The Definitive Guide to Customer Experience 2021 - Volume 8
←
→
Page content transcription
If your browser does not render page correctly, please read the page content below
Volume 8:
The Definitive
Guide to Customer
Experience 2021
conversocial.com | @conversocial
1
CONTENTS
Chapter One: Chapter Three:
Introduction Operationalizing Messaging Across
the Customer Lifecycle
1.1 Move to Messaging
3.1 Messaging for Acquisition
- 5 Reasons Messaging Channels are Perfect
Chapter Two: for Marketers
The State of Modern
3.2 Messaging for Care
Customer Experience - 5 Reasons Messaging Channels are Perfect
for Customer Service Execs
2.1 Customer Experience Trends for 2021
3.3 Messaging for Engagement
2.2 Messaging Channels for CX
- 5 Reasons Messaging Channels are Perfect
- Apple Business Chat
for Customer Engagement Execs
- Facebook Messenger
- WhatsApp Business
- Google’s Business Messages
Chapter Four:
- Instagram Messaging
The Future of Messaging is
2.3 Automation for CX Proactive, Suggestive and
- 9 Chatbot Characteristics Preventive
- Humans Empowered by Automation
4.1 Breaking the CX Equation with
Messaging & Automation
conversocial.com | @conversocial
2
Chapter 1:
Introduction
by Harry Rollason
conversocial.com | @conversocial
3
This is Conversocial’s 8th iteration of our Definitive Guide. What started as “The Definitive Guide to Social
Media Customer Service,” evolved into “The Definitive Guide to Social, Mobile Customer Service,” and in
its latest edition “The Definitive Guide to Customer Experience.” The content has naturally evolved since
Conversocial first published its “The Definitive Guide to Social Customer Service” in 2013.
But this year feels different, for the obvious reason...Covid-19 is the elephant in everyone’s room.
2020 has resulted in enterprise brands facing a digital reckoning. As the pandemic has unfolded and
governments have imposed restrictions to try and stop cases spiking, the way consumers socialize, shop,
entertain themselves, and work has changed beyond recognition. This impact on consumer behaviour will
undoubtedly last long after the pandemic is under control globally.
In writing this guide, we conducted a Consumer Behavior Study (using SurveyMonkey to survey over 1000 US
consumers). Our findings were decisive:
● 83% of consumers have shopped online during the pandemic. 40% have used curbside pick-up.
● 80% of consumers will keep have shopped online when the pandemic (hopefully) ends and 30% intend
to keep using curbside pick-up.
● 68% of consumers have used a messaging channel to engage with a brand during the pandemic (41%
for a customer service issue, 36% to buy a product & 29% to ask a product related question).
So what does this all mean for brands?
conversocial.com | @conversocial
4
Move to Messaging
As consumers have gone digital, so too must brands. It’s time to Move to Messaging.
It’s a simple enough concept. One that we’ve displayed proudly on our homepage and social media accounts
for the past six months. But what does it mean? And why is it at the heart of everything we do?
Apple Business Chat,
WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger,
Google’s Business Messages, etc.
Embracing messaging channels
for end-to-end customer Experiences that span
the customer lifecycle
engagement through channel
across acquisition,
engagement & care.
depth and promotion.
Being on the right channel Proactively promoting messaging
(not EVERY channel) to channels (over traditional ones) for
engage customers. customer engagement.
Messaging Channels
Messaging allows brands to communicate with customers on their preferred channel. You’re already familiar
with messaging because you use it every single day when communicating with your friends and family.
Messaging is always on and can be accessed from any device. Brands in turn have access to this conversa-
tional data which helps them to provide better experiences.
Now, imagine tapping into a customer engagement channel that’s already being used by almost every
person on earth.
Well, those channels already exist.
conversocial.com | @conversocial
5
To get a better understanding of how useful it is from a customer engagement standpoint, here is a shortlist
of things that DON’T happen on messaging:
● Customers waiting on hold
● Customers losing connection
● Customers having to repeat themselves after getting transferred
● Customers staying glued to a browser window
● Customers being told they have to call for further support
End-to-End
With messaging, brands finally have a way to collate all of their customer experiences into one place.
A whole host of functionality can happen within messaging including payments, authentication, and
appointment bookings – meaning that customers never have to be diverted to a different channel again.
There are boundless opportunities to build engaging experiences across the entire customer journey. Here’s
an example of how a typical retailer may plot its messaging customer experiences.
conversocial.com | @conversocial
6Depth
Move to Messaging does not mean be on ALL channels. It simply means being on the RIGHT channels (those
where your customers already are) and going deep on those particular channels, building experiences that
are end-to-end and reduce customer friction.
The future standard of customer experience is about channel depth, not breadth. Therefore, brands need
to ask themselves a different set of questions; “what channel(s) does it make sense for us to be on?” rather
than, “how quickly can we get on all channels?”. Brands need to be measured in their approach. Going deep
on a single channel around a high yield intent will ensure that your brand is able to create a dedicated and
personalized CX experience.
Here are some tips for offering a uni-channel customer service strategy:
1. Measure your channel engagement, then invest the time, effort, and money into the channel(s) that
perform(s) best.
2. Promote your preferred channel(s) and deflect away from your less efficient legacy channels.
3. Continuously evaluate the customer engagement on your channel(s) and seek out new innovative
integrations to further drive a holistic customer experience.
conversocial.com | @conversocial
7Promotion
Adopting messaging channels is the first step to future-proofing your customer engagement, but you can’t
just rest on your laurels. A common issue we hear from brands after launching messaging is that they
see improved customer satisfaction (awesome), reduced cost to serve (great) but low usage compared to
traditional channels (problematic?). We know customers want to communicate with brands on messaging
apps, so why aren’t they? The key is promotion.
Google’s Business Messages helps Apple Business Chat helps promote
promote messaging as a way to contact messaging as an alternative to phone
businesses directly within search results. via its “Chat Suggest” feature.
Brands need to let their customers know that they can message them. Integrate messaging with your
website, put it on your homepage, advertise it across social media. You can even add the option to your
Google search results. Customers want to communicate with you, so give them the opportunity. Don’t hide
it. Embrace it. Promote it.
Once your customers know they can message you rather than pick up the phone or send an email, adoption
rates will naturally increase.
conversocial.com | @conversocial
8It’s Time to Make the Move
To put it simply, the future of customer engagement revolves around brands leveraging messaging channels
– Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp Business, Apple Business Chat, Google’s Business Messages, Twitter DM,
the list goes on.
Whilst developments in platform functionality – and brands’ willingness to embrace the changing world
around them – have no doubt played a role, the majority of this dynamic change has been driven by the
consumers.
Customers no longer have to wait on hold, their session doesn’t end when they close their browser, they
don’t have to download your app or even go to your website. They pick up their device (which, let’s be
honest, is already in their hand to begin with) and engage with your brand using those same messaging
platforms that they use day-in and day-out.
The way we communicate with each other has always been one step ahead of how brands communicate
with their customers. Letters, phone calls, emails, instant messaging – they’ve all had their time in the
limelight, but that time is now over.
Truly innovative brands are already harnessing messaging channels to acquire new customers, engage the
ones they have, and care for the customers who need just a little bit more – differentiating themselves in
this crowded market.
In 2021, it’s time for
brands to Move to
Messaging too.
conversocial.com | @conversocial
9Chapter 2:
The State of Modern
Customer Experience
conversocial.com | @conversocial
10Modern Customer Experience
noun
from Social Media -> Messaging Channels
from Care -> Care, Engagement and Commerce
“Brands who wish to differentiate themselves must be present on messaging
channels, building unique touchpoints that span the customer lifecycle.”
Customer Experience Trends for 2021
In 2021, the biggest winners and losers will be determined by those brands that can successfully build
meaningful 1:1 relationships with customers on their preferred communication channels – private messaging
apps. But delivering stellar customer experiences over messaging channels can be hard to do right, and
brands that get it wrong can undermine the brand/customer relationship. Treating messaging like live chat,
deploying fixed script bots, or awkwardly handing off a bot-led conversation to a human agent with no
context, can frustrate the consumer even more than a poorly-designed phone tree, and in turn irrevocably
erode their trust.
The data was gathered by polling over 2,000 people of all age groups, genders, and
income brackets from the United States and the United Kingdom to provide as rich
a data set as possible. Throughout, we explore how high-performing companies
provide experiences and best practices that keep customers coming back and
separate these industry leaders from the rest.
conversocial.com | @conversocial
11Trend One:
Customers Have Made the Move to Messaging,
But Brands Lag Behind
Have you used a digital messaging channel (such as Facebook Messenger,
Twitter DM, WhatsApp, SMS, etc) for customer service or to engage
with a brand?
Yes
56%
No
44%
Over half (56%) of respondents have used messaging channels for customer service or brand engagement.
Do you expect brands to offer customer s upport over messaging channels?
Yes
71%
No
29%
71% of customers already expect brands to offer customer support over messaging channels.
Do you expect brands to offer personalized customer experiences over
messaging channels?
Yes
66%
No
34%
66% expect brands to offer personalized customer experiences also.
conversocial.com | @conversocial
12How important is a good customer experience on messaging channels in
your choice of, or loyalty to, a brand?
Very Important
59%
Somewhat Important
37%
Not Important
4%
96% of respondents said a good customer experience over messaging channels was at least somewhat
important to their brand loyalty.
Are you more likely to be a repeat customer of a brand that delivers great
customer experience over messaging channels (Messenger, iMessage, etc)?
Very Likely
56%
Somewhat Likely
38%
Not Likely
6%
Brands who deliver great customer experience over messaging channels are more likely to have repeat
customers, with 94% of those surveyed testifying so.
conversocial.com | @conversocial
13Key Finding: Customers want to communicate with companies over the
same familiar channels they use to talk with their family and friends.
56% of consumers have used a messaging channel to engage with a brand before; 71% of those customers
expect brands to offer customer engagement over messaging channels, and 66% expect for this
engagement to be a personalized customer experience. In 2021, these rising consumer expectations will
no doubt have long and lasting implications for brand/consumer relationship management.
An overwhelming 96% of respondents say a good customer experience over messaging channels is
important to their brand loyalty. And 94% of those surveyed are more likely to be repeat customers of
brands who deliver a great customer experience over messaging channels.
conversocial.com | @conversocial
14Trend Two:
Bots Continue to Play an Increasingly Important
Role in CX Delivery
Would you use a bot if it improved your customer experience or answered
your support questions quicker?
Yes
71%
No
29%
71% of consumers would happily use a bot if it improved their customer experience.
Do you feel comfortable with customer experience interactions, and
customer support questions, driven/answered by automation?
Yes
48%
No
52%
48% of consumers already feel comfortable with bot driven customer experiences.
conversocial.com | @conversocial
15Key Finding: Artificial intelligence drives success among high performing
teams - but there is still some consumer mistrust.
We’re starting to see brands figure out how to use bots & AI in a way that adds real value for customers.
When asked if they are comfortable with an entirely non-human customer service interaction, consumers
are almost perfectly divided — 48% said yes, and 52% said no. Fundamentally though, 71% of consumers
said they would happily use a bot if it improved their customer experience.
This data conveys that half of our surveyed consumers still harbor an element of mistrust in the ongoing
role bots and AI will play in customer experience management. But it does not need to be this way. Many
customers it seems, unknowingly in many cases, interact with a bot in some form. In fact, many Conversocial
clients have implemented our Navigator product offering to help route issues to the right team or collect
a layer of case information to inform the agent prior to issue handoff. In 2021, brands should absolutely
allocate some focus on better educating their customers of the benefits of bot-augmented issue resolution.
conversocial.com | @conversocial
16Trend Three:
Brands Can Still Generate Brand Loyalty,
but They Must Differentiate
How loyal do you feel towards your favorite brand(s)?
10%
Indifferent
1%
55% No Loyalty
Loyal
33%
Very Loyal
Most consumers — 89% — are loyal to their favorite brand(s).
What main characteristic makes you feel loyal?
7%
Personalization 25%
of Experience Great Customer
Service
Experiences
15%
Brand
Reputation
23%
Competitive
Pricing
29%
Product/Service
3% Offering
Socially Aware
While product/service offering (29%) is still the most important characteristic of brand loyalty,
customer experience (25%) came a close second.
conversocial.com | @conversocial
17Do you expect brands to offer customer Do you expect brands to offer
support over messaging channels? personalized customer experiences
over messaging channels?
Yes Yes
71% 66%
No No
29% 34%
71% of customers already expect brands to offer customer 66% expect brands to offer personalized customer
support over messaging channels. experiences also.
How important is a good customer Are you more likely to be a repeat
experience on messaging channels in customer of a brand that delivers great
your choice of, loyalty to, a brand? customer experience over messaging
channels (Messenger, iMessage, etc)?
Very Important Very Likely
59% 56%
Somewhat Important Somewhat Likely
37% 38%
Not Important Not Likely
4% 6%
96% of respondents said a good customer experience over Brands who deliver great customer experience over
messaging channels was at least somewhat important to messaging channels are more likely to have repeat
their brand loyalty. customers, with 94% of those surveyed testifying so.
conversocial.com | @conversocial
18What is the most important aspect of a good customer service experience?
6%
The brand knows who
I am, I don’t need to
repeat myself
43%
Support is offered in
real-time with
21% my issue resolved
The support agent effortlessly
is friendly and
knowledgeable
12%
The company
proactively reached
out to offer support 18%
Support is available
through my desired
contact channels
Support being offered in real-time with issues resolved effortlessly is the most important factor of a good
customer service experience.
What is the most infuriating aspect of a bad customer service experience?
9%
Having to repeat
or provide my 39%
information Long automated
multiple times phone hold/wait
times that make it
hard to connect
with an agent
25%
An unsupportive
agent who lacks
the knowledge or
ability to resolve
my issue
13%
Support is not in 14%
real-time and sometimes My issue can’t be resolved
takes days to resolve in my preferred channel
(told to email instead)
Whereas long automated phone hold/wait times are the most infuriating aspect of a bad service experience.
conversocial.com | @conversocial
19What is the most important aspect of a good customer experience?
8%
New experiences
that are interactive 49%
and immersive Engagement over
my preferred
15% contact channel
A unique and
customized online
experience
12%
Facilitation
of in-channel
payments for
easier checkout
16%
Offers and product recommendations
based on my purchase history
Engagement with consumers on their preferred contact channel is the most important factor of a good
customer experience.
What is the most infuriating aspect of a bad customer experience?
17%
Automation and bots
not understanding 39%
my CX needs Misuse of my
customer data to
mass-market me
10%
Preferential
treatment for new
customers only
22%
The only option
for contacting is a 12%
‘Contact Us’ form Not engaging on my
desired channel
Whereas mass-marketing was our surveyed respondents’ most infuriating aspect of a bad customer
experience. Messaging platforms actually prohibit this.
conversocial.com | @conversocial
20Key Finding: Great customer experiences drive brand loyalty among
customers, but the challenge lies in being able to build unique customer
experiences.
The significant majority of surveyed consumers — (89%) — say they are loyal to their favorite brand(s).
While price (29%) is paramount to this customer loyalty, experience (25%) ranked as a close second.
The data is clear, when you lose a customer’s loyalty, they stop doing business with your brand. Creating
brand loyalty through better customer experiences is business-critical. As markets get more crowded, and
competition more fierce, one thing remains a constant; customer retention through loyalty is the key driver
of business success. CX innovation helps create opportunities to harness this loyalty (which is even more
critical now given the global pandemic that has taken effect over the last 9 months).
In this year’s survey, we’ve found insight into what constitutes good experiences versus bad ones. Customer
expectations are clear: they want an effortless experience on the channel of their choice, that doesn’t make
them wait on hold or direct them to an endless phone tree of “Press 5 to speak to an agent.” What’s more,
customers crave unique and personalized experiences, with no time or patience for mass marketing.
Messaging channels, powered by adaptive automation, are the future of modern
customer experience management.
conversocial.com | @conversocial
21Messaging Channels for CX
Interactions on private messaging channels have grown by 200%
2020 has been defining for every consumer facing business. Data analysis from the Conversocial platform
shows that private messaging volume increased 200% at the start of the pandemic. As we settled into this
‘new normal,’ we anticipated volumes to subside. But in fact the opposite happened. Volumes remained
consistent. Customers have moved to messaging and aren’t going back.
With a wealth of messaging channels available, how do you know which is right for your brand?
conversocial.com | @conversocial
22What can each channel do?
Google’s Apple
WhatsApp Facebook Business Instagram Business
Features Business Messenger Messages Messages Chat Twitter DM SMS
Asynchronous,
real-time
conversations
Built for
automation
Verified business
accounts
End to end
encryption
Secure payments
Works across
any device
Website plugin to
replace live chat
Augmented
Reality (AR)
Persistent
conversation
history
Conversocial channel-specific features
Switchboard™
(bot to human handover)
CSAT/NPS Surveys
Account
Verification
Proactive
notifications
Public to Private
message threading
conversocial.com | @conversocial
23At Conversocial, we believe that the right approach to messaging channel adoption is uni not omni. Lets go
deeper on the channels themselves…
Apple Business Chat
Since its launch in 2007, the iPhone has revolutionized the way we connect. When Apple first released it,
BlackBerrys were the height of mobile sophistication — and people were skeptical that a $500 device with a
touch screen would ever catch on.
“It doesn’t appeal to business customers because it doesn’t have a keyboard,” chortled then-Microsoft CEO
Steve Ballmer in a now-infamous interview. Despite the naysayers, Apple’s propensity to “think different” led
the smartphone revolution. Now Apple Business Chat is changing the way customers interact with brands.
There are more than 1.5 billion monthly active Apple devices worldwide.
The smartphone revolution that Apple ushered in more than a decade ago is here to stay. Today, 81% of
Americans own a smartphone. And it’s so ingrained in their lives that 71% of people expect brands to offer
support over messaging services within iMessage. Apple’s response? Apple Business Chat.
With Apple Business Chat, iOS users can message businesses just like they would their friends. And there’s
a built-in captive audience: market analysis shows that the iPhone is the mobile device of choice in not
only the core anglosphere (US, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand), but also Sweden, Japan, and Saudi
Arabia. In 2019, nearly 60% of American smartphone users were running iOS. If your customers are located
in any of these regions, providing support over Apple Business Chat is a no-brainer.
Key Apple Business Chat features
Built for Automation: Businesses can use bots on Apple Business Chat to handle simple requests like
tracking a package, freeing up customer support reps to handle more complicated inquiries.
Secure and Private: Apple Business Chat encrypts all messages between users and merchants and places an
emphasis on protecting users’ privacy. This leads to a higher degree of trust.
Cost-Effective: Businesses benefit from Apple Business Chat’s seamless integration with Apple Pay. Its sleek
integration with Apple Wallet makes it easy for customers to make in-chat purchases and download tickets
or boarding passes.
conversocial.com | @conversocial
24Back-end Integrations: Apple Business Chat integrates with your existing back-end systems, seamlessly
connecting to your CX ecosystem.
Marketing & Sales Capabilities: Your customers can make purchases in chat by choosing options from a
list picker, and thanks to Apple’s AR capabilities, they can even try products out first — without ever leaving
their homes.
Facebook Messenger
It’s easy to forget that Facebook is more than fifteen years old. Even though the platform launched all
the way back in 2004 — around the same time George Bush was beginning his second term as president,
Friends was airing its final season, and there were only five Harry Potter books out — Facebook has remained
relevant to this day.
Partly, this is because the company recognized the importance of messaging early: Facebook revamped “chat”
and created a standalone Messenger app — for iOS, Android, and BlackBerry — all the way back in 2011. In
2015, they added Messenger for business features. Today, Messenger has 1.3 billion monthly active users.
40 million businesses are using Messenger to communicate with their customers.
Using Facebook messaging for business gives you access to one of the world’s largest online audiences.
Facebook has 2.7 billion monthly active users and Messenger has 1.3 billion monthly active users. As a
messaging app, it’s second in popularity only to WhatsApp (which Facebook also owns). Geographically
speaking, Facebook Messenger is more dominant in the United States and Canada, and WhatsApp is more
popular in EMEA, Latin America, and parts of Asia.
Key Facebook Messenger features
Accessible: Perhaps one of the most innovative Facebook Messenger for business features is that anyone can
use it — you don’t even have to have a Facebook account anymore. Thanks to the addition of Guest Mode,
any user can message a brand, regardless of whether they’re logged in or even registered on Facebook.
Seamless: Adding messaging directly to your website is a cinch with the Facebook Messenger chat plug-in,
making it easy to integrate messaging into your existing web experience.
Proactive: Facebook’s Message tags feature enables businesses to send personally relevant updates to
customers outside of the standard 24-hour response window (this includes things like post-purchase
updates, event reminders, and account updates).
conversocial.com | @conversocial
25Sales & Marketing Enabled: Facebook has packed Messenger with a host of sales and marketing capabilities.
The most notable is Facebook Shops, a mobile-first shopping experience that allows businesses to easily
create an online store on Facebook — and then use it across the entire Facebook family of apps.
Designed with Agents in Mind: Designed with Agents in Mind: Switchboard, Conversocial’s proprietary
agent-to-bot handover technology, gives agents access to purpose-driven bots that can collect personal
information, process transactions, and handoff conversations bi-directionally.
Facebook is also merging Messenger with its other social properties, like WhatsApp
and Instagram, which will make it even easier to connect with brands, no matter
what service you use.
WhatsApp Business
When founders Jan Koum and Brian Acton launched WhatsApp as an iOS app in 2009, it had a simple
premise: to share a status with your contacts that showed whether you were available for calls.
But when Apple rolled out push notifications for the iPhone for the first time, WhatsApp’s founders noticed
their users’ behavior changing. Suddenly, users were pinging their friends with silly custom statuses like “I
woke up late” — and the line between status updates and messaging began to blur. From those humble
beginnings, WhatsApp has grown to be the most popular messaging app in the world. A decade later,
WhatsApp has again reinvented itself with the addition of WhatsApp Business, a tool that makes messaging a
business as easy as messaging a friend.
With more than 2 billion users across 180 countries, WhatsApp is the most popular messaging
app in the world and the messaging market leader in 133 countries.
It’s the communication platform of choice in EMEA, Latin America, and parts of Asia — and especially huge
in emerging markets like India (400 million users) and Brazil (120 million users). Collectively, WhatsApp
users send 65 billion messages per day. So why use WhatsApp for Business? It’s simple: you facilitate
conversations with the world’s largest — and chattiest — customer base.
conversocial.com | @conversocial
26Key WhatsApp Business features
Conversational: With new features of WhatsApp Business like QR codes, customers can start a chat by
scanning an image — making it easy for businesses to provide no-contact services in our new digital-first
world.
Secure & Trustworthy: Since WhatsApp Business requires companies to pass a rigorous approval process
before creating a branded business profile, customers can rest assured that business accounts on the
platform are verified and thus trustworthy. Not to mention, WhatsApp is continuously adding new security
features, such as expiring messages, which are currently in beta.
Built for Automation: With native features like automated messages and quick replies, WhatsApp Business
empowers brands to provide faster, more efficient support.
Sales & Marketing Enabled: WhatsApp Business gives brands the ability to create mobile storefronts for
their businesses with catalogs and securely process payments using Facebook Pay. They’re also adding
features that allow users to view and pay for items all within the app.
Designed with Agents in Mind: Agent Assist — Conversocial’s proprietary account verification technology —
gives agents access to purpose-driven bots that can collect personal information, process transactions, and more.
Google’s Business Messages
You wouldn’t know it by looking at it, but Google was a latecomer to the search engine game. By the time
Stanford grad students Larry Page and Sergey Brin met in the mid-1990s, there were actually numerous
platforms that already existed for indexing and searching web pages. What made Google unique was its
ability to rank pages by relevance, using the number (and quality) of backlinks a page received.
Since those early days Google has continued to innovate, finding better and better ways to connect people
to the information they’re looking for. Part of this innovation is the introduction of Google’s Business
Messages — a channel perhaps just as important as search itself.
Google’s Business Messages (GBM) — a tool available through the already well-established Google My
Business app — is a messaging service that enables customers to connect with businesses straight from the
tools they already use to find products and services.
2.49 billion searches happen on Google every day*.
* comScore - July 2020 / Mary Meeker, Bond Partners; Internet Trends - 2019
conversocial.com | @conversocial
27When customers need help, or prospects have a question, what do they do? They “Google it.” Business
Messages offers a better way to start the conversation than phone and chat. Since so many people’s buying
journeys already begin with Google Search or Google Maps, adopting Google’s Business Messages is an easy
way to connect with your customers, right where they are.
It’s an especially key way of forming connections with Android users (a group that now makes up around
75 percent of smartphone users worldwide). While GBM features are accessible on iOS through the Google
Maps app, on Android they’re native to the platform. Google already offers comprehensive messaging across
Android devices via Google Search, Google Maps, and brand websites—and they have plans to expand the
service in the coming months. Soon, Android users will be able to access Google Business Messages within
third-party apps and on calls.
Key Business Messages features
Discoverable: Google’s Business Messages seamlessly integrates into your customers’ existing routines.
Google processes billions of search queries a day, both through organic search and local search (via Google
Maps). Your customers already turn to these services to look for products, find businesses in their area, and
hunt for the best deals.
Built for automation: With native Google My Business features like wait times and automated responses
to frequently asked questions, Google’s Business Messages empowers brands to provide faster, more
efficient support. Brands can even create a digital assistant capable of understanding natural language
using Google’s Dialogflow.
Sales & Marketing Enabled: GBM features marketing and sales capabilities in the form of rich features like
carousels, chips, and photos, which can all support your buyer’s journey and help drive purchases.
Cost-effective: Serving customers over messaging allows you to deflect from more costly channels (like
phone), freeing up your agents to offer the same high-quality service to more customers using asynchro-
nous messaging.
Conversational: Google’s Business Messages makes contacting a business as easy as messaging a friend. And
just like texting a friend, Google’s Business Messages is asynchronous, meaning customers can go about their
day while they wait for a support agent to get back to them (no long hold times!) or return to the conversa-
tion if they have follow-up questions.
conversocial.com | @conversocial
28Instagram Messaging
Instagram began development in San Francisco as Burbn, a mobile check-in app created by Kevin Systrom
and Mike Krieger. Realizing that Burbn was too similar to Foursquare, Systrom and Krieger pivored to focus
their app on photo-sharing. Hence, on July 16th 2010, Kreiger posted the first ever image on Instagram.
Now part of the Facebook, Inc. family — who bought the app for $1 billion in 2012 — Instagram has over
1 billion monthly active users worldwide. The social photo sharing app is especially popular in the United
States, India, and Brazil, which have over 140 million, 120 and 95 million Instagram users each.
150 million people have a conversation with a business on Instagram every month.
Instagram is a marketer’s dream (especially if you’re a retailer). As of October 2020, 33% of global Instagram
audiences are aged between 25 and 34 years. In total, over two-thirds of total Instagram audiences are aged
34 years and younger. This makes the platform particularly attractive for marketers.
Key Instagram messaging features
Sales & Marketing Enabled: Facebook has packed Instagram with a host of sales and marketing capabilities.
The most notable is Instagram Shop, a mobile-first shopping experience that allows businesses to easily
create online and customisable storefronts on Instagram.
Commerce: Checkout on Instagram allows businesses to sell their products directly on Instagram. Consum-
ers can purchase products that they discover securely and seamlessly using Facebook Pay, without leaving
the app.
Product Promotion: Facebook Ads Manager allows brands to maximize the reach of their products through
product tags. This will drive the customer to an owned website or native checkout on Instagram.
Quick Replies: Quick Replies present the customer with a set of buttons in-conversation for the user to reply
with — improving the customer experience and issue resolution.
Instagram Ice Breakers: Ice Breakers — that appear when a customer interacts with your brand via Direct
Message (DM) — present to the customer a brand defined menu of frequently asked questions. This allows
for swifter issue routing based in inbound query, meaning agents spend less time handling issues and more
time solving them.
conversocial.com | @conversocial
29Why Automation on Messaging Channels?
By mid-2016, companies had launched over 11,000 Facebook Messenger bots. Thousands of articles and
billions in venture funding heralded their disruptive arrival on the CX scene. Yet consumers didn’t take to them.
Most of these bots lacked crucial characteristics. They had poor CX, misunderstood simple commands, and
didn’t pass user requests along to human agents. These bots often led to a frustrating consumer experience.
But bots are booming once again.
Automation allows for brands to go further, building
unique conversational experiences driven by intent to
help acquire and engage customers.
9 Chatbot Characteristics
Today’s bots are of a much higher caliber because they exhibit most – if not all – of these 9 Conversocial
reccomended features of a super useful chatbot:
01 Able to learn: There’s nothing more frustrating than having to repeat yourself to a bot over and over. If
you tell a chatbot once that you live in New York, it now remembers this and other relevant information for
future interactions using what’s known as “progressive profiling.”
02 Able to fail usefully: Chabots are now built to realize when a request exceeds their abilities. They now
escalate complex issues to human agents and record the data so creators can prioritize these features in the
bot’s product development.
03 Personalized: Along with remembering things like a customer’s name and reason for seeking support,
chatbots can now show more empathy and adjust their language and tone based on context. For example,
acknowledging that a flight cancellation is inconvenient, rather than treating it with nonchalance.
04 CX-first: Chatbots can prompt users with a menu of options, sometimes based on previous interactions. If
the chatbot is unable to handle a complex request, it instantly escalates the issue to a human agent. What it
doesn’t do is repeat, “Sorry, I didn’t get that” over and over.
conversocial.com | @conversocial
3005 Accessible: Chatbot interfaces now must be equally accessible to all customers, regardless of language
proficiency or any visual or hearing impairments. Bots should be able to read text aloud for the visually
impaired, for example.
06 Secure: In the wake of recent data breaches, bots are more secure than ever. Many are now entirely
transparent about what data they collect and what they use it for. Users often have the option to opt out of
data collection if desired.
07 Explainable: Yesterday’s chatbots were built on machine learning or neural network algorithms (they mimic
a human brain by recognizing relationships between different datasets) which, while they could reach the
right conclusions, couldn’t explain their reasoning. This prevented teams from diagnosing their poor service.
(Let’s not forget Microsoft’s Tay, which was given far too much information too fast without the proper
understanding of how to filter it.) Today’s support chatbots are more transparent and use explainable forms
of AI that allow teams to improve their service.
08 KCS-friendly: Short for knowledge-centered service, KCS is a method and set of guidelines for building and
preserving organizational knowledge. It’s great for creating artificially intelligent machines, as it gives bot
creators a roadmap to follow to make sure chatbots are ethical, helpful, and improve over time.
09 Analytical: A great chatbot will be able to suggest and recommend products and services for a user based
on current or previous interactions. This can easily turn a customer issue into an upsell automatically,
without involving an agent.
Humans Empowered by Automation
Humans don’t scale and bots don’t build relationships. You need both to succeed.
In this new bot-driven service world, a few more tricks are needed than just high IQ and EQ. Jack Ma, self-
made Chinese billionaire, coins “LQ” as the future brand differentiator: LQ, which stands for “love quotient,”
is the next iteration in our societal obsession with benchmarking ourselves and attempting to flesh out
our advantage over the machines. Take for example, a traveler who complains about a hair in his or her
coffee. It takes IQ to surmise that they want a new cup of coffee, but as any human can tell you, that’s likely
not enough. It requires EQ to make that next leap and understand the customer is also seeking emotional
validation for their experience.
Now, let’s say a machine is capable of that much — it would still be unlikely that a bot would find the right
words to satiate this innate desire of validation that we seek as humans. What that customer needs at
this point is an escalation. An escalation past the colossal AI intelligence that’s broad enough to monitor
messaging channels, and past the deep emotional intelligence that’s sensitive enough to register emotion
and cough out appropriate answers — straight to a human agent.
conversocial.com | @conversocial
31And that human can then apologize and make it alright because they have LQ. They care — they can make a
real connection.
LQ needs to be at the forefront of all brands’ service infrastructure in the coming age of automation. Jack
argues that LQ will be what separates successful brands from the machine-driven ones who, although highly
intelligent and endlessly emotional, will completely miss the point.
We are entering a world where humans & bots work together over messaging
channels to simplify people’s lives.
conversocial.com | @conversocial
32Chapter 3:
Operationalizing
Messaging Across the
Customer Lifecycle
conversocial.com | @conversocial
33Communications between a company and customer used to be a disjointed experience, with little continuity
across their lifecycle. Messaging channels finally give brands an opportunity to collate all of their customer
interactions into one place, enabling them to continuously build engaging experiences at every stage of a
customer journey.
The events of 2020 have pushed a focus towards digital experiences for many consumers across the globe.
In fact, Google’s European President, Matt Brittin believes the pandemic has sparked a leap forward of
5 years in our use of digital technology, and brands will have to follow as they adapt their approach to
customer experience management.
The key to making sure customers adopt messaging as their go-to channel, is promotion. This means website
plugins, adverts across social media, and even adding it to your Google search results. Once customers know
they don’t have to pick up a phone or send an email, they’re going to move to messaging in no time.
Former CDO of Starbucks Adam Brotman, believes that despite there being potentially multiple digital touch
points in a customer’s journey, they’re all part of the same relationship.
“In a whiteboard session we’re going to put the customer in the middle…
and then we’re going to start drawing all the touch points you have with the
customer as a brand.
What you’re going to find is that in 2020, particularly
with COVID…most of those touch points are going
to be digital. To get a customer to love you, refer to
you, come back to you, buy from you is all centered
around a digital relationship.”
Adam Brotman, Former CDO @ Starbucks
conversocial.com | @conversocial
34Messaging for Acquisition
Why does acquisition through messaging matter to marketers?
As marketers, we spend our days trying to find ways to gather as much information as possible about our
audience. Landing pages, blogs, relentless annual ‘Definitive Guides to X’ ( ) – all so we can get contact
details and understand how to better market to customers.
There are billions of active app users across the largest messaging platforms. That’s about as big a market
as you can get and you don’t even have to get customers to download a new app because they’re already
on their phones. These messaging apps are practically an extension of our hands and the companies behind
them are committed to making them work for marketers.
Messaging channels are the future of customer acquisition. Used effectively, they lead to higher engagement,
better ROAs and lower CPLs & CACs from your campaigns.
Five Reasons Messaging Channels are Perfect for Marketers:
01 Businesses can use ads that click to Facebook Messenger to start conversations at scale, leveraging
Facebook’s targeting to find customers relevant to their business. Whether the goal is to generate leads, raise
awareness of brands or products, or drive sales, businesses can tailor conversations in Messenger to meet
Ads slide
their specific needs – driving business outcomes one conversation at a time.
right into
your DMs
02 The shift to digital shopping experiences has accelerated with countries all over the world in and out of
perpetual lockdown. It’s meant most consumers are now indoors or simply avoiding crowds for most of
2020 (and probably beyond). Facebook was already in the process of launching Facebook Shops, but the
Everyone’s
pandemic sped up the rollout and has been vital for small businesses. It has
shopping
become a literal one-stop shop for the entire customer journey.
online now
anyways Backed by the power of their 2.7 billion monthly active users, branded
pages offer consumers a virtual storefront that Facebook’s advertising
infrastructure sends traffic directly to – using platforms like Messenger
and WhatsApp to create a seamless consumer experience. This offers a
direct route to customer acquisition and keeps the entire brand/customer
relationship within messaging channels.
conversocial.com | @conversocial
3503 What do customers do when making a purchase decision? “Google it.” 2.49 billion searches happen on
Google every day, making the tech giant a customer experience goliath. Google’s Business Messages almost
bypasses the need for a website – with entry points via Google Maps or Search, customers can connect
Get them
directly to brands at the earliest possible time during their journey.
where they
Google Google’s Business Messages also has the functionality to be used as a proactive channel; if users share their
names and location, then brands are able to provide a more personalized messaging experience.
04 Marketing emails from a company you once bought something from are really annoying, as is Amazon
showing you every external hard drive they sell because you got one last week. But, a surgical execution of
the right message, at the right time, to the right customer is an invaluable technique for engagement and
Excuse me,
getting a potentially lost sale over the line.
you forgot
this... Notifying one of your customers when an item they wanted is back
in stock or offering a discount if they’ve left something unbought
in their basket can keep them loyal and engaged, long after their
first purchase. It’s CX that works brilliantly for both sides, because
it drives revenue while endearing the customer to the brand by
giving them something in return. Messaging channels – driven by
automation – give companies the power to do just this.
05 Nearly 60% of US smartphone users are running iOS with 1.5 billion monthly active Apple devices
worldwide.
Buy it from Apple Business Chat has a feature called “pickers” where customers can choose from a list of options to book
your sofa an appointment or purchase various products. It’s a game changer. It’s never been easier for customers to
book appointments or buy products via messaging channels, reducing friction and acquisition costs. And
thanks to Apple’s AR capabilities, consumers can now even sample products without ever leaving their homes.
conversocial.com | @conversocial
36Messaging for Care
Why does customer care through messaging matter to customer service execs?
Every contact center deals with issues that are unique to their particular industry. But that doesn’t mean
the service issues themselves are unique. Chances are that 80% of them fall into the same category. Just
because we, as customers, like to believe that we are unique snowflakes (not in the millennial sense...),
doesn’t change the fact that the world’s biggest brands see the same common trends in customer care over
and over again.
During the first stage of the pandemic, Conversocial’s partners saw a huge spike in customer interactions.
Messaging channels are always able to handle the incoming traffic, but humans only have so many hands
and fingers to respond. So how do you ensure you’re not dealing with angry customers, waiting hours for a
response? Look at the data.
If you know what the most common questions and issues are, AI and bots can tackle that 80%, leaving
the agents to handle the more unique inquiries. This not only reduces friction and frustration across your
customer base, but also in the contact center among your agents.
Five Reasons Messaging Channels are Perfect for Customer Service Execs:
01 In retail, customers’ intentions are pretty common. Order tracking, canceling an order, returns,
exchanges etc. All sound familiar? They’re also very familiar to customer service agents.
Where’s At best, handling them means agents are doing the same repetitive tasks every
my stuff? day, at worst (say during an international health crisis) they’re swamped because
everyone is shopping online. However, the entire process can be automated,
in both proactive and reactive situations via messaging channels. Alerts can
be sent out at each step of the order process proactively, and bots set up to
handle all incoming queries reactively.
Live agents can then focus on the more complex tasks that require time,
empathy and flexibility; creating consistently positive outcomes for
customers.
conversocial.com | @conversocial
3702 If you’re flying anywhere, the last thing you need is to arrive at the airport only to find your flight’s delayed
and the only place to sit and wait is those universally uncomfortable seats.
How’s my Aer Lingus uses Facebook Messenger to provide real-time, continuous conversations where customers can
flight? check the status of their flight before stepping foot in the departure lounge. No waiting on a phone call,
being tethered to live chat, or scanning departure boards when it’s already too late.
With the right level of automation, this can even be extended to baggage tracking, retrieving a booking or
even checking in.
03
It’s rare that customers have a brand’s number saved in their phone. The first place
they go for contact information is either a website or Google search. Both of these
entry points can be where messaging takes over and becomes the preferred care
Don’t call.
channel. It can even be the only thing brands offer on their ‘contact us’ page.
Don’t
live chat Facebook Messenger’s website integration allows for instant, asynchronous
conversations between brand and consumer before a number has been dialed.
With Google’s Business Messaging, it can even happen prior to reaching a website.
For brands, messaging offers increased productivity and reduced costs when
compared to IVRs or live chat. For consumers, there’s no navigating annoying
phone trees, waiting on hold or being tethered to a website.
04 Disgruntled customers will often take a number of paths, sometimes simultaneously, trying to get a brand’s
attention. A negative tweet or Facebook post doesn’t look good no matter what the subject.
Let’s talk If brands move the conversation to private messaging from public social, it shows them to be responsible to
in private anyone who is looking, and any further negative interactions can then take place ‘behind closed doors.’
One-click access to an agent also helps to appease the unhappy customer, giving them a human connection
to tend to their issue and confirm that the brand is indeed listening to them. Private messaging channels
offer the opportunity to form a stronger brand/consumer bond satisfying a customer’s needs with 1:1
customer service.
conversocial.com | @conversocial
3805 CSAT and NPS surveys are perfect for messaging channels: they can be simply automated across Facebook
Messenger, WhatsApp Business and Apple Business Chat and even compared against traditional care channels.
If you’re
Email open rates average 1.5-3% whereas private messaging provides a far higher level of engagement — as
happy
much as 31% for some Conversocial partners — in turn providing more data points to analyse the effective-
and you
ness of your CX.
know it...
“When people complain, they complain because they care…they’re giving you as a
company a chance to resolve a problem.
Obviously you prefer the customer who comes in and says ‘here’s
what’s wrong and here’s why I’m mad at you’, because it gives
you a chance to fix it….We know a customer that’s had an
issue resolved is often more loyal than a customer
that never had an issue in the first place.”
Dan Gingiss, CX Coach and Keynote Speaker
conversocial.com | @conversocial
39Messaging for Engagement
Why Does Engagement Through Messaging Matter to Customer
Experience Executives?
Modern consumers have more of a voice than ever, in large part thanks to their smartphones. In a pre-mes-
saging world, keeping track of a customer’s journey stretched across departments. Prior to moving to
messaging, it was difficult to create meaningful 1:1 relationships because engagement couldn’t be effectively
tracked at every touchpoint, something digital customers demand.
Thanks to private messaging channels, there are untold opportunities to build engaging, personalized
communications with a customer based on their past experiences, preferences, and needs across their
lifecycle. The interactions aren’t isolated or ticket based, they’re part of a broader way of thinking when it
comes to managing CX.
Five Reasons Messaging Channels are Perfect for Customer Engagement
Execs:
01 How does it work?
Do you know what’s less helpful than most instruction manuals? Someone trying to read one over the phone
How does to you. At Conversocial, our policy when explaining something is ‘show don’t tell’ — a mantra embraced by an
it work? electronics giant when building a Messenger bot.
The bot was built to walk users through any and all new features of the latest devices, using rich media to explain
how to get the best out of the product. Utilizing messaging to automate the process made sense for both brand
and consumer. A human verbally explaining this would have been more time consuming for all parties involved
when compared to the interactive and impactful nature of customers seeing the features with their own eyes.
“When automation is easy and good, we prefer it. Do you go to the self-serve
checkout in Safeway, or do you go to the line where you’re dealing with a cashier?
Most of us probably go to self-service...because
when it’s accessible, we prefer automation (more)
than we prefer dealing with people we don’t
know.”
Rob Lawson, Partnerships at Google
conversocial.com | @conversocial
4002 Tapping into the efficiency of automation, one of Conversocial’s partners, a beauty brand, offered custom-
ers the chance to book appointments via Facebook Messenger, bypassing the need to do it via the app or
website. The results were a 122% lift of in-store appointments, with Messenger customers spending more,
Make
and CAC cut by more than 50%.
booking
easier It wasn’t just an appointment boosting money spinner, there was also a real
impact on the brand’s customer service load. 93% of all chats were contained
within the bot experience, meaning agents were able to properly deal with the
remaining 7% that were escalated to them. Like Rob Lawson said above — when
automation is easy and good, we prefer it.
03 We’ve all been there — going down a phone tree rabbit hole, shouting “I JUST WANT TO TALK TO A F*****G
HUMAN BEING!”. But believe it or not, there are situations where it’s easier and preferable to have a bot
handle your interaction.
When
a bot is For instance, in addition to being able to deal with customers’ most repeated
better queries, bots are an excellent handover tool for agents. If a customer wants
than a to add luggage to their flight, agents can enable a bot that will handle the
human conversation in a more efficient way. Conversocial’s platform also offers
payment features to help customers feel more comfortable — their
personal details will only ever be handled by purpose-driven bots.
04 Recurring purchases are part of everyone’s life but not necessarily something consumers keep on top of.
Automation across messaging channels is the no-cost PA the world’s been looking for. Push notifications
It’s that that serve as a reminder to reorder contact lenses, or renew your home insurance can become an invaluable
time of service. A timely message with the entire process including payment, contained within the messaging
year again channel, is the smart way to boost revenue and ensure exceptional CX for your customers.
05 Messaging channels are built for automation. If done right, the experience vs a phone call, email or even a
website can be infinitely more efficient. A bot set up with one specific task to perform can guide a customer
A website through a process seamlessly.
bypass
Not to mention, brands are able to use messaging to book customers for instore appointments, showcase
products, and in some cases, use AR to offer a virtual makeover or show whether the sofa you want will
look good in your living room. Channels like Messenger, WhatsApp Business and Apple Business Chat also
let you make purchases within the app, meaning an entire transaction can take place there without visiting a
website or moving off your phone once.
conversocial.com | @conversocial
41You can also read
