Bring on the Holidays with Chat Commerce: Q3 Product Wrap

The holiday season is finally here! Bells are ringing, and cards are swiping. At Clickatell, we’ve worked hard all year to get you ready for the holiday rush so you can offer your customers the best possible Chat Commerce experiences. Chat to them in real-time – don’t leave them holding on the phone. Reach out with personalized offerings, notify them about new products, remind them of abandoned shopping carts, or inform them when items are back in stock. This year, give your customers the gift of joyful shopping experiences. Read more about this in our Holiday Campaign Guide.

Let’s take a look at what we’ve been working on this past quarter:

Chat 2 Pay – The newest product in our Chat Commerce Platform

Imagine being able to offer your customers a safer, more convenient way to make payments by sending a simple message, via chat, for the amount due. The customer simply clicks and securely completes the transaction. Clickatell’s Chat 2 Pay  does exactly that, delivering a new way to accept payments from your customers through chat messaging. A contact-free checkout experience from within the chat apps your customers already enjoy using. Send a link, get paid!

Improve the customer experience

Offer innovative, intuitive and highly convenient ways for customers to make payments.

Streamline the checkout experience

Make it easier and more convenient for your customers to pay for goods and services.

Lower the complexity of implementation

Start selling immediately with orchestration APIs and a secure, fully-hosted checkout page that handles the payment process.

Reduce the cost to your business

Drive customer adoption of chat messaging as a lower-cost, more efficient channel for future interactions.

Chat 2 Pay is made possible through an exciting partnership between Clickatell and Cybersource, Visa’s global payment and fraud management platform, to bring this product to merchants and partners in 190 countries. To find out more about Chat 2 Pay, click HERE.

Chat Flow – Product Updates

We have added a number of exciting new features to Chat Flow, our drag-and-drop chat workflow builder:

Location Sharing Node

We are very excited to introduce “Location Sharing” via WhatsApp as a feature within Chat Flow. Using the Location Sharing Node, flow-builders can now either send a location pin to the end-user or receive one from them too.

Improved Media Management

With our improved Media node, we have made it much easier to upload new or select from previously uploaded media files and share them with your customers.

UX Enhancements

We have redesigned the Recycle Bin for a more user-friendly experience when deleting and restoring nodes. We have also enabled a more intuitive process to reorder the logic options on the Menu and Multiple Choice nodes through a simple “click, drag, and drop” process. Not only does this greatly reduce development time, but the logic options are also now collapsible, saving space and simplifying navigation.

To find out more about Clickatell’s Chat Flow, click HERE.

WhatsApp – What’s New?

Non-Transactional Messaging to Drive Quality Conversations Across the Customer Journey

The world’s most popular messaging channel recently announced a new form of ‘proactive’ messaging (non-transactional messaging) limited to specific regions. WhatsApp has since announced that non-transactional messaging is available no matter the country, meaning that businesses can engage with opted-in customers in conversations that span the whole customer journey, not limited to a strictly transactional setting.

Businesses can now reach out to customers with personalized offerings and updates, notifying the customer about a new product launch, reminding them of an abandoned shopping cart, or informing them when an item they previously looked for is back in stock. The new type of proactive messaging is designed to offer more comprehensive support to the customer while opening up new opportunities for marketers. Benefits include:

• Making more sales with relevant product offers curated for customers.

• Getting the thumbs up from customers with informational alerts that make their lives easier.

• Making customers feel special by delivering personalized customer content and experiences.

As a Clickatell customer you will not need any additional integration work on your API – simply create your template as you would before. To find out more, click HERE.

More Template Message Languages Added

We are happy to announce that we have added additional languages to our WhatsApp Template Messages. Clickatell now supports the Turkish, Malay, Chinese (Mandarin) and Azerbaijani languages. All menu items, drop-down lists, buttons and display text presented to the WhatsApp user can now be set to these languages, allowing businesses from these regions to communicate with their customers in their native language.

One API

We continue to make upgrades to Clickatell’s One API, ensuring that you are able to communicate with your mobile customers on multiple communication channels with a single integration. Send and receive messages on WhatsApp and SMS without having to program the channels individually, delivering your holiday cheer on time, to the right person, and via multiple channels. Add messaging to your campaigns this festive season and engage your customers on channels they prefer, sending meaningful, personalized notifications and updates that keep them informed and in control.

Clickatell’s One API can help you create amazing shopping experiences, where you treat your customers as individuals, with individual needs. Let them discover new products, track their orders, locate your store, ask questions, and make purchases, all within their favorite app without making them hold on a call. Our Black Friday Campaign Guide will help you plan and expand your holiday campaigns with Clickatell’s Chat Commerce Platform.

10DLC Updates

A2P 10DLC is the new approved solution in the U.S. for A2P messaging over long numbers, rather than using a short code. 10DLC numbers give you an optimal mix: mass text messaging support and lower overhead costs, while providing optimal delivery quality and lower risk of filtering when compared to sending SMS messages using long codes of the past.

We are partnering closely with the carriers to ensure that you don’t have any interruption in your service or receive any penalties for not registering and non-compliance. Below we have outlined the status of each carrier:

T-Mobile has deferred their Campaign Activation fees and the increase in per message carrier fees for unregistered traffic to December 1, 2021. However, effective October 1, 2021, T-Mobile will begin charging fees up to $10,000 for content violation and up to $1,000 for 10DLC messaging program evasion.

AT&T continues to provide a registration grace period and has not announced any 10DLC-specific enforcements yet. They have now partnered with WMC Global to implement an unsolicited 10DLC message complaint-monitoring program to reduce any spam and phishing attempts.

Verizon and US Cellular have not announced any new 10DLC enforcements or fees and continue to process the messaging traffic per usual.

If you haven’t registered yet, you still can! Click HERE for more information or HERE to read our FAQs.

Do you want to learn more about Clickatell’s Chat Commerce designed to offer superior customer experiences for forward-thinking brands and enterprises? Talk to us today about the magic of chat.