Mobile entertainment users ‘can’t get no satisfaction’

Editor’s Note: Welcome to Reality Check, a feature for RCR Wireless News’ new weekly e-mail service, Mobile Content and Culture. We’ve gathered a group of visionaries and veterans in the mobile content industry to give their insights into the marketplace. In the coming weeks look for columns from Tom Huseby of SeaPoint Ventures, Mark Desautels of CTIA, Mark Donovan of M:Metrics, and more.
There have always been rumblings about poor user experiences for mobile entertainment services. If you have ever tried to download a video clip, buy a ringtone, play a game or watch mobile TV, you’ll know what I mean. A bad first experience damages every party in the value chain. It also loses a valuable customer who may then be twice as hard to persuade to try mobile entertainment in the future.
We are told that the mobile content market is currently worth an estimated $20 billion annually, and is still growing. This seems incredible given that the preliminary results of MEF’s Quality of Experience Initiative show that only 26% of all consumers in the U.S. and the U.K. are satisfied with their mobile entertainment experience. In fact, the highest current satisfaction rates in the American market are for mobile TV (37%), and in the U.K. the highest rates are for music downloads (32%).
The most crucial problem listed by the consumers surveyed is ensuring that mobile entertainment works as it is advertised to do. Reliability is still low and this is reflected in overall low adoption rates.
These results are the first of many pieces of consumer research that will determine the user experience in France, Germany, Italy, Romania, Spain and Singapore. The MEF initiative, led by members LCC and Zandan, is trying to get a better understanding of the problems that are impacting a positive experience of mobile entertainment. The research covers a full cross-section of content including ringtones, mobile TV, mobile video clips, mobile information services, mobile chat, wallpapers, logos, full-track music downloads and mobile games.
However, it’s not all gloom and doom. The survey did highlight the great strides made by the industry in educating consumers, with over 80% being aware of the different types of mobile entertainment available. Consumers are also already considering buying these services-for ringtones over 50% of respondents in the U.K. and U.S. rated themselves as very likely or likely to buy these products. The industry needs to determine how to convert this interest into initial purchasing activity and, eventually, loyalty. These are some of the next steps that the MEF will concentrate on.
We cannot afford, as an industry, to take our consumers for granted. We have the tools, the technology and the wisdom to make the user experience a seamless one. One which makes the consumer clamor for more content. That’s a true vision of the future and it’s possible.
It won’t be easy or painless-especially with more qualitative consumer research on the horizon from MEF. But, by establishing industry-wide key performance indicators on content availability, content performance (time to download, quality of download, etc), and service conformance evaluated across services and devices, MEF believes $20 billion a year could just be a drop in the ocean.
You may contact Suhail directly at suhail@m-e-f.org. You may contact RCR Wireless News at rcrwebhelp@crain.com.