SMS: Expected Response in Five Minutes

From the 160Characters site -

According to an online 160 Characters survey that looked at how different messaging platforms elicit differing response times, 84% of users expect a SMS response in five minutes The survey looked at the user messaging habits across email, IM and SMS in personal and work environments.

The results highlight preference for using SMS as a key communication tool, especially when an immediate or near immediate response is required. 84% would respond to a personal SMS in less than 30 minutes according to the results while only 56% would respond in that time to a work related message.

The response time generally depended on the context and the person sending/receiving the mail, but differences emerged between the broad context of messages and between business and personal use.

WAITING FOR EMAIL
26% of respondents would take between two and five hours to reply to a personal email and 31% would wait till the next day to reply. 26% said it would take them two to five hours to reply and 22% would wait till the next day. At least this was better than the response time to personal email with 31% waiting for the next day.

MMS STILL TOO SLOW
No one admitted to not using SMS for personal reasons but 12% still don't use it at work. However this compares to 60% who would never use MMS for work related communications with long delivery times cited as the main reason.

IM
Mobile IM still has some way to go for both business and personal use with 42% not using mobile IM for personal reasons and 54% not using it for business.

This compares to the PC where only 15% don't use PC based IM for personal and 27% not using it in business. For those who use Mobile IM, 57% expect a reply within 5 minutes for a personal message while only 18% expect a business reply in that time.

IM IN SMS CLOTHING
There seems to be a trend to launch mobile IM under the guise of upgraded SMS. There is a temptation to merge messaging types as networks become more sophisticated. These results show that consumers are well aware of the different features of each messaging type and that they are comfortable choosing the message type most suited to the context of the message.