Study: Conversational commerce up by 22% in APAC

Whatsapp has been named the top digital channel for conversational marketing and has seen a 421% increase in messages in the APAC region. Similarly, Facebook Messenger has seen a 500% increase and Telegram has seen a 145.3% increase in messages.

In fact, conversational messaging has seen a 137% increase in mobile app messages in 2023 from 2022 as more brands adopt an omnichannel approach to their customer messaging to cater to consumers who desire deeper connections with the brands they buy from.

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These were the results of global cloud communications platform Infobip’s latest report which analysed 473 billion messages sent on its platform in 2023 to reveal that customers are happy for brands to incorporate AI into their messaging strategies when it is flexible, has a personality and knows when it is time to hand over to human agent.

Brands that are able to provide a consistent level of support to customers at various stages of a purchase will be rewarded with loyalty and high customer satisfaction scores, added the report.

How can brands leverage conversational messaging?

One way to do this is to allow customers to seamlessly progress through different stages of a purchase through a single window. For example, Whatsapp’s 'Flows' feature enables businesses to create structured, interactive customer journeys that guide users in a conversational way, serving them with relevant information at each step.

'Click to chat' ads are another feature that brands can attract people with by publishing a link in online ads, social media or a brand’s website to start a chat to do business.

Conversational commerce has also seen a 22% increase in usage in APAC and are most popular among teenagers and young adults. Popular messaging channels include Whatsapp Business, Apple Messages for Business, Google’s Business Messages and RCS.

Through conversational commerce, retailers can offer category specific catalogs to customers via chat apps where customers who inquire about a product can receive details, photos and personalised recommendations.

Conversational commerce has seen a 22% increase in usage in APAC and are most popular among teenagers and young adults.

Younger brands can challenge more established players by adopting chat apps and social media as sales channels. They can also work with influencers to exponentially extend the reach of their campaigns.

“Where 2022 revealed a spike in omnichannel adoption when brands recognised the importance of connecting with their customers on their preferred channel, 2023 shows how brands are perfecting the end-to-end customer journey,” said Ivan Ostojić, chief business officer at Infobip.

“With the emergence of interactive AI, we expect brands to incorporate a federation of different chatbots and AI algorithms working together to trigger action at the ideal points during the customer journey,” he further explained.

The telco industry has seen a 275% increase in the use of conversational messaging in the APAC region. 43% use SMS for their marketing while 98.7% use Whatsapp for customer support.

“In the next year, we foresee the widespread adoption of customer service, marketing and sale automation, and for operational use cases such as scheduling deliveries and managing payments," added Ostojić.

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