
world use messaging.Read the full report
More than 8 out of 10 (85%) of consumers not only want to be able to receive information
but also reply to businesses or engage in a conversation.
CONSUMERS WANT TO
USE MESSAGING TO:
CONSUMERS DO NOT WANT
TO USE MESSAGING TO:
Reply to order confirmations 60%
Reply to appointment reminders 55%
Give product or service feedback 49%
Reply to delivery status 47%
Learn about new products 46%
Rate or respond to survey 45%
Receive coupons or promotions 42%
Reply to flight delay notifications 40%
Get customer support
Provide bank details
Apply or resign from a job
Fire someone or get fired
39%
63%
80%
85%
MESSAGING IS NOT A ONE-WAY COMMUNICATION CHANNEL
5 WAYS FOR BUSINESSES TO GET STARTED
77% CONSUMERS KEEP NOTIFICATIONS ON FOR MESSAGING APPS
APPS CONSUMERS PREFER TO MESSAGE
COMMERCE NOTIFICATIONS SALES & MARKETING CUSTOMER SERVICE ACCESS SECURITY PEOPLE COORDINATION
#1 PREFERRED CHANNEL FOR CUSTOMER SERVICE
WOULD GIVE UP TO USE MESSAGING
Messaging ranks #1 customer service channel preferred by consumers in South Korea, India,
Singapore and US, and among top 3 preferred channels around the world.
Millennials choose messaging over email to talk businesses. Messaging is 3-8x more
preferred than face to face communications across all generations.
AN AVERAGE CONSUMER
Half of the consumers prefer using native SMS (including iMessage and Android) to message businesses.
While consumers keep notifications on for the messaging apps they use the most, native
SMS (including iMessage and Android) has a high opt-in across all regions:
% of consumers that turn on notification
uses 3 different
messaging apps per week
has 3 messaging apps on
their phone’s home screen
3 3 3 sends 3 messages
per hour
MESSAGING EMAIL TELEPHONE FACE TO FACE WEB LIVE CHAT OTHER MAIL
25-34 YRS18-24YRS 35-44YRS 45-54YRS 55+YRS
US
UK
GERMANY
INDIA
JAPAN
SINGAPORE
46% 11% 34% 2%1% 5%
34% 23% 26% 6% 3% 5% 3%
34% 27% 25% 5% 5%3% 2%
33% 24% 27% 7% 6% 2%2%
25% 38% 18% 6% 8% 3%2%
18% 53% 23% 1%2%2%
13% 44% 32% 6% 1%3%2%
SOUTH KOREA
MESSAGING EMAIL TELEPHONE FACE TO FACE OTHER MAILWEB LIVE CHAT
31%
29%
23%
6%
4% 4%
2%
24%
33%
30%
8%
1% 2% 1%
24%
31%32%
5%
2%
5%
2%
31%30%
26%
4% 4% 4%
1%
32% 32%
21%
4% 5% 5%
2%
PERCENTAGE OF COUNSUMERS
PHONES ARE THE PRIMARY MESSAGING DEVICE
NO MATTER WHAT PART OF THE WORLD YOUR ARE IN
76% 74%
69%
65%
62% 60%
53%
US UK GERMANYINDIA JAPANSINGAPORE SOUTH KOREA
% of messages sent from phones compared to desktops, laptops or tablets.
SEX MORNING COFFEE PHONE CALLS
… friends/family … businesses
Native Sms Travel &
Transport
Messaging
(Avg)
Financial Retail Social Health &
Fitness
82% 78% 77% 65% 50% 42% 35%
Only 48% of businesses are equipped to
connect with customers through a message.
While 89% of consumers would like to use
messaging to communicate with businesses.
Face to face Mail Phone Email Social SMS Video/Voice Chat
BUSINESSES CALL, PEOPLE TEXT
BUSINESSES
PEOPLE
Text
Most businesses continue to reach people over the phone and email when consumers want to communicate
via text messages via SMS, in-app chat, push notifications, and messaging apps.
Native
Sms
Whatsapp Facebook
Messenger
34% 31% 20% 7%
5%
Other
3%
Line
Snapchat
OTHER
Native
Sms
Facebook
Messenger
47% 21% 6%
6%
Other
2%
Line
Snapchat
Whatsapp
18%
OTHER
UNDERSTAND HOW
CONSUMERS USE MESSAGING
What started out as simple text exchanges have evolved into expressive and engaging
conversations between people. Consumers exchange more than 50 billion messages a day and
the continuing explosive growth suggests that messaging will be a lasting phenomenon.
But, what does this mean for businesses?
We asked 6,000 people in US, UK, Germany, India, South Korea, Singapore and Japan how they
use messaging to talk to businesses. Here is what we found: