Submitted by Mike Grenville on Tue, 20 Sep 2005 12:21

Only 17% of those with a mobile use their phone for anything other than to make calls or send text messages on a daily basis, avoiding the more complex features available according to research from Mobeon.

The NOP Omnibus survey interviewed 999 nationally representative adults in Great Britain aged 15+ via telephone between 26-28 August, 2005 was conducted on behalf of Stockholm based mobile messaging company Mobeon. It found that, on a daily basis, advanced services such as call diverts, picture galleries, calendars, MMS, email or web access are left untouched by all but 17% of mobile users.

What The Point?

According to Mobeon, other causes of this low take-up include poor market introduction and a reliance on the technical manual to communicate with the end-user. Poor usability, resulting in the consumer giving up on getting to grips with the service is also a key factor.

One example of the slow rate of adoption is the fact that just a third of the 15-24 year age bracket, the group that operators regard as ‘early adopters’, take advantage of more complex services on a daily basis.

The research also found that only half of all adults feel that operators understand what features customers actually want. This figure decreases with each age group. Only 23% of those aged over 55 believe that the carriers understand their needs.

KISS

Another area to explore is the personalisation of the phone, a consumer trend demonstrated by the popularity of wallpapers and ringtones. According to Mobeon, users regard their phone as an extension of themselves and would therefore like more services that they can tailor to their personality. Operators need to show consumers that they don’t need to purchase add-ons from content providers like ringtone companies, but can personalise services that they provide, such as voicemail.

“The development of many mobile services today has been driven by engineers,” said Birgitta Olson, head of marketing, Mobeon. “The advances in handsets in recent years have been phenomenal, but operators need to look closer at the need of the end user and what benefit these new functions could have. These could be tangible benefits for improved communication or perhaps more intangible, like the capacity for users to stamp their personality on their phone, which is, after all, the tool most often used to communicate with peer groups.”

“In too many cases market research and product development takes place in the reverse order. It sounds obvious, but it is vital to respond to consumer desires rather than try to dictate them. The advanced services will only take off if they are perceived to be answering an existing need. In addition, understanding that one size doesn’t fit all is important. Different segments have different needs and it’s time for us to respond to those needs. We need to put the consumer, rather than the engineer, in the driving seat. ”