Thai businesses are experiencing newfound uncertainty due to the nation’s recent third wave, searching for ways to stay resilient while maintaining their connection with consumers. With many again choosing to stay safe at home, local companies are looking online to maintain their growth.
One of the more powerful ways businesses are connecting with customers is through digital discovery and conversational commerce trends found on platforms like Messenger from Facebook. Thailand is one of the global leaders of conversational commerce, with a recent Boston Consulting Group study finding 68% of respondents prefer messaging via social media when contacting businesses, while 64% stating they increased their chat-based shopping frequency over the last year.
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Conversations are crucial to every step of the customer journey; with the increasing shift to online, these personalized moments are now even more integral to business success, with 7 out of 10 Thais saying they are more likely to purchase from a company that they can contact via messaging applications.
The popularity of digital messaging is driven by its ease of creating personal connections between customers and business, as well as building trust – with many consumers believing it provides a more personal touch than calling.
With a global commitment to keeping businesses resilient, Messenger continues to innovate its platform, with an extensive and scalable feature suite available out of the box, to support local SMBs and enterprises during this challenging time.
The recent Facebook-commissioned Emerging Trends Research survey by Ipsos identified that convenience is one of the key drivers of purchase habits in Thailand, meaning that businesses must have seamless customer journeys that are personal, flexible and deepen brand loyalty. Therefore, Messenger provides SMBs and enterprises support tools to create frictionless customer journeys, including rapid responses, chatbots, and saved replies.
Here are some of the ways Thai businesses can use Messenger’s features to find success:
Respond to customers quickly and conveniently using Business Inbox
Now more than ever, customers are expecting the highest level of service when communicating with businesses online. According to a Hubspot survey, 90% of customers rate an immediate response as important or very important when they have a marketing or sales question. Messenger’s Business Inbox makes it easy for local entrepreneurs to respond quickly – with enabled Business Suite notifications giving businesses instant reminders to get back to customers within a certain timeframe – and provides Admins a single location to manage both their personal and business accounts.
Leverage automated responses and saved replies for consistent communications
With businesses increasingly shifting online, it is crucial they continue to provide the same personal support to their customer base. While businesses aim to respond directly to each customer query, this can become a resource heavy endeavor. Messenger allows businesses to reduce this time and effort by allowing users to set up customized automated responses – whether greetings, away messages, answers to up to five frequently asked questions – as well as saved reply templates to respond in a quick and more consistent manner.
Engage with even more customers using Messenger’s Chat Plugin
Due to COVID, businesses everywhere have needed to adapt, and for many, that means increasing their online presence. Chat Plugin brings the Messenger experience straight to the business’ website, opening a new messaging channel for customers to easily inquire about products, services and more, without leaving the site or needing to log into their Facebook account. Businesses can offer real-time personal assistance with the Chat Plugin on their website and easily re-engage customers through Messenger, which effectively helps increase sales and build lasting relationships.
Build brand loyalty using Notes and Interaction History
Personalizing services and responses is an effective way to engage with customers and build brand loyalty. On Messenger, users can conveniently revisit past interactions and add notes to previous conversations with customers to recall important information or preferences, meaning businesses can quickly tailor their next communications to drive sales. This is particularly useful when your business is managed by several admins as they can follow up with the customer more quickly through Notes and history log.
Organize better with Messenger labels
After a while, successful businesses are certain to receive a substantial number of daily messages. To prioritize responses and help businesses quickly find the right conversations, SMBs and enterprises can add labels to their unified inbox that manage messages according to category, topic or importance.
Convert leads via Facebook Pay
Recent studies clearly illustrate that business success and lead conversion comes from providing a friction-free customer journey. Facebook Pay on Messenger provides a seamless, secure way to pay on the apps you already use and make it easier for sellers and buyers to proceed with no friction.
Customers can choose to pay using credit/debit cards or bank transfer via mobile banking applications, meaning businesses can conveniently convert messaging leads to direct sales through a single conversation. In addition, businesses can make use of the “Mark as Paid” and “Mark as Shipped” features to keep transactions smooth for their customers and provide transparency at each stage of their order.
