With all the focus on enhanced messaging services allowed by both broadband and narrowband personal communications services lately, the last several months have seen a number of technologies introduced that make it possible to access the Internet, receive e-mail and receive personalized text-based information services via alphanumeric pagers or digital phones with short message capabilities. In an industry where carriers are scrambling to both find ways to set themselves apart based on something other than price, and gain more revenue per unit, some are considering adding these services to their packaged offerings.
But with all the time and money spent on developing and implementing these services, it may be that consumers don’t have much of a desire nor the need for them, no matter how diligently carriers try to convince them otherwise. Instead, it may be that these information services serve more as a churn prevention device that a market growth vehicle.
Various studies have been conducted to gauge the level of consumer interest in such enhanced messaging features, and how much they might be willing to pay for each service. Once such study was recently completed by Driscoll/Wolfe Marketing & Research Consulting. The study profiled current cellular subscribers and subscribers of both cellular and paging in the country’s top markets to determine the circumstances under which text messaging may be preferred to voice communications, factors which limit consumer interest in messaging services and the preferred methods for sending text messages to mobile handsets.
As consumers, members of the focus groups said short text messaging and short wireless e-mail (less than 30 words) with confirmation notification met their convenience needs over that of a cellular phone. In particular, the members wanted the ability to send messages without interrupting the person receiving it, like a ringing phone would.
But short, and easy, text messaging is the extent of their interest. Longer e-mail message service was considered more trouble than just accessing a laptop. The study cited the difficulty of reading lengthy messages on a device that could only display four lines of some 20 characters each. “This is not really the avenue to receive e-mail,” said Dick Wolfe, the report’s co-author.
Further along this line, the complicated procedures for connecting to the Internet, as well as the almost complete lack of any need to do so on a wireless mobile basis, placed these services last in terms of consumer interest. They’d rather just get the information via a phone call, than deal with the complicated process of accessing a web site, the study found.
These findings at first glance seem to contradict that of a report by the Strategis Group titled Wireless Internet and E-mail Markets, which claimed wireless e-mail was poised to command a total market potential of 44 million users. But the Strategis Group report did not address the issue of message length. The Driscoll/Wolfe study also found two-way e-mail capabilities to be of significant consumer interest, but only when limited to 30 words.
While Driscoll/Wolfe found a higher level of interest in wireless Internet access among mobile professionals and field service personnel who need to check on inventory availability and other types of information, it notes that the consumer market is needed to really explode subscriber numbers.
“We know that to mobile professionals, these services are important. But the break-even point comes with the consumers becoming interested,” Wolfe said.
Proponents of wireless Internet services hope providing information services, which allow users of both pagers and phones with SMS capabilities to choose what up-to-date information they would like to have paged to them, might be a more popular use of the medium.
A study conducted in March by Business Research Group, titled Consumer Demand for Personal Communications Services, ranked 17 PCS services in terms of consumer interest. Wireless access to the Internet via a pager or “smartphone” was 13th and a device that provided readily available information on “personally relevant information and news” listed 14th. In particular 77 percent had “no interest at all” in wireless service to access the Internet and 82 percent had “no interest at all” in some type of device that would provide readily accessible personally relevant information and news.
However, while consumers don’t seem to want these service at the onset, it may be that including them in a bundled package may prove an effective churn-reducing device. Intelligent Information Inc., a company providing information services and Internet access to short message device users, conducted a telephone study with Directions For Decisions Inc., a marketing and advertising research service, to determine what type of information services consumers are interested in most.
They asked consumers their preferences for general information services, such as stock quotes, weather information, local news, sports scores or Internet access, among other choices. In that study, both pager and cellular users ranked their top choice as “the ability to easily search the Internet for information” and placed stock quotes and business news last.
It also showed that people already with text messaging service felt strongly positive about a company that offers these types of information services, although those that don’t have text messaging rarely list information services as an important option. Overall, 27 percent of respondents said they would switch providers to receive information services.
“While not going out of their way to get it, once they have it, they like it,” said Steven Campana, DFD executive vice president, who said such services act mostly as a retention device for existing customers more than anything else. “It may help set you apart, but its major purpose is to keep people. Since the whole game is about keeping the customers you have, it becomes a pretty powerful service.”
While carriers have their own goals of gaining subscribers and generating more revenue, these various surveys show that the most important thing to a wireless consumer is to make life easy for them. Technology can make many things possible, but unless it’s easy, people don’t want it.
