Texans answer and hang up phone calls differently, depending on which city they’re from, according to a new study.
San Antonians are the least likely to end a call with “see ya later,” according to the study by phone-answering service Moneypenny that surveyed 1,001 Texans. About 14% of respondents from San Antonio said they conclude calls with “see ya later,” compared to more than a fifth of Austinites, among whom it was the most popular farewell.
The study did not clarify whether it determined differences between cities based on survey respondents’ current residence or where they grew up.
The study found that almost 90% of respondents said they answer calls from unknown numbers. That surprised those who conducted the study, according to Eric Schurke, CEO North America at Moneypenny.
Schurke added that it’s “interesting” that the most common greetings and farewells across the board are “hello” and “bye.”
“It turns out that the way people answer and hang up is fairly conventional, which is comforting when it feels everything else around us is constantly changing,” Schurke said. “Given how people behave in movies, we half expected everyone to say they just hung up when they were done, but they still feel the need to say their goodbyes.”
More than two-thirds of study participants said they answer “hello,” while at least 10% used other more informal responses such as “what’s up,” “good morning/afternoon,” and “hey.” Women are more likely to greet callers with “hello,” while men are twice as likely as women to say “what’s up,” according to the study.
When ending a call, almost half of respondents said they use a simple “bye,” while other leading options were “talk to you later” and a more formal “goodbye.” More than a third of callers from Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth end a call with “talk to you later,” the study found.
Slightly more than half of the respondents said they oppose an artificial intelligence caller adopting a regional accent, according to Schurke.