Infographic: Exploring the potential of workplace text messaging

Short message service (SMS) missives exceed email’s success in terms of open and response rates—and, increasingly customer, preference—yet companies have been slow to make the switch.

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Businesses, however—clutching email with a death grip—have been slow to adopt this popular form of communication. That might soon change, according to an infographic from Semaphore .

The graphic says 4.2 billion people use their phones to text. Of mobile phones worldwide, 90 percent are equipped to send SMS (short message service) text messages.

Not only are staggering numbers of people texting, but recipients are reading—and replying to—text messages. One study found that a whopping 98 percent of SMS texts get read. Also, according to the graphic:

Text messaging has a 45 percent response rate, while email only has a 6 percent response rate.

Email detractors will also appreciate this assertion: “An average person takes 90 minutes to respond to an email, but only 90 seconds to respond to a text message.”

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