Surprising new research by Omdia sheds fresh light
You invested in the campaign. The offer was compelling, the audience was segmented thoughtfully, and the timing was carefully considered. And yet the results came back flat. No meaningful click-throughs, no conversion lift, no response. If this pattern sounds familiar, the instinct is usually to look inward: Was the copy weak? Was the offer wrong?
Perhaps the list was outdated. The answer, according to new independent research from Omdia, is likely none of the above. The problem runs deeper than execution. It lives in how trust is established in the messaging experience itself.
Messaging Trust is Broken
Omdia's research, published in the eBook “Unlock Powerful Customer Connections with Rich Communications Services,” and sponsored by Syniverse, surveyed 200 US-based enterprise decision-makers across banking and financial services, healthcare, retail, and travel and leisure.
Consumer expectations are evolving. Omdia found that consumers are ready for richer, more trusted messaging experiences. RCS for Business offers a meaningful step forward with verified sender identity and interactive experiences.
This is not a deliverability problem. It is not a frequency problem. It is a credibility problem, and no amount of creative optimization will resolve it. When a customer cannot confirm that a message is genuinely from a brand they recognize, the rational response is to ignore it. That distrust is costing enterprises real engagement every single day, on messages that were entirely legitimate.
The implications extend beyond open rates. Consumer expectations around trust and authenticity have risen. For brands looking to deepen engagement, meeting that standard means giving customers clear signals that a message is real and worthy of their attention.
What Consumers Actually Expect
The Omdia data does not simply diagnose the problem. It also tells us what customers want instead, and the picture is instructive. When asked what format of marketing and notification messages they most prefer, 42% of US consumers chose messages with text and images, 23% preferred messages that include the brand's logo, 22% selected interactive graphical messages that allow them to compare products, select a product, or make a purchase, and only 17% said messages that allow them to verify the brand.
That last figure, the lowest in the group, is notable because it reflects how unfamiliar that capability remains. Consumers do not yet expect verification because they have never been offered it at scale. When they are, engagement follows.
Enterprise priorities are shifting to reflect this reality. Data from Omdia's IT Enterprise Insights survey of 5,280 respondents shows that differentiating through customer experience has become a top priority for 20.4% of organizations heading into 2026, up from 15% the prior year. What’s fueling that ambition is AI, specifically the ability to personalize at scale. As AI makes it possible to tailor every message to the individual, the demand for channels that can actually deliver those experiences grows alongside it.
What RCS for Business Unlocks
The eBook positions RCS for Business as the answer to this structural gap, and the capabilities it outlines differ from what traditional messaging channels offer. RCS for Business adds verified sender identity, branded messaging, pictures and video, interactive buttons and carousels, delivery signals including read receipts and typing indicators, conversation threading, chatbot and AI integration, and analytics that allow brands to track performance and optimize what drives engagement.
Each of these features offers unique value to customers who are interested in elevating their messaging strategy. Verified sender identity improves trust between the brand and the message recipient. Rich media and interactivity replace the static, text-only experience. Analytics offer greater insight into campaign performance and customer behavior.
The business case for making this transition is already well-formed among those who have examined the channel closely. Marketers anticipate tangible results from RCS adoption: 71% expect higher conversion rates, 59% expect a better customer experience, 55% expect broader reach, and 34% expect lower app development costs. These are not aspirational projections from early adopters. They reflect the expectations of enterprise decision-makers who have evaluated the technology against their current tools.
Real Applications Across Industries
The eBook goes beyond the general use case to illustrate what RCS for Business looks like in practice across major verticals, and the use cases make the value proposition concrete.
Banking
In banking and financial services, conversational banking gives institutions the opportunity to upsell and cross-sell in the moment based on real-time customer activity, while in-chat customer care reassures customers that transactions are handled quickly and with a verified agent. Network APIs help reduce fraud, lower call center volume, and enable safer self-service. The fraud alert use case alone represents a meaningful operational improvement: a customer who can confirm, dispute, or call the bank directly from a verified, branded message no longer needs to navigate a separate authentication flow or call center queue.
Retail
In retail, the eBook describes a reimagined customer journey. An RCS-based loyalty program can guide the full customer journey from the first offer through purchase, delivery updates, and send requests for product reviews. Customers can browse products in a carousel, ask questions in chat, and get recommendations that drive sales from their messaging app. Instead of abandoned cart emails, brands can re-engage shoppers with tailored offers they can accept and complete directly within the conversation. The reduction in friction at each stage of that journey is where conversion gains are realized.
The Personalization Imperative
One additional finding from the research deserves attention, particularly for teams currently investing in AI-driven marketing capabilities. On AI specifically, 39% of companies are already using it in customer messaging and 57% plan to do so within the next year. The appetite for smarter, more individualized communication is nearly universal at the enterprise level.
The top barrier holding companies back from leveraging personalization and AI is data privacy. RCS for Business addresses this by providing verified sender authentication, assuring customers that messages come from a trusted source. This trust boosts engagement and interaction, generating richer data for brands. With more reliable data, companies can deliver personalized experiences, and AI can then automate and scale these tailored communications. Trust and personalization are not competing priorities. They are mutually reinforcing, and RCS provides the infrastructure for both.
The Path Forward
The customers who are not engaging with your messages are not disinterested in your brand. Their expectations have evolved. The research reinforces what brands are already acting on: the opportunity lies in channels designed for the way customers want to communicate.
RCS for Business, delivered through Syniverse's global messaging infrastructure, provides enterprises with the tools to close the trust gap and meet customers with the kind of communication they have already indicated they prefer: rich, verified, interactive, and personalized. The research is there. The use cases are documented. The marketer expectations are on record.
The question now is whether your organization moves first, or follows the competition.
Download the full Omdia eBook or watch our webinar to explore the data and discover what RCS for Business can deliver for your industry.
