Chat Commerce: The Rising Customer-Centric Strategy

When talking about conversations, what comes to your mind? Emails, phone calls, meetings or WhatsApp…? Our work arrangements, ways of living and even spending habits have been changed since the pandemic began. More and more people prefer text messaging than audio, video and even face-to-face meetings. It also applies to business communications with customers as we are expecting a personalised and seamless shopping experience anytime, anywhere.

The growing importance of conversational commerce

On 19th May 2022, Meta held its first-ever business event ‘Conversations’ on the future of customer communication and business messaging because chat commerce is gradually becoming a market trend. 

More than 1 billion users connect with a business account across WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and Instagram Direct every week, and the number of conversational commerce users is expected to increase. 65% of customers prefer to use messaging rather than email or phone; 50% of U.S. adults do online shopping through ‘conversations’, 62% of whom are 25 – 34 years old.

Conversational commerce is beneficial for both businesses and customers. Brands can build deeper connections with their customers through popular messaging channels, and customers can get a speedy and accurate response from the merchants. 

The ways for businesses to start conversational commerce

But how can brands implement chat commerce? 

Integration of social messaging channels

Let’s start with integrating all communication channels such as WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, LINE, WeChat and Website live chat into one place, ensuring no customers’ enquiries go missing. With the support of multiple users’ access, customer service, marketing, branch sales and management team can collaboratively manage conversations across all channels. 

24/7 Chatbot

Businesses should also set up Chatbots to reduce customers’ waiting times and employees’ workload. People usually ask similar questions, like offer and delivery details, and they can get 24/7 instant support by Chatbot automation. 

For example, well-known beauty retailer Sa Sa Hong Kong successfully decreased  57% customer waiting times for agent responses and handled 50% of enquiries via automation after using omni-channel chat commerce solutions.

Broadcast messages

Happy customers always come back. Conversational commerce empowers businesses to build customer loyalty and also seize new business opportunities. Broadcast Messaging via WhatsApp or Recurring Notifications on Facebook is one of the most commonly used features. Brands can send proactive, personalised, and automated messages that drive leads, sales and re-engagement, such as product recommendations or new offers. 

Timberland, the world’s leading outdoor apparel and footwear brand, has recently used WhatsApp to broadcast its pre-order sale message for classic boat shoes.

Coupons

Have you ever looked for coupons or discount codes before making a purchase? Giving away coupons is always an effective way to get customers to check out. More and more brands tend to use messaging channels to distribute digital coupons because of their extremely high open rate (over 90%). They can easily track and analyse digital coupon performance, thus optimising their coupon marketing strategies for future campaigns. 

Lukfook Jewellery, famous gold and platinum jewellery retailer, sent $200 e-coupons to selected customers for mother’s day promotion, generating more revenues.

There are a lot more advanced marketing and OMO(Online merge Offline) sales features that can be used through conversational commerce. Messaging has become an important and powerful tool to grow your brand, get new customers and reach business goals. Ready to get started? Get in touch with Omnichat’s consultants and learn more!