© 2016 Marchex, Inc. All Rights Reserved. www.marchex.com 1

February 2016

America’s Speech Patterns Uncovered

© 2016 Marchex, Inc. All Rights Reserved. www.marchex.com 2

IntroductionPatience may be a virtue, but it is increasingly harder to find among U.S. consumers. In our hyper-connected culture, where our expectation is to purchase products or services on-demand, businesses that fail to adapt are at risk.

This study is the first of its kind to measure the patience (or lack thereof), chattiness and fast-talking of Americans in all 50 states.

Marchex Call DNA technology measured hold times, rate of speech and frequency of speech from a data set of more than four million phone calls placed by consumers to businesses across a wide variety of industries from 2013-2015.

© 2016 Marchex, Inc. All Rights Reserved. www.marchex.com 1

Ranking the Nation’s 50 states on gabbiness, impatience and fast-talking.

If you’re at a party with 50 guests, one from each state, who is likely to talk the most? Who will be the most patient? Who will talk the

fastest?

The analysts from the Marchex Institute studied more than 4 million phone calls placed from consumers to businesses from

2013 – 2015, using technology that automatically monitors speech, silence, ring tones and hold times, to uncover speech patterns

from residents in all 50 states. Here is what we found:

WHO ARE THE “FAST TALKERS”?Americans are talking faster than ever – on average Americans speak between 110 & 150 words per minute. And recent studies show

that we’re talking faster… as texts, tweets and technology causes many of us to speak more quickly to try to fit it all in. Who is leading

the charge?

A clear pattern emerges when viewing the data on a map of the United States. The slowest talkers – as measured by words per

minute – come primarily from the South. The fastest talking population comes from Oregon, and is followed closely by its neighbors

in the Pacific Northwest, most of New England, the upper Midwest (states surrounding Minnesota and Iowa) and Florida.

1. Oregon 2. Minnesota 3. Massachusetts 4. Kansas 5. Iowa 6. Vermont 7. Alaska 8. South Dakota 9. New Hampshire 10. Nebraska 11. Connecticut

12. North Dakota 13. Washington 14. Wisconsin 15. Rhode Island 16. Idaho 17. Florida 18. Pennsylvania 19. New Jersey 20. West Virginia 21. Maine

22. Colorado 23. California 24. Missouri 25. Montana 26. Indiana 27. Hawaii 28. Virginia 29. Nevada 30. Arizona 31. Utah 32. Michigan 33. Tennessee

34. Maryland 35. Oklahoma 36. Wyoming 37. Delaware 38. New York 39. Kentucky 40. Illinois 41. Ohio 42. Arkansas 43. Georgia 44. Texas

45. New Mexico 46. North Carolina 47. Alabama 48. South Carolina 49. Louisiana 50. Mississippi

Fastest Talkers

Slowest Talkers

Fastest1. Oregon2. Minnesota3. Massachusetts4. Kansas5. Iowa

Slowest1. Mississippi 2. Louisiana3. South Carolina 4. Alabama 5. North Carolina

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You may notice that citizens of New York don’t talk the fastest… but they do talk the most… see next section for more details. How

much faster is a fast talker? For every 5 words a slow talking state utters, a fast talking state will utter 6.

WHO TALKS THE MOST?Just because you talk slow doesn’t mean you don’t talk a lot. Just ask the residents of South Carolina and North Carolina. These

states make the top 10 list of “slow talkers” yet they also make the top 10 list for “most words in a phone conversation”. Who else is on

this list? The entire Eastern seaboard from Maine to South Carolina speak the most words in a phone conversation!

The West and South from California to Texas also speak a lot on the phone, along with central states Illinois, Ohio and Missouri.

If you want to have a conversation that is straight to the point, then focus in on residents from the middle. Most states in between

Idaho to the West, Wisconsin to the East, Oklahoma to the South and all the way up to Canada use fewer words to get the point

across than everyone on the coasts.

How big is the difference? A New Yorker will use 62% more words than someone from Iowa to have the same conversation with a

business, according to our data

WHO IS THE MOST IMPATIENT?No one likes to be put on hold, and it happens to us a lot. In fact, we predict Americans will waste more than 900 million hours waiting

on hold in 2016, revealing an urgent need for businesses to improve their customer service over the phone.

1. New York 2. California 3. New Jersey 4.Nevada 5. Maryland 6. New Mexico 7.South Carolina 8. Texas 9. North Carolina 10. Arizona 11. Maine 12. Virginia

13. Rhode Island 14. Massachusetts 15. Missouri 16. Illinois 17. Ohio 18. Washington 19. Connecticut 20. Michigan 21. Oregon 22. Pennsylvania 23. Louisiana

24. Delaware 25. Florida 26. Tennessee 27. Georgia 28. New Hampshire 29. Alabama 30. Kentucky 31. Mississippi 32. Utah 33. West Virginia 34. Indiana

35. Colorado 36. Hawaii 37. Vermont 38. Arkansas 39. Idaho 40. Wyoming 41. Nebraska 42. Montana 43. Alaska 44. North Dakota 45. South Dakota

46. Oklahoma 47. Kansas 48. Wisconsin 49. Minnesota 50.Iowa

Most Talkative

Least Talkative

Most1. New York 2. California3. New Jersey 4. Nevada5. Maryland

Least1. Iowa 2. Minnesota3. Wisconsin 4. Kansas 5. Oklahoma

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1. Kentucky 2. Ohio 3. North Carolina 4. New York 5. West Virginia 6. Maine 7. Vermont 8. Montana 9. Connecticut 10. Alaska 11. Wyoming 12. Nebraska

13. North Dakota 14. New Hampshire 15. Rhode Island 16. Virginia 17. Wisconsin 18. Oregon 19. Iowa 20. Idaho 21. South Carolina 22. Oklahoma 23. Texas

24. Delaware 25. Pennsylvania 26. Arkansas 27. New Jersey 28. Massachusetts 29. Indiana 30. Maryland 31. California 32. Arizona 33. Washington

34. Tennessee 35. Alabama 36. Missouri 37. Nevada 38. Hawaii 39. Georgia 40. Michigan 41. Kansas 42. Mississippi 43. Utah 44. New Mexico

45. South Dakota 46. Louisiana 47. Colorado 48. Florida 49. Illinois 50. Minnesota

Below, we look at how tolerant residents from all 50 states can stand being put on hold. The states in green below are those that hang

up the most when being put on hold. Once again, the Eastern seaboard dominates this category,

but also the Upper Midwestern region of the United States is particularly nonplussed with being put on hold. The Southeast is fairly

tolerant of being put on hold along with many other states in the middle of the country. Residents from Minnesota will hang up less

than half as often as those from Ohio, North Carolina or New York.

Improving Customer Experiences

While this study uncovers America’s speech patterns, it also begs the question of how businesses can improve consumer experiences.

After all, the “impatience index” is based upon how often we’re willing to wait on hold before hanging up in disgust! Studies from the

Marchex Institute have shown that businesses can grow revenue and improve advertising efficiency by making changes such as (a)

greeting a customer in a friendly manner and (b) reducing hold times.

In February, 2016 we’ll be releasing a study on modern measurement of call centers which will provide insights into how large brands

can create almost $100 million in incremental revenue based on our studies of millions of calls from consumers to businesses. Visit

us at www.marchex.com/insights/ or e-mail us at marchex-institute@marchex.com with any questions or feedback.

Marchex 2016. Marchex Call Analytics data on 4,000,000+ phone calls from 2013-2015.

Correction: An earlier version stated states marked in pink contained callers who hang up the most when on hold, this has been changed to accurately reflect those states as being marked in green. The previous version of this story had the bottom 5 lists for all categories listed as 46-50. They now accurately reflect the correct ranking of 50-46.

Most Impatient

Least Impatient

Most1. Kentucky 2. Ohio3. North Carolina 4. New York 5. West Virginia

Least1. Minnesota 2. Illinois3. Florida 4. Colorado 5. Louisiana

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About Marchex

Marchex is a mobile advertising analytics company that connects online behavior to real-world, offline actions. By linking critical

touchpoints in the customer journey, Marchex’s products enable a 360-degree view of marketing effectiveness. Brands and agencies

utilize Marchex’s products to transform business performance.

Please visit www.marchex.com, marchex.com/blog or @marchex on Twitter (Twitter.com/Marchex), where Marchex discloses material

information from time to time about the company, its financial information, and its business.

Marchex Call Analytics®

Marchex Call Analytics, a real-time mobile advertising platform that measures sales and consumer intent from mobile, click-to-call campaigns. Advertisers such as Time Warner Cable and agencies such as Resolution Media use Marchex Call Analytics to measure and grow mobile sales.

Marchex Call Marketplace™

Marchex Call Marketplace is a click-to-call advertising network that enables advertisers to generate high-quality phone leads directly from mobile Web and in-app ads across hundreds of top publishers and apps. Advertisers such as State Farm Insurance and Intercontinental Hotels Group use Marchex Call Marketplace to reach and acquire new customers.

Marchex Call DNA®

Marchex Call DNA is the only conversational analytics technology that automatically classifies, scores and visually maps every phone automatically, even for advertisers that do not use call recording. Advertisers such as ADT Home Security and T-Mobile use Call DNA to measure and optimize click-to-call campaigns.

© 2016 Marchex, Inc. All Rights Reserved. www.marchex.com 5

Marchex Institute

JOHN BUSBY, Senior Vice President of Consumer Insights & Marketing

John Busby is Senior Vice President of Consumer Insights & Marketing at Marchex. Since 2010, John has

run the Marchex Institute, a consumer insights group that publishes findings on mobile advertising, call

analytics and online-to-offline commerce. The Marchex Institute also provides custom research and consulting

services for key customers on their mobile and call-ready advertising campaigns. Previously, John served as

Vice President, Product Engineering. Prior to joining Marchex in 2003, he held various product and program

management roles at InfoSpace’s consumer and wireless divisions, Go2net and IQ Chart.

John has a bachelor’s degree from Northwestern University.

SABRINA GRAVLEE, Associate AnalystSabrina Gravlee is an Associate Analyst at the Marchex Institute. She’s responsible for providing multi-

channel analytics consulting and strategic consumer insights to Marchex’s key clients, with the goal to help

them optimize digital marketing efforts and improve ROI. Prior to joining Marchex, she spent 2 years working

in the commercial lending department for Pacific Continental Bank, a community-based business bank with

headquarters in Eugene, OR. She has a bachelor’s degree in Mathematics from the University of Washington.

ABOUT THE MARCHEX INSTITUTE

The Marchex Institute is a team of data scientists and senior analysts that deliver customized reports and insights for clients of

our Call Marketplace and Call Analytics products. These findings inform business decisions and measurably boost ad campaign

returns. The Institute’s insights and analyses have landed headlines in The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Forbes and other

national media outlets.

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