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Messaging

137% increase in mobile app messages as AI begins to impact conversational brand interactions
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Conversational messaging channels are seeing the fastest growth in terms of brand interactions with customers, with Infobip research recording a 137% increase in mobile app messages in 2023 compared to 2022, including a 73% rise in social media messages, and a 63% increase in chat app messages.

Infobip analysed more than 473 billion digital communications interactions on its platform in 2023 between businesses and consumers to identify the latest global business messaging trends, concluding that conversational experiences are increasing throughout the customer journey, whether for marketing, commerce, or support.

Conversational support 

Whether a person is dealing with a human agent, a chatbot, or a combination of the two, conversational support provides an effective, efficient, and positive experience. WhatsApp remains the primary channel brands use for conversational support, where businesses send 90% of support messages over the chat app. However, brands are beginning to diversify their channel mix, leveraging chat apps in specific regions.

For instance, Infobip has recorded increases of 541%, 146%, and 284% in Messenger, Viber, and Line, respectively. Brands are now using conversational AI to provide personalized customer service and support. For instance, Megi Health Platform uses a virtual assistant on WhatsApp to help improve the patient experience. Meanwhile, insurance firm LAQO uses our Azure OpenAI partnership to provide a fast, 24/7 and personal service.

Conversational marketing

The two-way exchange of information is the basis for conversational marketing, and brands are ramping up their efforts to meet customers on the channels they use with their family and friends. Overall, the data shows a 29% increase in mobile app messaging for marketing in 2023 compared to 2022.

WhatsApp remains the top digital channel for conversational marketing in absolute numbers, driven by new features that enable customers to start and complete a purchase in a single WhatsApp chat window.

Infobip is also seeing significant increases in other messaging apps such as Telegram, Line, Viber, and Messenger. More specifically, WhatsApp messages increased by 421% in Asia Pacific in 2023, while mobile app messaging increased by 146% in the Middle East and North Africa and by 18 times in North America. Meanwhile, RCS Business Messaging is an emerging channel for conversational marketing.

Regional difference

With brands adopting conversational experiences globally, there are some regional differences:

  • Africa: conversational channels gain traction with social media messages increasing nearly 2.5 times
  • Asia Pacific: strong growth in mobile app messaging, with WhatsApp increasing by four times
  • Europe: rapid growth for RCS, as interactions increase by 11 times
  • Latin America: strong growth in mobile app messaging, with Viber increasing by more than 2.5 times
  • Middle East North Africa: rapid adoption of conversational channels, as voice and video interactions double
  • North America: exponential growth in rich messaging, with RCS interactions increasing by 50 times

The changing role of SMS

Infobip’s data from 2023 shows that SMS remains an important channel for business communication, but usage is changing where SMS is now being used alongside chat apps. Across all industries, brands most commonly use SMS with WhatsApp, with 25% of businesses choosing this combination. Moreover, where businesses and brands use two channels, SMS is one of the two options in 63% of cases.

Ivan Ostojić, Chief Business Officer at Infobip, said: “Our data shows how conversational experiences are rapidly spreading across the globe as businesses roll out marketing, sales, and support use cases. Where 2022 revealed a spike in omnichannel adoption when brands recognized the importance of connecting with their customers on their preferred channel, 2023 shows how brands are perfecting the end-to-end customer journey. Customers can now seamlessly progress through a journey within a single conversational thread on a chat app or RCS. With the emergence of interactive AI, we expect brands to incorporate a federation of different chatbots and AI algorithms working together to trigger actions at the ideal points during the customer journey. In the next year, we foresee the widespread adoption in customer service, marketing and sale automation, and for operational use cases like scheduling deliveries and managing payments.”

Brands ‘struggled to respond empathically’ to Covid-19 and Black Lives Matter
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While most brands want to be more empathic to social change and global issues affecting customers, many have struggled to respond effectively to recent events such as Covid-19 and Black Lives Matter.

That’s according to new research, which says 81% of brand representatives surveyed in July said they adapted their marketing due to Covid-19, while 60% found it difficult to display appropriate empathy when doing so.

The research among 250 senior marketing decision makers in the UK was conducted by Sapio on behalf of marketing AI company datasine. 

Over 90% of marketers are trying to be more empathic in their marketing campaigns which shows a genuine understanding of the need to respond to issues and societal events impacting consumers and audiences. However, 75% said they were unable to respond quickly enough to rapidly developing situations such as Covid-19.

Empathy has increased in importance for brands and marketers during 2020. 84% of those surveyed said that the need to respond to events with empathy has increased over the past 6 months. The top three empathy focuses identified in the research for brands right now are:

  1. Covid-19
  2. Black Lives Matter
  3. Mental Health

The two most common barriers stopping brands from responding faster and more effectively to change are; the inability to measure and analyse sentiment; and a lack of knowledge around how to use data to predict the success of future campaigns, both at 38%. To help solve these issues and others, 97% of brands want to adopt technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, to help them use data more effectively for predictive analysis and automated decision making.

Emma Bonar, head of digital, Les Girls Les Boys, said: “Now more than ever it’s vital that we are able to demonstrate that we do empathise with our customers – after all these are issues that really do affect all of us. There’s a need to respond quickly and appropriately to changes in sentiment, which is where AI can help us use data to make the right decisions, and make them fast.”

Chris Loy, CTO, datasine, added: “A brand’s ability to respond rapidly and appropriately to external events affecting its audiences and customers has probably never been tested more than it has in the past six months. Truthfully, it’s becoming critical to their success. Digital marketing demands instantaneous response to the things that are happening in the world. That requires marketing professionals to be able to use data to adapt their creatives, message, visual and textual content on a continual basis in line with changing audience attitudes.

Image by Luisella Planeta Leoni from Pixabay 

Privacy concerns hindering Allo’s chance of messaging success?
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Although reports have suggested that Google’s newly launched messaging service, Allo, is already causing some privacy concerns, the multinational technology company is defiant in ensuring users can safely navigate the app – despite its integration with Google’s new artificial intelligence (AI) assistant, which requires all messages to be sent without end-to-end encryption.

As a result, not only can Google’s Assistant access and read the messages, but Google as a whole can too; as well as national security organisations. With its developers announcing back in May that Allo would include revolutionary message retention policies unheard of among other messaging apps such as iMessage and WhatsApp, industry insiders have found that all messages are linked directly to an account and stored indefinitely – failing to keep its promise of ‘transiently’ storing chat logs and making sure all conversations are not permanently placed on Google’s servers.

A Google spokesperson said in a statement: “We’ve given users transparency and control over their data in Google Allo. And our approach is simple – your chat history is saved for you until you choose to delete it.”

“You can delete single messages or entire conversations in Allo. We also provide the option to chat in Incognito mode, where messages are end-to-end encrypted and you can set a timer to automatically delete messages for your device and the person you’re chatting with’s device at a set time.”