Wireless households growing at rapid rate
Wednesday, September 24th, 2008More than 20 million US telephone households (17%) are now “wireless substitutors” - homes without landlines that rely solely on a mobile phone - and one in five households could be wireless-only by year’s end, according to a study by Nielsen Mobile.
This is a MAJOR PROBLEM for many businesses who rely on the telephone to generate business.
In the good old days, Ma Bell published a telephone directory of all numbers, residential and business in the market. Alphabetical listings of residences and businesses were listed in the WHITE PAGES.
Business listings categorized by type were published in the YELLOW Pages.
Then a couple of things happened.
1. Move businesses began relying on mobile phones instead of traditional land lines. US Privacy laws prohibit publishing mobile telephone numbers without the publisher jumping through all sorts of hoops.
2. Consumers increasinly went to unpublished numbers (prior to the “Do Not Call” legislation) to reduce the number of intrusive solicitations.
3. Consumers and businesses are offered an increasingly varied number of ways to get phone service. VOIP, cable, Skype, Vonage, and countless other providers make publishing a truly comprehensive directory impossible.
Where Customers Find Phone Numbers is a DVD program I recorded with Kathleen Pierz of The Pierz Group that details the results of a national survey. If you rely on the phone to ring with customers, you need to know where they’re looking to find those numbers.
One of the most surprising facts from the research was that adults aged 25-34 were the heaviest users of print Yellow Pages. As the perceived audience of print Yellow Pages ages, we see that the biggest users of print Yellow Pages are the Newly Wed and the Nearly Dead.
