Introduction:
Native text messaging has been ruling the communication world for nearly three decades now! In general we all will agree that texting is the most preferred channel of communication for most of the established as well as new businesses. In this evolving world of digitalisation and technology, people prefer smartphones and a majority check their phones around 150 times a day. Today, messages are becoming shorter but more operational and smartphones are changing the way businesses and customers interact.
Now, The primary reason millennials prefer business text messaging and why you must focus on the same, is that it instantly makes your operations more efficient and acts as a trusted route for client-business communications. Messaging has evolved from simple A2P text to P2A RICH messages, while each country or region has adopted different OTT messaging solutions that compete with native messaging.
Native Messaging
Native A2P messaging is a simple one-way SMS, where the receiver does not get to reply to the text message. For instance, when you send an SMS to vote for your favorite contestant on the TV reality show, you are using A2P messaging. In a nutshell, here the communication is less interactive and engaging and restricted to 160 characters per text message, with NO rich content support like Image, Video etc
A2P in RBM-
RCS Business Messaging (RBM) is essentially an upgrade to A2P SMS Messaging. RBM’s innovative features can uplift the engagement rates and potential revenues compared to A2P SMS campaigns by providing deeper consumer engagement. It enables a brand to send a reminder message to the receiver that contains the delivery status of his/her package, which most of us are familiar with in this world of e-commerce. In order to enhance the communication, all the smartphone manufacturers, and the telco industry are coming together and offering support to share images, videos, locations etc with the help of RBM.
A2P in OTT-
OTT messaging platforms like WhatsApp, Viber, Facebook messenger and others have emerged for personal communication.
With the perfect amalgamation of A2P and OTT Messaging, brands can easily authenticate their buyers’ contact details, confirm orders, and provide timely notifications.
Key strategies for enterprises prior to embarking on the journey towards Digital transformation:
Enterprises are in constant need of creating more value and to monetize it. They have not only extended themselves to traditional transformation plans but also are looking ahead towards enhanced digital solutions and digital transformation plans.
Let’s dive into some key strategies for enterprises before embarking on the journey towards digital transformation:
Know your customers:
Do a detailed analysis on your customers to deliver a valuable customer experience. Try to engage with your customers with real-time tools like OTT channels for collecting customer insights. As customers keep on changing their preferences with time, adding more personalised and customised solutions should be fitted according to their needs.
Target customers with right demographics:
Enterprises should efficiently use demographics to understand the target audience. Market segmentation is done on the basis of key demographic factors which makes it easier to understand the target audience in a greater detail by learning about what they need, their behaviour patterns and buying patterns. By doing this, enterprises can ensure a tremendous customer retention and business growth.
Understand Omnichannel/multichannel requirement:
Enterprises must understand customers and offer the right channels that best align with the interests of each segment. Generally customers expect speed and flexibility from the enterprises. Also, there needs to be reliability and transparency to support proactive outreach and communication. Enterprises should gather direct and up-to-date feedback from customers to understand the customers’ needs in order to execute their communications seamlessly.
Key factors while selecting an omni-channel technology partner:
Customers expect businesses to be available at all times and adapt to their preferences. CPaaS (Communications Platform as a Service) makes it much easier and feasible to integrate omni channel communication features into your app, connecting directly to consumers. It allows a single API to enable your enterprise to reach a new level of agility by adding the channels as per your convenience. CPaaS helps to take your business intelligence to the next level and provide the best customer experience with the help of the automatic scaling of APIs. It also provides real-time analytics that can be accessed easily in one place through a highly user-friendly dashboard.
The P2A messaging is popular in industry verticals such as Banking, Financial services and Insurance (BFSI), healthcare, IT and telecom industry, airline industry, retail and e-commerce, logistics, government, and many more. The BFSI as well as retail and e-commerce holds a significant industry share in P2A messaging due to the increased number of tech-savvy customers and availability of smartphones and internet penetration.
A2P Messaging at work:
A leading Jewellery brand in UAE has been working with Route Mobile Ltd. for more than 3 years and was largely using A2P SMS to engage with their customers. However they felt that the customer engagement was low or non-responsive, especially with their HNI (High Networth Individuals) clients. They also started pushing their web link in the SMS so that their consumers could see rich content, images, videos which would be more appealing and meaningful to their consumers. For additional engagement they built a BOT on their website so that whenever consumers visit their website to increase the customer engagement and offer instant reposes. Finally, the brand implemented an omni-channel solution, where-in they enabled WhatsApp & Viber channels for deeper customer engagement across sales, support, product information etc.
Key takeaway-
In the case of the jewellery brand, they focussed on enhancing convenience for their customers. Today their marketing strategy is so precise, they know exactly how their HNI clients want to interact with them on the channels of their choice/preference. In short, the digital transformation journey happened over a period of time and they started adopting the various channels on time and converted them to Omni-channel digital solutions. This is the advantage of Omni-channels on how they help brands digitally transform their business.
In short, the omnichannel contact centers can easily monitor scale and support your customers in real-time. It comes with all the real-time analytics and reporting dashboards so that the agents can leverage the customer experience by looking at the customer’s previous history chats and are able to handle any communication effectively.