How Singtel leverages WhatsApp Business API to drive customer experience 3.0
89% of consumers prefer to text businesses. Nope, not emails and not calls. More than 90% of text messages are opened, while less than 10% of emails are opened. Modern consumers now dislike calls in general, and doing so potentially causes negative reactions towards your brand.
Based on a recent study, this trend is consistent across various retail industries in many situations:
Booking appointments via WhatsApp or Messaging
Appointment reminders in text messaging form
Text messages on accounts status, billing, or payment updates
Quick customer support via WhatsApp or other messaging channels
More trust with targeted product offers, updates via WhatsApp instead of traditional ads
Two-thirds (66%) of Singaporean consumers only buy from brands that make them feel they understand their preferences, such as communicating with them through their favorite channels or providing tailored deals.
In Singapore, chat commerce is being adopted at a fast pace by businesses of all sizes. One fine example would be Singtel. Let’s see how this industry leader became a pioneer in WhatsApp Business API.
Read more: Social commerce trends in Malaysia
Singtel’s WhatsApp business case study
1. Singtel automated its workflow by using WhatsApp business messaging & chatbot
The automated workflow allows customers to access a variety of Singtel’s services available to their customers. They could easily activate or deactivate services, check account status or balances, payments put in requests, or even get product recommendations & offers.
Traditional hotlines are infamous for their long waiting times. Now, with their WhatsApp business solution, it eliminates any waiting time customers have when waiting for a customer service officer via a traditional hotline.
If the chatbot is unable to fulfill the customer’s request, they can speak to a customer service officer, which leads us to the next useful feature of using a WhatsApp business solution.
2. Multi-users, multi-agents, multi-logins for Singtel’s WhatsApp business
Singtel’s WhatsApp business solution means their WhatsApp account can now have multiple users. It does not just allow simultaneous logins from different devices but also enables multiple staff members to assign, collaborate, and reply to customers easily. This handy feature allows customer service officers to provide their support via text messaging truly as a team, anytime, anywhere. So the good things are:
Handling multiple cases at once
Assigning the best product/technical specialists according to their expertise
3. Enhanced customer experience 3.0
From a customer’s point of view, waiting for a text response is significantly more palatable than waiting for a customer service officer to answer a call. While a call completely cuts off once the line is disconnected, a WhatsApp message does not disappear. Customer service officers can even reply after a few minutes – without infuriating the customer.
A learning lesson for other customer-centric businesses in Singapore
Credit: Singtel website
Singtel’s adoption of WhatsApp Business API has redefined the future of the client-facing roles - it’s all about chat commerce. A vital tool for business especially:
Retailers
E-commerce
Businesses with high volumes of customers inquiries
Businesses with multiple customer service agents
Enhancing customer experiences is key to driving business growth. Ultimately, it leads to word-of-mouth marketing. One poor customer experience tends to get shared quickly amongst his/her friends. Investing in a reliable & effective WhatsApp business solution, it will bring about enhanced customer experiences, growth, and staff productivity.
Using SleekFlow has reduced our “drop-offs”, improved the response time, and solved niggling issues with CRM integration.
Jovan Lin
AVP Marketing & Corporate Communications at PSB Academy
Read the success story of PSB Academy with their own social CRM tactics.
The very first step of implementing the social commerce strategy
In 2022, businesses should consider owning their social customer relationship system. Modern WhatsApp business & messaging solutions are easy to start, configure and even integrate into your website. The majority of solutions do not even require the intervention of your software developers. Costs are also typically reasonable (estimated SGD$ 100 – 500 / month) considering the significant benefits one can enjoy in their business growth, operations, and customer experiences.
What does WhatsApp Business API pricing model for businesses in Singapore look like? Check out our pricing guide for details.
How to choose a social CRM platform
1. Able to integrate with your existing tools or platform
Effectiveness is all about streamlining the workflow. Your social CRM platform should be able to integrate smoothly with your existing platforms so that no extra effort is required to link up everything. For instance, SleekFlow is able to integrate with 1000+ tools across advertising, e-commerce, etc. Marketing automation such as abandoned cart reminders and WhatsApp messages can be easily set up.
2. Friendly interface and technical support
When purchasing new software for your company, you need to consider how well your teammates adapt to the new system and what the transition process should be. Therefore, the follow-up support, be it tutorial videos or the local team support from the software company, is important. Say if you are in Singapore, of course, you would love to have a local support team who can answer your questions in your language within local time working hours.
See SleekFlow’s office in Singapore.
3. Provide ways to justify the ROI
Some social CRM platforms will have analytic functions. In SleekFlow, we provide an analytic function. Team members or management can easily check all the statistics, such as support response time. The time saved could be one metric for your ROI.
4. Check their customers’ stories
Studying their testimonials is one of the most effective ways to evaluate if the solution is suitable for your business. Read their use cases and imagine how the solution will help your company or industry.
I would describe SleekFlow as the ‘virtual concierge’ because it can help me organize all the data and conversations. The backend analysis is of the essence. For instance, we can see clearly on the dashboard about the timing our customers message us, i.e. the business peak hours, the number of customers who have not contacted us for a long time, the monthly number of new leads, etc., all these data are crucial for running and improving our business.
Cheukying Wong
Founder, Weirdo Beaty
SleekFlow, as a WhatsApp Business Solution Provider (BSP), offers a complete solution allowing you to sell and support across your messaging channels easily. Not only does it support WhatsApp Business automation workflows, multi-users, and agents, but it also supports direct messaging on Instagram, Facebook, Line, WeChat, etc. We have just launched our native integration with Shopify to complete the chat commerce ecosystem with the leading marketplace. What’s the best part? It’s FREE to start!
SleekFlow localized experts are now in Singapore. Want to know more?
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