Forget voice mail. Forget e-mail. If you want the fastest possible response to your question, send a text message. Don’t take my word for it (though I’ve been preaching the business benefits of text messaging for, like, ever) — there’s research to back it up:
According to a survey conducted by Opinion Research Corp. (ORC), a text is far more likely to elicit a quick response than voice mail. In fact, those under the age of 30 are four times more likely to respond within minutes to a text message compared to a voice mail, and 91 percent respond to a text message within one hour. Adults 30 and older are also quick to text — and are twice as likely to respond within minutes to a text message as compared to a voice message.
Think about it: Returning a phone call can be extremely time-consuming (not including the time needed to listen to the VM in the first place). But a text message, which is necessarily short in both directions (SMS technology limits message size to around 240 characters), can be read and replied to in a matter of seconds.
You’ll definitely want to read the full results of the text-messaging survey, as reported by Wireless and Mobile News. After that, check out our post on other productive uses for text messaging, and the one on sending free text messages from your iPhone.
Do you text? Why or why not? Comment, people, comment. Photo by Nate Steiner. [via Gizmodo]
