Clickatell Resources

Consumers have made the shift to Chat apps for their communications with friends and family, and they’re increasingly looking to connect with retail brands through Chat to ask questions, engage with customer support, and even make purchases. Watch this Forrester on-demand Webinar led by Julie Ask, Vice President and Principal Analyst, Nicole Murgia, Researcher, and others to learn how businesses are using Chat to drive down support costs, attract and retain younger customers, and elevate the customer experience across their customer touchpoints. Highlights of the Webinar include: Learn why retail is leading the way in Chat adoption Explore the top Chat use cases and how they are being used to drive revenue and increase customer engagement Why Chat is being used to tap into Gen Y and Gen Z customers – and how catering to these younger audiences is priming future growth Watch Now Contact us today to learn more about how your business can benefit immediately from the power of Chat in digital commerce – Chat Commerce! More About the Speakers Julie Ask serves eBusiness & Channel Strategy Professionals. Her nearly 30 years of work experience is balanced between the engineering and management consulting work she did in the first half of her career and her work as an analyst for the past 17 years. The combination of technical and business expertise positions prepared her well to work with business leaders to identify new opportunities offered by mobile technology and to develop strategies to engage with consumers on mobile devices. She has worked with hundreds of clients across retail, travel, banking, insurance, CPG, healthcare, and more to advise and guide the development of their mobile strategies. Nicole Murgia is a researcher serving digital business strategy professionals. Her research focuses on the impact of technology and shifting consumer behaviors on the financial services industry. In her role, Nicole collaborates on research that guides leaders in banking, insurance, and wealth management on how to best serve their customers in today’s digital world.

Have simpler, stronger, more effective conversations with your customer.

AVAILABLE NOW Clickatell’s new eBook - Digital Transformation Business Guide – Chat Edition - can help empower your business to deliver top-notch customer experiences, increase customer engagement, and grow your bottom line. Learn how chat solutions can build brand loyalty and trust, reduce business operations costs, and deliver innovations to your customers that will impact your business today and well into the future. Download the eBook today.

What is Conversational Commerce? Conversational commerce is transforming the way businesses all around the world engage with their customers anywhere and everywhere. Especially during the post-pandemic world that we now live in, this new way of shopping adds the value of human connection and social interaction back into the way we interact with one another online. This technology allows merchants to give their clients the same high-quality customer experience as if they had come into the physical store. Conversational commerce provides an interactive environment where consumers can find information, shop, purchase products, communicate with, and transact with the companies they love with the power of convenience and personalization. It’s an extremely effective omnichannel marketing strategy that has been a proven success with both customers and merchants all over the world. Conversational Commerce 101 So, what exactly is conversational commerce and why is it becoming so popular? Conversational commerce includes any tool that helps companies develop and enhance their customer experience and user journey while building brand loyalty. This new technology is more than just plain old customer service or buying products; it is turning a one-way dialogue into a conversation, a personalized interaction between buyer and seller. It creates a quick and easy way for consumers to find the product or details they need when they need it, and guide them seamlessly into making a purchase through AI, such as chatbots and or messaging apps. Conversational commerce is fundamentally changing and revolutionizing the way your customers expect to interact with your business. And the best part? It creates substantial efficiencies, workflows, and processes within your business—as well as for your customers. It is sure to boost customer satisfaction and response times, alleviate stress from your sales teams, as well as help your brand adapt toward the trends and world we live in today. Different Types of Conversational Commerce The number of tools that conversational commerce professionals use is constantly growing since consumers will always have a need to communicate with businesses. A recent consumer survey found that 63% of U.S. consumers prefer messaging more than other forms of communication and would switch companies to access it. Even people who like to speak with a customer representative have the expectation of facing delays, hold times, and the possibility of a dropped call. We conducted our own research to better understand consumer behavior around conversational commerce and chat. We found that: 88% of consumers regularly use chat apps like Facebook Messenger and Apple iMessage on their mobile devices. 54% of consumers say that they have already chatted with companies using a chat app. Millennials lead the trend in chatting with companies. About 33% of consumers have purchased items through chat, and 77% say they're open to the idea. There’s a huge chance that you have seen conversational commerce in action yourself! Here are a few common examples of conversational commerce that could be used to guide meaningful conversations with customers through chats to ultimately provide them with a superior and preferred shopping experience. SMS Communications SMS (Short Messaging Service) text message is a simple, cost-effective way for customers to send an instant message and get information from your business without the wait. When given the options to SMS, many people will use this channel to ask important questions that help increase engagement with your business. Some popular questions businesses use SMS communications for include: Information on expected delivery time Order confirmation Schedule an appointment Make a reservation Invoice or bill payments Update personal information Business contact information Create new accounts/passwords Businesses can also use SMS to let customers know about topics like new products, special promotions, critical information about their business, and discount opportunities. As long as customers opt-in for the texts—and you give them an easy way to opt-out—you don’t risk spamming them with annoying messages. At Clickatell, we help you seamlessly integrate your current applications with our SMS service so that you can send a bigger volume of messages while using an intuitive, no-code interface that does not require deep technical expertise. Let our team work harder so that you and your sales team can work smarter. Automated Chatbots The development and continual improvements of automated chatbots are helping drive the growth of conversational commerce. Chatbots do an amazing job at answering basic questions, particularly the repeat inquiries that make up a substantial portion of interactions with your customer service team. With the right approach, you can make a conversation with your automated chatbot feel like a natural extension of your brand. The key is to make sure you frame both questions and answers in your brands’ tone and voice. The bot on your website can ask visitors, “How can I help you today?” and provide a list of responses, such as: Pay a bill Schedule a call Leave a message Change an appointment time Get an estimate Open an account The list of questions is limitless, as long as the answers are simple and repeatable responses to the questions that are being asked. When a customer chooses a response, the chatbot sends them to the appropriate option. Done right, it feels very natural, very much like communicating with a live human via chat. What if you still want to offer live agent assistance to your clients? Of course. You can create automated chatbots that know when to pass customers over to your customer services department. If the bot cannot fulfill the request, it sends the visitor to a human representative who can have a more complex conversation and make decisions in real-time. You truly get the best of both worlds when using this method! Clickatell’s Chat Desk is an advanced digital contact center solution that relies on conversational technology to help provide customer support through a mix of conversational commerce and live agent interactions. Chat Desk works by giving your customers the ability to get immediate answers from a live agent through whatever channel they choose—online web Chat or mobile Chat apps like WhatsApp – reducing contact center costs, helping customers get information and resolve issues quickly, and giving the contact center greater flexibility to manage teams, while increasing their call volume and customer satisfaction. Chat Apps Communications using chat apps give you a chance to form relationships with consumers via platforms they already use—and love—for exchanging messages with friends and family members. WhatsApp is a great example. WhatsApp is extremely popular globally, exceeding 2 billion users in 2020. Roughly a quarter of the world’s population uses WhatsApp. We can help you take advantage of WhatsApp’s most useful features to: Protect customer data with end-to-end encryption. Send notifications about upcoming deliveries, payment alerts, and other time-sensitive tasks. Automate responses to messages that customers send you. While WhatsApp is the most popular messaging app globally, Facebook Messenger, Apple iMessages, Google Business Messages, Instagram, WeChat, and other emerging Chat apps are all incredibly powerful conversational technologies. Each app may appeal to a different demographic or age group so the key for any business is to find which app your customers prefer and to develop a strategy to include those channels as part of your mix. Voice Assistants Voice assistants are some of the newest conversational technologies you leverage to improve services and increase sales. Here, too, there are numerous options, with one that’s clearly outpacing the rest when it comes to current adoption. Nearly 70 percent of people who own smart speakers choose the Amazon Echo, which comes with an Alexa voice assistant. Alexa can do much more than play your favorite workout album or tell you tomorrow’s weather forecast. It can also take purchase orders from owners. Since Amazon owns Alexa, most Alexa purchases come from Amazon-owned businesses, including Whole Foods. Alexa is something of a gatekeeper in this way, but it still shows the promise of using voice assistants to develop conversations between customers and brands. Google Assistant gives you more opportunities to reach customers without a gatekeeper standing in the way. Google Assistant has about half a billion users. Optimizing your online content makes it easier for Google Assistant to find, recommend, and tell people about your business. Currently, you can’t make personalized scripts for your brand, but we many believe that development is just around the corner. 3 Simple Steps to Get a New and Improved Customer Experience As a global messaging and Chat Commerce leader, Clickatell helps you maximize your outreach and track performance with our years of digital chat experience and track record of success. If you haven’t already started using conversational commerce, start today by implementing Clickatell’s SMS Solution to begin easily scaling your marketing strategy with messaging. Integrating your business with an SMS solution is the first step to leaning toward this new reality of chat commerce by using the power of convenience! To take your digital marketing strategy one step further, integrate Clickatell’s Chat Desk to further engage with your customers in the way they prefer. Streamline your company's transactional messaging with our Chat Desk solution and let’s improve your brand’s customer journey together. The real winner for your business is conversion — focusing on guiding your customers to actually buy your products through their preferred chat channels. Meet your customers where they already are, by using Clickatell’s Chat Commerce to allow your customers to enjoy convenient digital customer support, account management, and transaction services all from within chat! Learn more by reaching out to Clickatell! The possibilities with chat are endless. Let our team help your business start elevating your customer experience and boost revenue by optimizing conversational technologies today.

Conversational commerce—the intersection of messaging apps and commerce—drives conversions and improves customer satisfaction. Consumers can chat with company representatives, get customer support, ask questions, get personalized recommendations, read reviews, and click to purchase all from within messaging apps. With conversational commerce, the consumer engages in this interaction with a human representative, a chatbot, or a mix of both. The growing smartphone adoption rate makes conversational commerce incredibly effective. As of 2020, more than 72% of American adults owned smartphones. Globally, about 46% of the world’s adults had smartphones in 2020, up over 8% since 2018. There’s still plenty of room to grow, though. And as the number of people using smartphone apps increases, conversational commerce and chat commerce (making purchases over chat) will grow along with it. Chatbots can be a key part of a smart conversational commerce strategy, taking on simple, repeat tasks such as placing orders and answering basic questions. This frees up your human customer service agents for more complicated interactions that need a human in the loop. Chatbots can also initiate interactions to get the conversation started. For example, when someone visits your Facebook page, your chatbot can immediately ask them what services they need. Below are key tips to creating a successful conversational commerce plan: Use the power of your brand voice Part of what makes conversational commerce so powerful is right in the name itself: it’s a conversation. The voice your brand brings to the conversation is critical—and it needs to stay consistent. Whether you’re using a chatbot, human agents, or both, it’s important that all interactions with your brand have the same voice and deliver similar messages. If not, the experience will feel disjointed. You’ll lose the personal and intimate benefits of connecting with customers in social and chat channels in the first place. Let’s look at a couple of examples to see how brand voices differ—and how it translates to the information and messages you convey. Imagine you run a restaurant that specializes in Mexican-Asian fusion. You sell tacos stuffed with tofu, kimchi, pickled vegetables, and other Asian ingredients. You also have sushi options that include avocado, hot sauce, and ingredients common in Mexico. Your brand is high-energy and fun, bright colors and a festive feel await diners in your restaurant. When someone visits your website, the chatbot might ask questions like: Do you want to reserve our restaurant for a fun event? Want to check out our latest menu of hot-off-the grill specials? Check out our Happiest Happy Hour specials! When someone clicks on one of those options, the chatbot gives them the correct answer or directs them to the appropriate resource. A chatbot’s questions would look very different for an investment company known for its conservative approach to growing wealth. The voice your chatbot and agents would use would be straightforward and honest, using simple, direct language to inspire trust. In addition, the content of your conversations with customers would be completely different. With this business, conversation starters might sound more like: Do you need to rollover your 401(k)? Would you like to schedule a meeting with an advisor? Talk to an expert about lowering your tax burden. Are you wanting to create an account? Know Where Your Customers Are Different chat apps attract different demographics. Finding out exactly which channels your various customer segments use is key. Roughly 69% of Americans use Facebook, so adding a chatbot to your Facebook business page is a solid option. WhatsApp is the most popular global messaging channel, with more than two billion active users each month using it to communicate with family and friends. WhatsApp is also the most popular message app for all age groups . Seventy-one percent of U.S. adults between ages 18 and 29 say they use Instagram. But only 13% of people 65 and over do. If your business targets a young audience, reaching them through Instagram can be a smart investment. If you have an older audience, it likely is not. Other places that you can reach your customers include: WhatsApp Facebook Messenger Snapchat Your website Set Realistic Goals for Your Conversational Commerce Plan When you start your conversational commerce plan, start small and build upon your successes. By choosing simple tasks that a large percentage of your customers do over and over, you get lots of learnings quickly. You’ll see what’s working and where you might want to make tweaks. For instance, maybe your customers use the word “bal” instead of “balance” or behave differently when doing a task in WhatsApp than they do when doing the exact same task on another chat channel. Conversational commerce tends to do two things very well: Lowers the amount of time that customer service reps spend dealing with accounts Increases sales without increasing the amount of money you spend on sales personnel During the first month of your plan, set goals like: Decreasing the customer service department queries by 10% Increasing online orders by 5% There’s a good chance that you will do better than that, but you need to establish a baseline before you commit to concrete numbers.  Measuring against your KPIs shows you how each iteration improves upon the last—or if for some reason it doesn’t. You’ll see if there are any broad-stroke takeaways. You can also begin to optimize your interactions within each channel to take advantage of unique features and functionality. From simple, basic everyday queries to more complicated tasks like acquiring and onboarding new customers, you can use what you’ve learned firsthand from your own customers to offer more capabilities with confidence. Partner with a Proven Leader You will likely get the most benefits from conversational commerce when you work with a company that can help you navigate the nuances of this new paradigm—and quickly start to see proof of concept with solid results. As a global messaging leader, Clickatell helps you maximize your outreach and track performance. We are experienced at integrating SMS into CRMs and other software. And, the Clickatell WhatsApp Business API enables you to take advantage of the channel’s chat capabilities—and tap into the 75% greater year-over-year (YoY) growth in annual revenue (10.7% vs. 6.1%) experienced by companies that do. What’s more, our focus on chat commerce enables your customers to not just engage with you for information and support, but actually securely buy your product or service via chat channels. With it you can: Manage profiles. Retrieve statements. Manage subscriptions. Redeem gift cards. Pay for online purchases. Manage digital products. Our team of skilled professionals will work with you to design a plan that meets your needs—and exceeds your expectations. Curious to know more? Let’s chat .

You’re on a quest to grow your business and deliver a world-class customer experience. Conversational commerce is the cost-effective, reliable channel you need to propel your mission. The state of conversational commerce Conversational commerce is a convenient way to engage your customers at scale; it’s surging on the back of a rapid increase in the number of smartphone users - expected to pass the five billion mark this year. As one would expect. messaging apps are among the most widely used applications on these devices. According to research from Nielsen, Facebook Messenger is the second most popular app for smartphones with WhatsApp leading the pack. And, as emerging economies make gains in smartphone ownership, an analysis from Pew Internet shows that WhatsApp dominates in most developing nations. Smartphone users aren’t only using these apps to engage with family and friends either. They’re reaching out to businesses too. During this earnings call, Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg said Facebook users and businesses were exchanging over 8 billion messages each month. According to statistics curated in Smooch’s State of Messaging 2019 report , consumers are mainly using messaging apps to: learn about a product or service: 83 percent, get support: 76 percent, and make a purchase: 75 percent. The business benefits of conversational commerce While conversational commerce appears to be a tantalizing option, let’s investigate the concrete benefits that it can deliver. Ease, speed, and convenience Customers in the digital economy won’t wait weeks, or even days, for a response. The Social Habit survey found when customers complained online, they wanted a response within 30 minutes. Conversational commerce amplifies these expectations. Facebook research shows that customers using messaging to reach businesses expect a faster response than if they used a traditional channel. It’s also easier for customers to complete routine transactions themselves. An example of this is MTN Chat - a partnership between MTN and Clickatell. MTN customers can use WhatsApp to complete transactions like buying airtime and checking their balances . Global reach Beyond the simplicity of the service, conversational commerce on WhatsApp offers unprecedented reach. Figures from Statista provide a snapshot of the messaging landscape: WhatsApp leads the pack with 1.6bn Facebook comes in at second with 1.3bn WeChat has 1.09bn users Now, if you thought that was staggering, consider that Statista projects the number of people using messaging apps on their mobile phones will grow to 2.48 billion users by 2021. Given this kind of scale, it’s easy to see why major organizations across industries use WhatsApp in their conversational commerce strategies. In finance, Clickatell is working with banks to foster financial inclusion, offering key services on WhatsApp. It means banks have eliminated many of the expenses that can come with serving more customers in several new locations. Using chat banking and conversational commerce, customers can check balances and conduct transfers wherever they are, at no significant cost to the bank. Personalized customer service at scale Along with reach and ease, conversational commerce delivers personalized customer service at scale. And we know customers are willing to pay a premium for personalized service - a Deloitte study found customers would fork out more - and 48 percent would wait longer - for personalized services. You can’t get more personal than conversational commerce: you’re creating a direct line to your customer on a platform they already love. Grow your business with WhatsApp and conversational commerce Your customers expect fast, reliable, and easy communication options. Conversational commerce using a platform like WhatsApp provides reach to more than one billion customers. On top of that, it’s easy to integrate, secure, and affordable.  Learn more about how you can deliver a superior customer experience with our WhatsApp for Business integration.

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.

Business automation software solutions Process and workflow automation are fueling new business value. Leading analysts, like Forrester , urge technology leaders to take advantage of the benefits extended by automation: deeper customer engagement, and increased convenience. However, common misconceptions shroud workflow automation. We’ll look at the myths and discuss how automation can yield greater efficiency and reduce costs. New tech and the ease of workflow automation in business Automation of simple rules-based tasks offers businesses an easy, effective way to harness the power of technology. And new software solutions, like Clickatell’s Flow , are giving non-technical staff the power to automate work, without having to rely on developers. Industry leaders in tech believe that automation can yield significant improvements across key business areas: More than 90 percent of IT leaders believe that automation can deliver better business results Technology companies use automation for improved efficiency and reliability in their finance functions, according to KPMG Myths about workflow automation While these benefits present an appealing case for process and workflow automation, here are two of the most common misconceptions that may deter businesses. Automation is expensive You might be reluctant to commit to automation software because you’re worried about a hefty price tag. Or maybe you have the capital, but you’re skeptical about the return on investment. On top of the capital outlay, you’re wary of the burden that automation can place on technical staff. In many cases, developers have to write code to automate routine tasks - an additional strain on the tech team’s workload. Fortunately, for example, cloud-hosted solutions like Flow have made workflow automation on chat accessible for businesses of all sizes. With Flow, businesses can create use cases once and deploy them across multiple mobile channels including WhatsApp and USSD. Leapwork, a process automation startup, secured a round of multimillion-dollar funding for its automation solution that lets non-technical staff across the organization automate tasks, instead of using developer time. Tools like Clickatell Touch , deliver an affordable way to automate routine aspects of customer engagement, like answering FAQs. The live chat software reduces the workload of customer service teams by fielding these common queries. As a bonus, you’re not sacrificing customer engagement. Your clients get immediate responses to their queries, and human agents are freed up to troubleshoot cases that demand extra attention. Repetitive tasks can also be automated to boost employee morale. According to Software Testing Tools : Employees spend up to 20 percent of their time on repetitive computer tasks IT departments spend 30 percent of their time on low-level tasks Businesses are losing out - missing 50 percent of automation opportunities Typical rules-based processes are ripe for automation, and it removes the risk of human error. Routine tasks like scheduling meetings and processing invoices are examples of tasks that can easily be automated. McKinsey predicts that this action will give employees more time to drive high-value business activities. Workflow automation is complicated Another myth is that automation software adds a layer of complexity to business processes. This one is at odds with the mission of process automation: it’s designed to make it easier to do business. That’s the point of putting such systems in place. As an example, search company Swifttype used Zapier to automate integrations with its CRM and support software to improve customer engagement. When the support team assisted prospects, a transcript of the conversation would automatically be attached to the lead’s profile in the CRM. Now, marketing had a complete view of the customer’s needs and concerns, enhancing customer engagement and reducing any back and forth between teams. Reduce costs and improve customer engagement To start automating customer engagement, including transactional flows, via WhatsApp and USSD, learn more about Flow today. It’s a scalable workflow automation solution that will grow with your business and integrates easily into your existing systems. Developed for analysts, business users, and marketers with minimal development experience, Flow is capable of delivering a wide range of business responses – from general queries and FAQs, to account information queries and utility workflows.

Chat banking Financial institutions are tapping into behavior science and chat banking to help clients take charge of their financial futures. And these banks are increasing customer engagement and their competitive edge. Banks and the psychology of saving Banks are setting customers up for financial success, giving clients tools to manage their accounts on the go, and sharing deep insights into the psychology of saving . 9Finance reports an increasing number of Australian banks are digging into behavior science to better serve customers. In the US, a growing number of banks are adding budgeting features to their sites to help customers solve some of their financial problems. And these savvy banks may just be reshaping how customers view financial institutions. Only one in four customers “strongly agree” that their bank is concerned with their financial well-being, according to Gallup's Retail and Banking Industry study. And here’s why that matters for your bottom line - customers who believe their bank cares about their financial success are likely to be making use of more products with that company. The American Banker suggests it may also provide a “creative way to bond with depositors”, deepening customer engagement. Technology helps customers fix their finances New technology tools provide an ideal way for customers to improve their financial wellness. Customers already expect tech-powered solutions to help them resolve many business queries. Gartner predicts that by 2020 , customers will manage 85 percent of their relationship with a business without interacting with a human. And according to Accenture , more than 70 percent of consumers are open to accepting automated financial advice. Here are examples of how leading banks use technology to help clients manage their money: United Bank of Africa’s Leo United Bank of Africa (UBA) customers know Leo well. Leo is UBA’s virtual banker, and he’s available 24/7 to help customers take charge of their finances on the go. A partnership between UBA and Clickatell , Leo was launched in 2018 and soon gained 1 million users. Leo’s chat commerce capabilities are available on Facebook and WhatsApp. On top of providing on-demand banking services, WhatsApp provides a secure channel for customers to get real-time financial data.  In addition to checking balances and purchasing airtime, Leo gives customers the ability to access detailed mini-statements. It’s information that customers can use to enhance their financial planning. Leo gained international attention when Mark Zuckerberg sang his praises last year, reports Techpoint.africa. Absa’s chat banking offering on WhatsApp In South Africa, Absa has become one of the first financial institutions to launch chat banking on WhatsApp. Through a partnership with Clickatell, Absa customers can perform a range of transactions without ever leaving WhatsApp. More than 100,000 customers have registered for the service, taking advantage of the access to easy, real-time account updates. On top of being able to make payments and purchase products, Absa clients can quickly gain a clear picture of their financial standing - an important step in personal finance. And customers have welcomed this functionality: within the first 20 days of the launch of the service, 54 percent of users requested a mini credit report. Boost customer engagement with chat banking Banks who help clients improve their financial health will build deeper customer relationships. It’s a differentiator that can make financial companies truly distinctive in a crowded market. Learn more about chat banking on WhatsApp -  it’s reliable, secure and integrates easily with your existing systems. That’s why it’s the platform that industry leaders use to bring the benefits of chat banking to their customers.