previous icon Back to blog
Mar 17, 2022
4 minutes read

Are you still one-way messaging? There is another way

Customer messaging doesn’t have to be one-way. With two-way messaging, marketing becomes a conversation rather than a broadcast. When you can communicate with customers as equals, you can fully understand what they want from your brand, and that’s about as valuable as data gets.

Emily Jane Brown
Emily Jane Brown,
Senior Marketing Manager

With a huge number of widely adopted messaging platforms, it’s clear that the future of messaging is omnichannel but, more than that, it’s about established messaging channels rather than native apps. In fact, Gartner predicts that 80% of customer service organisations will abandon native apps in favour of messaging by 2025; a prediction that marks messaging platforms as the next customer service frontier. 

So while some companies are powering ahead with their messaging strategies, others are just getting to grips with managing multiple messaging channels. Thankfully, you don’t have to go from zero to one hundred in one go; you can get there in stages.

Customer digital transformation maturity stages

There are four key stages to moving from basic messaging to full conversational commerce. 

  1. One-Way Messaging – delivering personalised marketing notifications direct to the inbox of your customers on a variety of messaging channels. This is about broadcast rather than conversation, so examples might include booking and order confirmations. Takeaway.com uses SMS to inform its customers their orders have been received and to give them estimated delivery times.
  2. Rich Conversational Messaging – moving into the realm of two-way communication and engaging in dialogue with customers. Here we’d include Application-to-person (A2P) messaging, which can involve things like order tracking, surveys, and one-time passwords and PINs. Banks, building societies and other financial institutions have been using A2P messaging to deliver automated, event-based SMS notifications to customers’ mobile phones for many years, and to conduct customer satisfaction surveys post-contact.
  3. Cloud Solutions – the next step is automating these conversations using cloud-based software. These messages can include informational queries, such as checking the status of a delivery via automated responses. We worked with the Formula 1 Dutch Grand Prix to create a WhatsApp chatbot that could answer customer queries and resolve frequently asked questions without the need for customer agents' involvement.
  4. Conversational Commerce – the fourth and final stage enables you to conduct your business anywhere, on any channel, with the ability to share product links in-channel with purchase and payment all available without ever leaving the chat. This is the final stage of messaging maturity whereby the functions of a businesses website can be accessed via a messaging platform with a complete end-to-end commerce solution, payments, and the like all available to a consumer away from the vendor’s traditional e-commerce platform. 

The benefits to your business

The benefits of moving your business through the four stages are numerous, but the primary benefit to your business is reducing friction for your customers. If they can receive a product marketing message, find information, click to purchase and pay all in one, seamless journey, conversion rates are likely to be vastly higher than via a convoluted, multi-platform purchase funnel. 

True two-way conversational messaging allows for a more personalised, one-to-one marketing experience for your customers, making them feel valued and allowing you to tailor your messaging to their situation. 

Equally, the ability to converse with your customers wherever they are on their favoured platforms is hugely valuable to ensure your message a) gets through and b) converts. 

Delivering a seamless experience isn’t just about revenue, of course. Increased customer satisfaction and positive brand perception are just two of the soft metrics that can have a big impact on your bottom line, with the increased flow of data direct from customers allowing you to tweak your service offering to align more closely with your core customers. Ultimately, it’s a win-win for you and your customers.  

How to implement two-way messaging

Understanding where your customers are is a good starting point to creating a messaging strategy, but it’s often not as simple as that. Many consumers shift seamlessly between platforms and use multiple channels as they move down the purchase funnel. Managing multiple channels from one omnichannel dashboard allows you to follow conversations seamlessly from one channel to the next and view the transcript of previous contacts to build a picture of exactly what your customers’ needs and wants are. 

Case study: Radius Payment Solutions

With a customer base that consists of fleet vehicle companies, being available whenever and wherever needed is crucial to Radius. With our WhatsApp API and two-way SMS solutions, Radius is available to its customers at the swipe of a touchscreen. 

Read the case study

Case study: Czech & Speake

Luxury grooming brand Czech & Speake faced the challenges of COVID-19 pandemic head on. With physical store footfall declining due to local lockdowns, it needed to find a new way to communicate with its customers. Using WhatsApp Business enabled the brand to communicate with customers that couldn’t visit them at their physical store. 

Read the case study


Learn more about conversational messaging and how to transform your business’s marketing messages from broadcast to conversation by downloading our guide to Conversational Messaging.

Download our guide to Conversational Messaging.

Was this article interesting?
Share it!
Emily Jane Brown
Emily Jane Brown,
Senior Marketing Manager
logo linkedin icon

Is the Marketing Manager for the UK and Ireland at CM.com and mainly writes about the music and sports industry with a focus on attendee experience.

Related articles

an-intro-to-rcs-messaging-for-marketers
Nov 25, 2024 • Messaging

Multichannel, omnichannel, cross-channel and single channel: what’s the difference?

Surely, we’ve all heard the terms multichannel and omnichannel before. And sometimes even cross-channel or single-channel. It seems like these terms are often used interchangeably, making it hard to understand what’s what. It is, however, very important to know the difference between these terms when talking about customer communication, because it can truly make or break the customer experience.

whatsapp-business-blog_image-deals-offers
Sep 16, 2024 • WhatsApp

Increase conversion with promotional messages on WhatsApp

In an age of mass marketing, it’s safe to say peak sales periods, especially Black Friday and the holiday season, can be overwhelming for consumers. Consumers receive irrelevant information from companies that doesn't match their personal needs and desires, so it's no surprise people might want to switch off and tune out all forms of marketing until the season is over. As an eCommerce player, you should always be looking to avoid this by diversifying and personalising your marketing strategy in a way that suits your customers' needs.

Unified Messaging With RCS on iOS
May 27, 2024 • Instant Messaging

Unified messaging with RCS on Apple's iOS

RCS (Rich Communication Services) is a rising star among conversational channels. It combines the reliability of SMS with the added benefits of rich media and interactive features from modern messaging apps. Yet, its only hiccup was that RCS didn't have the same reach without support from Apple's iOS. Well, until now, Apple has now confirmed it will support RCS in iOS 18.

sms-email-leads
May 06, 2024 • SMS

SMS templates to streamline customer service

Using SMS for customer service enables service agents to connect with your customers and using templates not only saves time but also lets agents create personalised, on-brand communications with just a few clicks. In this blog, we’ll share SMS customer service templates you can use to give your customers the information they need — fast.

SMS Customer Service
Mar 25, 2024 • SMS

How to effectively use SMS for late payments

Organisations face a significant challenge in effectively managing overdue payments and cash flow in a positive light with customers. To collect payments while keeping relationships intact and increasing engagement, SMS has emerged as a powerful, efficient and convenient tool for both businesses and customers. In this blog, we’ll explore how to effectively use SMS for late payments, highlighting its benefits and best practices.

sms-in-ecommerce
Mar 11, 2024 • SMS

How to create a successful eCommerce strategy with SMS

Every successful eCommerce strategy should aim to optimise customer communication across the entire buying journey. Why? The customer buying journey isn't limited to the point of sale alone. It encompasses everything leading up to purchase and everything afterwards. So, businesses need to engage and assist customers during the pre-sale, purchase and post-purchase stages - via a channel available to all - to create a successful eCommerce strategy.

how-popular-is-sms
Mar 04, 2024 • SMS

How popular is SMS in 2024? And how can it add value to your business?

While SMS is one of the oldest messaging services, the rise of instant messaging channels made a dent in its traffic. Why? Compared to the newer channels with rich features, SMS is relatively basic in its features, with plain text messages and a character limit of 160. Yet in customer communication, basic is often effective. So much so, that SMS is still one of the most impactful communication channels today. But how can it add value to your business? In this blog, we explore the popularity and key use cases of this ever-lasting channel.

WhatsApp vs Facebook Messenger
Feb 12, 2024 • Instant Messaging

WhatsApp vs Facebook Messenger: which messaging channel is right for your business?

WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger are both established messaging channels for customer engagement. But what are the differences? Which advantages does each channel have for what business use case?

drive-engagement-and-convert-your-conversations-with-whatsapp-carousel
Feb 05, 2024 • WhatsApp

Drive engagement and increase conversion with WhatsApp Carousel

With two billion daily active users globally and ten million downloads annually in the UK, WhatsApp is one of the most popular messaging channels. The WhatsApp Business Platform enables businesses to utilise this channel to connect with customers. It offers a variety of powerful engagement tools to enhance customer communication and boost sales. And now, WhatsApp has added another innovative feature: WhatsApp Carousel.

Is this region a better fit for you?
Go
close icon