MANILA, Philippines – Metrobank, the second-largest private universal bank in the Philippines, has tapped Infobip, a global cloud communications platform, to deploy Viber rich business messaging as part of its focus to transform its operations and enhance its customer communication strategy by tapping a trusted and secure digital messaging platform.
Through Infobip’s plug-and-play implementation, Metrobank was able to seamlessly integrate Viber business messages into its existing processes and with minimum additional work. Being a part of rich business messaging solutions on the app, Viber business messages allow brands to send personal 1-2-1 messages to their existing client base who gave consent to receive brand notifications. After only two days of set-up and a week of testing, Metrobank was able to create a unique customer experience by sending rich content such as images and videos in promotional Viber business messages with special offers to millions of Filipinos. With rich messaging on Viber for Business, Metrobank has since been able to achieve up to 50% cost reduction on what otherwise would have required multiple SMS messages to convey its latest offerings.
“Infobip provided a solution that enabled us to quickly start benefiting from using Viber rich business messaging for sending marketing messages, using both a portal and an integration with our customer relationship management (CRM) system. The integration with Salesforce was extremely easy to set up and with no disruption to our business processes, and no requirement to involve technical resources from other departments. We have been very satisfied with the entire process and appreciate the ease of working with a partner with a local office in the Philippines,” said Ramon Martin Rodriguez, Performance Marketing Head, Metrobank.
The conversational marketing future in banking
Infobip notes how customers continue to evolve with technology. While SMS remains a fundamental component of many companies’ omnichannel strategies, Infobip’s Messaging Trends 2023 report finds a notable rise in messages sent through messaging apps like Rakuten Viber, highlighting the increasing adoption of enriched channels facilitating conversational interactions. 2023 Philippine statistics from Rakuten Viber also show a 52% year-over-year increase in business messages delivered on its platform and an impressive 377% increase in conversational business messages exchanged between users and brands (around-sales support, collecting customer feedback, and more).
“The current business landscape, including that of the banking industry, has entered the era of conversational everything – whether for marketing, support, or sales. Customers across the globe want a conversation with a brand on the channels they already use. These conversations are getting richer, more convenient, and more personalized,” explains Cecile Tizon, Director for Sales in APAC, Infobip.
With Metrobank, Tizon adds that conversational marketing uses a combination of marketing and promotional campaigns to interact with customers on their favorite channel, to inform, educate and re-engage based on previous interactions. By providing customers with information in a format and style that appeals the most to them, Metrobank is able to offer its customers a more efficient and rewarding banking experience.
“Today, chats are humanity’s preferred medium for conversation,” says Noa Bar Shay, Senior Director, Partnerships at Rakuten Viber. “With Filipinos spending almost four hours on social media and messaging apps on average daily, these channels have become primary places for brands to reach and engage with their customers. With solutions such as Viber’s rich business messaging, businesses can connect with these audiences, build targeted marketing campaigns, and create conversational experiences.”
Partnering with Infobip to deploy promotional Viber business messages allowed Metrobank to achieve more with its communications budget and deliver tangible value for the bank. It is now looking to further expand the partnership with Infobip to include the deployment of Rakuten Viber’s conversational business messages, allowing two-way messaging between brand and a user, to drive further efficiencies and improve the customer experience for its clients nationwide.
For more information, see: https://tinyurl.com/infobipmetrobank.
About Infobip
Infobip is a global cloud communications platform that enables businesses to build connected experiences across all stages of the customer journey. Accessed through a single platform, Infobip’s omnichannel engagement, identity, user authentication and contact centre solutions help businesses and partners overcome the complexity of consumer communications to grow business and increase loyalty. It offers natively built technology with the capacity to reach over seven billion mobile devices and ‘things’ in 6 continents connected to over 9,700+ connections of which 800+ are direct operator connections. Infobip was established in 2006 and is led by its co-founders, CEO Silvio Kutić, Roberto Kutić and Izabel Jelenić.
Recent award wins include:
- Infobip named a Leader in the Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS) 2024 for the second year running (June 2024)
- Infobip named to Fast Company’s Annual List of the World’s Most Innovative Companies (March 2024)
- Infobip named a leader in the CPaaS Leaderboard, Juniper Research (March 2024)
- Infobip ranked as number one Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS) provider, in the inaugural MetriRank CPaaS Report from Metrigy (Dec 2023)
- Infobip named a leader in the CCaaS Leaderboard, Juniper Research (Dec 2023)
- Omdia Ranks Infobip as Leader for the second year running in its CPaaS Universe Report (Nov 2023)
- Infobip named a Leader in the Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS) 2023 (Sept 2023)
- Infobip named a leader in the Juniper Customer Data Platform Leaderboard Report (July 2023)
- Infobip named a Leader in the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Communications Platform-as-a-Service (CPaaS) 2023 Vendor Assessment (May 2023)
About Rakuten Viber
Rakuten Viber connects people. No matter who they are or where they are from. The global user base has access to a range of features like one-on-one chats, video calls, group messaging, and updates and discussions with their favorite brands and celebrities. Rakuten Viber ensures users have a secure and free environment to share their emotions. Rakuten Viber is part of Rakuten Group, Inc., a world leader in e-commerce and financial services.
For businesses, Rakuten Viber offers rich business messaging solutions (business messages, chatbots), advertising solutions (display ads, branded stickers and lenses), and business calling solutions. All these tools help businesses to reach their customers at each stage of the customer journey.
All private, group chats and private calls on Viber are protected by built-in end-to-end encryption, and Viber Business Messages have encryption in transit, so users and brands can be sure that their conversations are always secure.