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Submitted by Mike Grenville on Tue, 21 Jun 2005 15:08 |
O2 Business Trending Index finds that business text growth has edged ahead of consumer growth for the first time
New research by O2 states that businesses are starting to overtake consumers in driving the SMS market. SMS traffic data in May 2005 shows that users have grown across all segments but business use growth has edged in front of consumers for the first time ever with business traffic increasing by 14.6% compared to 14.5% for consumers[1].
UK SMS growth is the first in a series of reports from the O2 business trending index which has been created to understand and monitor core business trends including the use of technology, changing business practices, and other key social, cultural and economic indices defining UK business behaviour. Compiled on an on-going basis, the index is based on research and feedback from a number of quantitative and qualitative data sources including over one million O2 SME business customers, the O2 Arena X Club and a number of independent analyst houses and think tanks.
Communicating with friends and families by text has long been established as a valuable communication tool and the consumer SMS market has shown massive growth in recent years often with spikes of traffic over seasonal occasions such as New Years Eve and Valentines Day. Business SMS however looks set to show more consistent and steady growth as more and more employees across the UK adopt SMS as a viable communication option. In 2000, the Mobile Data Association found that 19 million messages were sent daily. In February 2005, that figure had reached an average of 75 million a day, a massive increase that can be attributed in part to increasing take up of SMS for business purposes.
Peter Rampling, Head of SME Marketing at O2 said; “What we are seeing is that SMS is moving up the communications hierarchy within business. Increasingly, businesses are finding that texting is the perfect way to communicate essential information when calling a client or supplier is either not convenient or not possible. Sending an SMS is quick, discreet and easy and messages can be delivered in seconds. SMS is ideal when you are in transit, in a taxi or on a train to confirm meeting details, give short instructions or project updates. Historically, consumers have always driven SMS growth sending messages between friends and family. Now we are seeing significant take up from businesses deploying SMS services as colleagues, suppliers and contractors use text to communicate throughout the working day.â€
Rob Bamforth, Principal Analyst, Quocirca added; "SMEs often lack the time or IT resources to make early investments in more complex mobile technology such as wireless hotspots and VPNs, but our research shows they are just as likely as large enterprises to be using mobile email. In a similar way there is a need for rapid text based communication and what we are seeing is growth not just in mobile email for those with suitable devices, but also with short messages for all types of mobile handsets which are now increasingly likely to be part of the business communications landscape.â€
Case Studies
Businesses are taking advantage of the products and services at their disposal to maximise the benefits of texting at work. PC based services such as Business Text by O2 are a simple way to send the same message to a number of colleagues, suppliers or contractors at once.
O2 provided a few examples of how some of its Business cusomers are using SMS
Patton Property
Patton Property is a letting agency in Northern Ireland. The letting business is all about matching tenants and properties and this involves making and receiving hundreds of telephone calls a week – sometimes as many as 400 – just to say the same message. Apart from being extremely tedious, this takes a great deal of time, and often affects the number of new business opportunities that are generated by the agency.
Using O2’s Business Text messaging service, property information is now sent via a text message from the agency to a large number of tenants’ mobile phones. These messages are programmed to be sent immediately or preset to a future date and time which gives Patton’s agency staff the freedom and flexibility they were looking for. Additionally, because all recipients receive the text message at the same time, it removes any ‘first come first served’ issues and creates an enthusiastic response from tenants.
Newcross Healthcare
Some time ago, nursing agency Newcross Healthcare realised that most of their 4,000 nurses didn’t have access to a computer and had to phone in to obtain necessary work information. Using the O2 Business Text messaging service, work availability and pay slip details are sent via text to nurses’ mobile phones. The O2 Business Text messaging service means that agency staff can be contacted without disruption to their work and confidential information can be delivered to a number of people in a fraction of the time taken via the telephone. The service also gives the agency greater flexibility and control over incoming call activity and means that they can send birthday messages to their staff to promote increased staff satisfaction and loyalty.
High Calibre Personnel
High Calibre Personnel (HCP) is one of the world's leading automotive professional recruitment consultancies, specialising in the placement of candidates into permanent, contract, and temporary positions. HCP has over 5,000 candidates who are actively seeking employment at any one time. Its Branch staff receives up to 250 phone calls a day from candidates enquiring about new opportunities or confirming availability for work. Such a high volume of inbound telephone calls had affected efficiency levels throughout the company with many staff unable to get on with core administration duties because of the constant inbound calling.
The consultancy uses the O2 Business service to provide training course information, communicate client feedback from interviews, and send job alerts to thousands of people. More importantly, the service greatly reduced the quagmire of telephone calls coming in to the consultancy and gave candidates the assurance that information such as interview updates would be sent straight to them.
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