Harvard Business Review Analytic Services has issued the results of a new pulse survey examining the use of mobile messaging services such as SMS\/MMS and RCS within a business and marketing context. The report surveyed 308 executives from companies with over 1,000 employees about their use of messaging services to boost customer engagement from advanced messaging to standalone apps.<\/p>\n
RCS is the successor to SMS and an industry-standard messaging platform designed to deliver rich functionality in a native, universal messaging app. GSMA Intelligence estimates that there are approximately 286 million monthly active users which is expected to reach 831 million by 2020 making it one of the top 3 messaging platforms in the world.<\/p>\n
Rich Business Messaging (RBM) is a relatively new area within RCS which enables brands to engage directly with consumers in a more interactive and engaging way. It\u2019s estimated to be worth over $74 billion by 2021. The survey found that 68% of companies expected advanced mobile messaging apps to play a highly important role in online consumer marketing within five years as it can help with customer engagement in a number of different ways, such as advertising or customer care, driving higher conversion rates and brand loyalty. The survey also found that 82% of organizations felt that analytics provided by RBM messaging such as read receipts were the most important capabilities of advanced messaging apps.<\/p>\n