Clickatell CMO Nirmal Nair discusses the chat economy covering exactly what the chat economy is, how it’s rapidly evolving, and why consumers prefer chat as a channel.

The chat economy is here and it may just be the most globally transformative chapter in the evolution of the digital economy yet.

Global Chat Apps

In a new article recently published on Medium, Clickatell CMO Nirmal Nair takes a deep dive into the chat economy and its ecosystem. He covers exactly what the chat economy is, how it’s rapidly evolving, why consumers prefer chat as a channel, and how your business can leverage the power of chat to be part of this new ecosystem. And why wouldn’t you want to be? In the chat economy, consumers and businesses are equally enabled to bypass cash, talk, in-person interactions, brand-specific apps, and websites. That’s a pretty massive shift.

Digital Chat

“Chat has advantages over other digital options beyond not requiring downloads of single-brand apps. People already spend significant time within their favorite chat apps. Many of us can’t resist checking our messages each time our mobile device registers a notification.”

Nirmal also takes a look into the future of the burgeoning chat economy. While the initial strong successes may be regional, the inclusion of critical pieces – commerce and payments – on the most popular chat apps, complete the puzzle and will usher in a global chat economy.

How do businesses go about doing this? Nirmal explains:

“To engage in commerce, businesses need to be able to find customers — and customers must be able to find services — within chat apps. Then, chat interactions must support intuitive product selection, friction-free payments, and fulfillment experience. Easy identity management is essential to both building trust in chat commerce and maintaining the simplicity of chat.”

At Clickatell, we’re working on addressing the challenges around payment handling and chat commerce. Businesses are eager to engage their customers in real-time, via their favorite chat apps, and we’re enabling them to do just that. Recent examples include several major African banks and telcos.

Read the article here to learn more about the seismic shift that is taking place within the digital landscape and how you can ensure that your business is not left behind wondering where your customers have gone.