Blackberry Meltdown…What does it Say about Consumer Behavior Patterns?

I use a Blackberry and somehow I was not panicked about the 10-12 hour lapse in service, but since the media and rest of the world saw this as a national crisis, I thought it important to comment.

Personally, I found it a great relief that 50-100 messages were delayed for a period.  It gave me some time to catch up on other work and actually talk to friends face-to-face.  But, I must admit that I did keep checking my Blackberry every 10 minutes to see if I was missing an “all important” message from a business associate or a friend.  What I found was that I could survive without being in “constant contact” with the world at large, evidently others could not and that pattern of behavior is entrenched for good.  There is no turning back.

What the brief meltdown did remind us all of is how important it is to be in constant contact with everyone, and how dependent we have become on our little, hand-held devices to deliver us messages in all forms. Our culture thrives on receiving immediate information and people, companies, executives, friends and family expect to be able to deliver that information accurately and in real time. For now, that is text messages, pictures of all sorts, emails canceling dinner plans (when a call would do just as well), and receiving music downloads.  Going forward, I see this information flow to include many things that an e-commerce merchant wants to relay to their customers, namely, coupons, reminders of holidays and new products, and special offers.

People today expect to receive anything and everything on their hand-held, wireless device and businesses must now master the art of getting information to their customer via these devices to come out ahead of their competition.

I wrote briefly about m-commerce earlier in this blog and I am sure I will write about it much more in the weeks to come, check it out, just scroll below. 

And if you think you can ignore this growing trend of people expecting and wanting to interact with their favorite friends, brands, businesses, and internet sites via their hand-held devices you will be missing what I predict will be the great equalizer in helping small to mid size business compete with larger online companies for customers, namely m-commerce and ensuring that you have the methods in place to communicate with folks on those “little screens” as they click continue to click on messages all day long.

HELPFUL TIPS FOR THE DAY:

1. The world cannot live without all sorts of content being delivered on-demand and immediately.

2. Behavior patterns of people today dictate that we live on our wireless devices and expect them to be able to do everything but cook for us.

3. We have only begun to see what is possible on wireless devices. Because of that, look into m-commerce as an extension of your online marketing stratgies to interact with consumers.

4. For anybody out there that can find me a person under 30 who does not look at their wireless device at least once every five minutes to do somethine, call me...I will buy you dinner.

5. Being a competetive online business mandates that you execute what you do today better than anyone else and that you anticipate how consumers will "want" to work with you into the future.

Comments

[sandra]

I work with Vringo and wanted to let people know about what the company has created.
The Facebook application version lets you see your friends pictures as caller ID. The Facebook version works for all Blackberry phones.After installing the facebook app, just go to: http://get.vringo.com on your phones browser.

Free to use and easy to set up, Vringo lets you quickly send your friends Facebook pix to your cell phone.