Timezone: Transforming offline entertainment with digital customer engagement

When was the last time you rushed to a shopping mall or an entertainment center, noticing a bright, flashy discount on a billboard? For most people, the answer is not very recently. The immediate influence of traditional advertising is fading, and digital communication is becoming the biggest driver for conversion. That’s why most offline brands are embracing digitalization to expand their reach, boost sales, and stay connected, just like Timezone.

Timezone is a leading entertainment brand of Singapore, which operates across seven markets in the Asia Pacific, such as Indonesia, India, the Philippines, Vietnam, Australia, and New Zealand.

Although Timezone runs family entertainment centers, where people come and play games and engage in leisure activities, they have been actively leveraging digital communication channels to meet its rising customer expectations.

To learn why digital engagement is important for a brand built around physical experience, and how Infobip is helping them in this process, we joined a conversation with Caroline Leong, Chief Customer Officer of TEEG, the parent company of Timezone.

Challenges impacting customer communication process

Caroline shared with us that although digitalization plays a key role in their customer communication strategy, there are some challenges that they need to address.

Bridging online and offline engagement

Customers expect a seamless online-offline integrated experience, regardless of the channel they interact with. However, often there is a disjoint between online communication and offline experience. For example, if a customer receives any online communication about an ongoing discount online, but on reaching the physical store, the person finds no such offers, it creates a negative experience.

According to Caroline, there should be a perfect sync between online and offline initiatives to provide great experiences for the guests. “We’ve engaged our guests online. But of course, the fulfillment is offline, where they come to the centers, and they have fun. So, I think that the challenge is making sure that engagement is seamless, and it’s the same kind of experience,” says Caroline Leong

Managing customer data

Businesses operating physically often struggle to keep track of the footfall at their centers. Most customers just walk away, and their information is never recorded, due to which brands are unable to reach them for any cross-sell or up-sell opportunities.

For Timezone, it is a similar challenge as they also rely on customer data for future communication. “We’re predominantly an offline experience company, and you can go into our centers and play and have great experience, but if we don’t capture your data, then we can’t engage you anymore,” says Caroline Leong.

Real-time communication drives better customer experiences

We’re in an era where everyone expects instant responses. Thanks to digital communication channels, real-time communication has made life much easier. For brands like Timezone, it helps them to keep their customers informed about any type of discounts or offers they are planning to introduce.

Caroline shared an example of how digital channels are helping them drive real-time engagement. “Our markets often have flash deals, so we use the messaging channels, let’s say Viber in the Philippines, to tell our guests that there’s a flash deal taking place on Friday only between 12 and 2 p.m. And we would send reminders through these messaging apps,” says Caroline.

She further explained that customers are always on their phones, checking their messaging apps frequently, so communication sent through messaging will get a faster response than through traditional channels such as email.

That’s why the company has been using messaging apps such as WhatsApp, Viber, and Zalo, powered by Infobip, to establish real-time engagement with their guests.
Using these apps, Timezone sends loyalty offers, membership sign-ups, and time-sensitive offers to encourage customers to make repeated visits

Localization is the key to winning in multiple markets

APAC is a very diverse market, where each region has its own preferences and cultural norms, so localization is a must-have strategy for businesses if they operate in multiple countries. As Timezone is active in seven markets in the APAC region, they take localization very seriously.

Caroline mentions, “Let’s say in the Philippines, the words that I use are not going to be fully in English. And different things drive them; for example, flash sales, but in many markets, such as Australia and New Zealand, there is no sense of urgency for promotions or discounts. They might not jump at the chance or react so fast to these kinds of flash sales.”

What is next: Creating intelligent communication with AI

AI adoption is gaining traction in the APAC region, with many businesses operating across multiple sectors eager to implement it in their processes. According to an IDC report, Asia-Pacific businesses will spend more than US$30 billion on AI-related infrastructure, platforms, software, and services to support their ability to compete on highly personalized customer experiences.

Being a forward-thinking brand, Timezone sees AI as a technology, which they will surely want to leverage to analyze customer behavior and drive better engagement.

“I’m looking forward to how we can optimize or take advantage of predictive behavior, which AI can do way more accurately than guessing.”, says Caroline. She is quite
confident that AI will play a key role in helping them anticipate how customers are going to react to certain types of communications. This will not only help them in tailoring their messages but also drive customers to perform their desired action.

According to Caroline, Infobip’s AI capabilities support this vision of Timezone, and they are looking forward to working together for smooth AI implementation.”

Infobip x Timezone: A partnership growing stronger

True partnership matures over time, and that’s how our relationship with Timezone is developing. It has been five years since we have consistently maintained our record of a reliable technology provider by enabling them to leverage the traditional SMS channel as well as digital apps such as WhatsApp, Viber, and Zalo.

“We’ve been working with Infobip for about five years, and mostly through messaging apps, we’re communicating with our guests. And it’s been a good partnership because it’s been five years and we continue,” says Caroline.

Moving forward, Timezone is optimistic that Infobip will play a key role in enhancing their customer communication process by helping them adopt new technologies.