Mobile phones have become a near-ubiquitous tool for information-seeking and communicating: 83% of American adults own some kind of cell phone, and these devices are impacting many aspects of their owners’ daily lives.
For instance, a new survey from the Pew Internet research project quantifies how people rely on their mobile phones for real-time information.
In the past month, 51 percent of U.S. adult cell phone owners used their phones to get just-in-time information they “needed right away.” The numbers are even higher for 18-29 year-olds (64 percent) and 30-49 year-olds (57 percent).
Moreover, the Pew study shows that text messaging (SMS) continues to top the list of ways that Americans use their mobile phones. Three quarters of all cell owners (73 percent) use their phones for text messaging. There are over 173 billion text messages sent each month in the U.S. alone – roughly 240 million per hour – and worldwide SMS traffic is expected to exceed 11.6 trillion by 2015.
Not surprisingly, companies are capitalizing on the popularity of SMS alerts to provide real-time information. Ticketmaster alerts consumers when tickets are on sale, ESPN texts the final score to sports fans when the game ends and airlines notify travelers when their flights are delayed.
The financial industry recognized that mobile alerts could be applied to banking as well, and mobile financial alerts are becoming much more commonplace. Javelin Strategy & Research forecasts that 62 billion U.S. households will receive financial alerts by 2014.
Proactive mobile financial alerts are an integral component of a complete mobile banking solution, and enable financial institutions to mitigate fraud, lower servicing costs, drive customer acquisition, improve customer retention, facilitate cross-selling and preserve fees.
Learn more by downloading the Clairmail white paper, Proactive Alerting & Process Orchestration: Optimizing Customer Touchpoints and Engagement.
)
)
)
)
