Do customers prefer texting or calling businesses in 2026?
The numbers are no longer ambiguous. 75% of consumers say they'd rather text a business than call it (SMS Comparison). 90% of customers say they prefer text messages over direct phone calls when contacting businesses (SMS Comparison). And in 2025, texting officially overtook email as the number one way consumers prefer to reach customer service (Sakari, 2025).
This isn't driven by one age group. It spans demographics. The assumption that "older customers want to call" is increasingly outdated — research from McKinsey found that even 71% of Gen Z now say they'd reach out to customer support via phone for complex issues, but for routine inquiries, every generation overwhelmingly prefers text.
Why do customers prefer texting over calling a business?
Three reasons come up in every study:
Convenience. A phone call requires both parties to be available at the same time. A text doesn't. Customers can reach out during a lunch break, while waiting for a kid at school pickup, or at 10pm when they finally have a quiet moment. The asynchronous nature of texting fits modern life in a way phone calls simply don't.
Speed. Counterintuitively, texting feels faster than calling — because you don't wait on hold, navigate a menu, or repeat yourself to three different people. You send a message, you get an answer.
A record. When you make a phone call, you have to remember what was said. When you text, everything is documented. For service appointments, pricing quotes, and confirmations, customers genuinely prefer having it in writing.
How do SMS and phone calls compare for business engagement?
The engagement gap is significant:
- •SMS open rate: 98% vs email: 20% (Mobile Marketing Association)
- •SMS response rate: 45% vs email: 6% (Business.com)
- •Average time to read a text: 3 minutes (Validity)
- •Average time to respond to email: several hours to days
Phone calls have the highest potential engagement — but only if someone answers. And 62% of calls to small businesses go unanswered (411 Locals). A text that gets a 45% response rate beats a phone channel with a 38% answer rate every time.
See how Polu.ai handles both channels automatically. Try our demo →
Should small businesses offer both SMS and phone?
Yes — but with a critical caveat. Offering a phone number without a reliable way to respond to it is worse than just offering text. It creates an expectation and then breaks it.
The most effective setup is one where:
This way you don't lose the customers who prefer calling, and you capture the majority who prefer texting. Nobody falls through the cracks.
That's exactly how Polu.ai is designed to work.
See how it works →
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Sources: SMS Comparison, Sakari (2025), McKinsey (2024), Mobile Marketing Association, Business.com via Infobip, Validity, 411 Locals