Messaging trends: From omnichannel to conversational experiences

The business-to-consumer landscape is changing. Customers now want faster one-to-one interactions with their favorite brands.

As a result, we’ve seen hyper-personalization, automation, and 24/7 availability take center stage.

We see these industry trends on our platform with substantial increases in cloud contact center interactions, chat apps as key channels for marketing, sales, and support – as well as year-on-year growth in the use of digital channels for customer communication.

We analyzed over 153 billion interactions on our platform that took place in the first half of 2022 compared to the first half of 2021 to see:

Read on to learn about the latest messaging trends in business communication.

We’ve seen the use of rich digital channels skyrocket, with 80% more WhatsApp interactions and 62% more RCS interactions taking place on our platform this year.

Traditional channels, however, still play a significant role in business-to-consumer communication, with 75% more SMS interactions and 91% more email interactions.

New entrants, including Apple Messages for Business, Instagram Direct Messages, and Google’s Business Messages address the demand for instant chat experiences that are natively integrated into the devices and platforms customers already use.

For example, Apple Messages for Business enables iOS users to message their go-to shops or banks, while Google’s Business Messages turns search intents into chat opportunities between consumers and their favorite brands.

With 5G here and 6G on the horizon, as well as more talk about the Metaverse, we expect to see a new world of B2C interactions within the next few years.

These advancements are setting the foundation for a conversational future.

Conversational experiences will become the norm – and the entire customer journey will be a combination of our favorite channels, features, and technologies.

Now is the time for brands to expand on customer support, engagement, and chatbot use cases.

In fact, we’ve seen 221% more contact center interactions on our platform in 2022.

And 99% of support and chatbot interactions took place on WhatsApp.

Adding more ways for your customers to interact with your brand and vice versa will help you build personal, connected experiences across the entire customer journey.

A few ways to expand your customer communication is through:

With this shift in customer communication preferences, we’re experiencing more conversational interactions that have led to industry-wide transformations.

We’ve seen trends such as WhatsApp banking and conversational commerce happen directly on our platform, with 134% more banking and finance interactions and 104% more retail and eCommerce interactions on WhatsApp.

Other rich messaging apps are also being implemented to drastically change customer experience – including the telecommunications industry, with 1062% more RCS interactions and 428% more Messenger interactions within the transportation and logistics industry.

As a global communications provider, we’ve seen different tools, technology, and trends adopted across different regions.

We can expect digital channel adoption to grow in the next few years, with brands continuing to communicate with customers on their favorite channels, including:

Customer engagement and chatbot use cases are also expected to rise alongside the adoption of new robust channels such as RCS and Google’s Business Messages.

Starting with an omnichannel approach isn’t just about growing brand awareness or a robust pipeline of leads. It’s about putting customers at the center of the experience and building your messaging strategies to make it easy for them to do business with you.

Once you know where your customers spend their time, it will be easier to introduce AI capabilities, chatbot automation, personalized campaigns, and digital-physical interactions.

Expanding your messaging capabilities will help you deliver the end-to-end experiences that impact brand loyalty – helping you stay top of mind as the business-to-consumer landscape changes.