Is Messaging the Future of the Personalized Customer Experience?

If Covid-19 leaves one lasting legacy for the business world, it's that online shopping reigns supreme. Juniper Research reported $4.9 trillion in global e-commerce for 2021, with that figure expected to rise to $7.5 trillion by 2026.

Consumers want their favorite brands to know who they are, provide personalized offers and incentives, and be easily accessible on the same channels they use to communicate with friends and family.

How will customers connect with brands? Through two-way messaging, says Stefanos Loukakos, CEO of Connectly, who worked at Facebook as its head of the Messenger business. "People message each other all of the time now, and that's where they want to connect with brands. They want to have meaningful conversations with businesses, while businesses want to transact with customers all in one messaging thread."

Richer customer communication

WhatsApp "allows for much richer two-way communication," says Loukakos. Unlike a chatbot, where a consumer has to be on that company's website to interact with it, one can use WhatsApp from anywhere to ask a company a question. It can also authenticate who that person is through their phone number and call up personal details like name, location, and past purchasing data.

Another advantage is that a person's entire communication history is saved in one thread. "People and businesses want one thread of communication. You don't want to start something and then get another message and another message—this is way more powerful."

More personalized messages

Connectly lets companies automate their messages to customers or have an agent communicate with them directly. Customers in Brazil, Mexico, India, the U.S., and other locales are using the platform to onboard new clients, send out personalized marketing offers, and answer customer questions.

The company is also building an artificial intelligence engine that analyzes CRM data and provides recommendations to the customer service agent. "We want businesses to push people in the right direction. Is this a customer support question? Are you a new customer? Do you want a new product? We're using AI to really understand the customer."

While it's still early days for Connectly and message-first customer service, Loukakos says that it's only a matter of time until the majority of businesses interact with their customers this way. "It's going to be complementary to what people already have. But it allows businesses to speak directly to their customers, and that's really important."

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