MANILA, PHILIPPINES — E-commerce has become essential in the present times when safety and convenience are priorities. What makes it work is its capability to be done remotely and online thus allowing the expansion of businesses to a larger consumer base and even to various markets. With its growth also comes necessary improvements that provide these brands smarter, more efficient, and more targeted ways to promote and talk with customers.
Viber, the leading free messaging app, knows how communicating and marketing for businesses play a strong role in better sales conversions. It’s especially true here in the Philippines where customers are on chats and social platforms more than ever, leading to their propensity to connect with a brand and purchase products to follow suit. And this is why it’s important for businesses to consider conversational commerce as a key part to their marketing and promotional strategies.
Though most people think that engaging on Viber means sending private regular messages individually to consumers, that’s far from the way to do business on the app. Viber Business Messages is a sound solution that brands can invest in, letting them scale up their conversational commerce efforts while ensuring a seamless experience both for them and their customers.
Viber Business Messages allow brands and businesses to plug in their existing customers’ opt-in database. Business Messages can include richer messaging elements like images, files, and call-to-action buttons with links for a more enhanced experience for customers, instead of just generic text-only messages. They perform much better than emails (they have a much higher open rate, around 45 times higher than email and 3 times higher than push notifications) and there’s a reason for this: 96% of messages are read within three minutes on mobile devices. They are also cost-effective, costing much less than SMS, but you can also guarantee timely message delivery via SMS fallback for your peace of mind (e.g. for one-time passwords). Also, business messages are super secure for both brands and customers. Depending on specific business needs, messages from brands to customers can be transactional (for example, order confirmation or notification about delivery of goods), promotional (messages with a special offer or promotion), as well as two-way conversations (customer support, receiving feedback, or placing orders).
One of the brands that prove Viber Business Messages contributes positive impacts to their business growth is ShippingCart, a service launched by QuadX in 2015. As a service under a fast-growing startup dealing specifically with logistics and delivery, ShippingCart enables local customers to receive orders from North America and Europe.
Having introduced United Kingdom delivery services just in 2019, ShippingCart used targeted Viber Business Messages to existing customers with their messaging partner Promotexter. It reported a growth of 300% in UK transactions compared to the same period last year. It also saw a 187% achievement in key performance indicators for its UK delivery services. ShippingCart also mentioned that a quarter of United States customers it messaged using Viber made purchases from the UK.
Aside from the logistics sector, a company from another industry also says that Viber Business Messages helped tremendously with their operations. The Primer Group of Companies is a retailer that specializes in distributing consumer goods from different brands. With malls affected gravely because of the quarantine restrictions since pandemic struck last year, Primer resorted to Viber Business Messages to establish their online footing.
With the help of their messaging partner Infobip, Primer enabled online purchases by pushing out a campaign that promoted directly to consumers with online vouchers offering competitive discounts using codes sent through Viber Business Messages. The brand reported that they not only achieved a 53% code redemption conversion rate from among the customers they contacted, but also 401% in total sales.
Viber is keeping things within reach and as seamless as possible for both brands and customers, bolstering the future of e-commerce with the power of reliable and effective business messaging solutions.
