Social messaging apps are now granting businesses the power to remain competitive. Without chats, businesses are bound to lose an enormous amount of exposure. Other than cultivating customer loyalty in the long run, chatting with customers help businesses build real connections and drive sales by transforming conversations into conversions.
Many use chats on a daily basis; in fact, 3.09 billion smartphone owners access messaging apps for communication. As people grow fond of chatting online, they use it not just with families and friends but also with businesses. This is proven when 51% of mobile messaging app users claimed that they prefer contacting brands via mobile messages, as shown in a study by Kenshoo.
All this explains the rising popularity of messaging platforms such as Respond.io, where businesses unify customer communications to ease work operations. Nevertheless, to maximise revenue and minimise expenses, business owners must always explore better options available on the market. If you still don’t know where to start, here’s a Respond.io alternative as your starting point!
Respond.io vs SleekFlow: what we offer
Respond.io and SleekFlow have a significant number of similarities in terms of the services and features provided. Although Respond.io looks cheaper at first glance, the features are actually limited.
As opposed to Respond.io, SleekFlow offers an omnichannel platform with comprehensive features, a sufficient number of contacts, flexible add-ons, and more to accelerate sales, boost conversions, and reinforce customer support with seamless workflows.
So, which should you really choose? Read on to find out.
Free onboarding support for Official WhatsApp Business API
As of May 2020, WhatsApp is found to be the favourite messaging channel for 98.7% of Malaysians. Similarly, 87.1% of Singapore's social media population used WhatsApp, making it the second most popular social platform right after YouTube. The undying popularity of WhatsApp messages sent to businesses just continues to grow each day.
There are now 30.25 million social media users in Malaysia and 5.33 million in Singapore. - Datareportal
This further emphasises the significance of WhatsApp Business API. SleekFlow has foreseen the need to scale businesses and push sales through WhatsApp, providing clear step-by-step guides, documentation, a help centre, videos, and even consultation for the whole application process.
For customers of SleekFlow, special pricing along with free onboarding support are also offered. This means that SleekFlow will guide you through the tedious application process of the WhatsApp Business API via 360dialog, one of the Business Solution Providers (BSP) officially assigned by WhatsApp.
Find out why businesses should integrate WhatsApp Business API here.
Get FREE onboarding support with WhatsApp API application by signing up on SleekFlow.
Want to apply for it on your own instead? No problem. Check out our guide for applying WhatsApp Business API.
Assigning conversations to multiple users instead of one
Contacts can be assigned to only one agent on Respond.io. On the other hand, SleekFlow users are able to have up to 5 collaborators aside from the agent owning the chat, ensuring that each customer receives necessary assistance and accurate information as soon as possible as relevant departments or employees can attend to enquiries whenever needed.
Besides that, SleekFlow has incorporated handy little details such as displaying agent names in chats for the ease of customers, scheduling messages right in the reply section, setting your online status to ‘active’ and more.
SleekFlow users can send notes that are only available to their teammates into the chatbox to avoid missing out on important details.
Extra customer contacts: the more, the better
Having the number of customer contacts restricted to 100 is common for the free plans, but SleekFlow has pushed open doors to assist businesses by allowing 5,000 and 20,000 customer contacts for pro and premium users. As for Respond.io, they supply 1,000 and 3,000 contact slots for the equivalent tiers.
Depending on the size of your business, choosing the appropriate plan is critical to optimising the budget for a higher ROI. If your company has a larger client base, you should definitely go for a premium solution with extra contacts for highly efficient operations.
More valuable, flexible automation and workflows
As shown on Respond.io’s website, the number of automated rules for their Team plan and the Business plan is 5 and 20 workflows, respectively. As opposed to that, automated rules accessible on SleekFlow are 10 for pro plans and unlimited for premium plans.
Even a free-forever startup plan on SleekFlow has 5 automation rules.
Find out how businesses like Pizza Hut Malaysia and RinggitPlus use WhatsApp Chatbots for a seamless workflow.
Bonus: free comment auto reply feature on Facebook and Instagram
Undoubtedly, social media engagement is important when it comes to selling through social media. However, most businesses find it difficult to allocate time to manage these accounts. With the decreasing consumers' patience, they often expect brands to reply to their comments or messages almost immediately.
With SleekFlow's auto reply for comments and messages on Facebook and Instagram, brands no longer have to worry about that. Each customer will feel acknowledged, and the posts will gain a higher reach as the activity helps with the social media algorithm.
Sign up for free on SleekFlow to start automating your comment replies and messages on Facebook and Instagram now.
Detailed, comprehensive analytics for sales and conversions
On SleekFlow, the analytics dashboard is super organised and demonstrative as it displays the overall sales performance over time. This is a plus point as it is highly constructive for assessing marketing strategies, the efficacy of current workflows, and even the productivity of each salesperson.
On Respond.io, the analytics dashboard is rather limited. Their users can only review the activities of their agents in terms of replying to customers and sending out messages, but most of their reports are components related to the sources, opening, and closing of messages.
SleekFlow analytics contains all of those elements, accompanied by other additional metrics such as delivery rate, bounce rate, read rate, and reply rate for the campaigns created. You can even compare two segments at a time!
Monitor the results of your marketing campaigns to further improve them with better retargeting each time.
Since the new payment link feature now allows customers to pay right in the chat, businesses can track each deal closed on SleekFlow. You can also easily assess each team's performance with this dedicated analytics dashboard.
More outstanding integrations to accelerate sales
Available social media channels on both Respond.io and SleekFlow include the official WhatsApp Business API, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, WeChat, Telegram, LINE, and Viber.
Other integrations offered by Respond.io include Dialogflow, Zapier, and Google Sheets. They also provide the installation of a live chat widget for websites created on WordPress, Shopify, Wix, and Squarespace, which is also conveniently accessible for free on SleekFlow.
The SleekFlow Live Chat even has additional functions such as:
a variety of social media or messaging channels for customers to choose from (you won't lose the conversation even after they leave your website!)
real-time tracking to see what page your customers are browsing on your website
customizable form for lead generation
On top of that, SleekFlow offers extra advantages:
Native Shopify integration
Draft Shopify orders in chat, apply multiple discounts and close deals right in the chat with SleekFlow's native Shopify integration. With the mobile app on your phone, you can sell no matter where you are. As e-commerce store owners, you can also view a wide variety of customer information in their profile right next to the chat, including order history, last ordered item, payment status, and more, apart from the existing personal data such as name, email, phone number, birthday, and so forth. After integrating your Shopify store, sending out personalised abandoned cart reminders will also be as easy as just a few clicks.
Facebook Lead Ads
Integrate your Facebook Lead Ads for free and take control of your highly qualified leads and customer data for effective targeting campaigns.
Salesforce
Contacts, leads and opportunities from Salesforce can be synced on SleekFlow so that the customer journey is also clearly displayed right next to the chat box. With the customers' purchase intent available on each of their profiles, the team can manage their enquiries or messages according to different priority levels as labelled.
Jump to this section: the powerful Salesforce integration on SleekFlow
HubSpot (coming soon in 2023)
Similar to the Salesforce integration, SleekFlow users can now sync HubSpot contacts to unify customer data. In 2023, SleekFlow will also roll out more HubSpot features, such as chat history backup and automated WhatsApp messages for HubSpot workflows.
SleekFlow also offers major integrations, including Zapier (which includes Google Sheets), Twilio, and more to come.
Data security: don't let employees run away with your customers!
Enterprises that have integrated SleekFlow now own the privilege of having contact information masking. In this case, they don’t have to worry about salespersons leaving the company along with the customer contact and bringing them to their competitors. It also guarantees more privacy and safety for its customers as they promote its products and services to the general public.
Pricing: quality over price is always the sustainable choice
At first glance, you'll be able to see that the premium plan on Respond.io is slightly cheaper. However, if you dive deeper into the evaluation of features and try exploring our services, you will realise that SleekFlow actually offers additional detailed functions and stronger customer support. Companies that opt for SleekFlow can even choose to add on user logins as the size of the business grows over time.
Flexible add-on features customised for your needs
Moreover, SleekFlow has many add-ons for you to choose from according to your business needs. This means that you do not have to upgrade the entire plan but instead get the specific functions you need to better manage your budget planning.
Think about it. For businesses and enterprises to thrive, it is always better to get a long-lasting solution that is worth every cent to present consistently satisfying services to customers. Make success-worthy decisions. Don't get carried away by what seems to be cheap. Your business deserves the premium option with better quality.
Why SleekFlow?
As shown clearly in the comparison above, SleekFlow offers an extensive range of comprehensive features that are practical and highly beneficial for accelerating sales, especially for enterprises and retail businesses.
Known for excellent customer support, SleekFlow users will never have to worry about not having their questions or issues solved. English, Chinese, and Malay-speaking representatives are trained to assist you through the simple learning process and complete the tedious steps of the WhatsApp Business API application.
Let us know what you need, and our localised experts are here to help!
How to use SleekFlow for your business in Malaysia or Singapore
Enterprises such as ZENXIN Organic and PSB Academy have incorporated SleekFlow for their sales-boosting strategies. From retail and e-commerce to beauty salons and more, you can customise your marketing and sales strategy with SleekFlow. Out of the library of advanced features, here are a few main functions that might be useful for businesses in Malaysia or Singapore.
A centralised platform to facilitate communication
Hundreds of thousands of customer enquiries can be settled with fewer team members on SleekFlow’s all-in-one platform. In the present world, social media users often chat on multiple social media apps at the same time. On SleekFlow, businesses can keep up with the trend and attend to messages coming in from WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, Telegram, and more all at the same time, with multiple logins for different users.
Salesforce integration to shorten the sales cycle with large clients
As mentioned earlier in this article, SleekFlow provides powerful Salesforce integration for customers to consolidate all customer data and track the buyers' journey across online and offline channels while shortening the sales cycle with efficient customer segmentation.
Hot leads and larger clients can be prioritised, and the various purchasing stage can be shown right next to the customer chat box for quick, accurate support.
Also, as you complete the 2-way sync of Salesforce contacts, leads and opportunities on SleekFlow, you can customise the settings by editing the specific fields when mapping the contacts between SleekFlow and Salesforce.
Explore how the Salesforce integration on SleekFlow works.
Personalised broadcast messages
Almost all Malaysians and Singaporeans have WhatsApp on their phones. Businesses can fully utilise the WhatsApp Business API to send out personalised broadcast messages to connect deeply with customers. Through these meaningful interactions, customers are more likely to trust your brand and contribute higher spending in their purchases. It’s just like how we’re more likely to buy products from a friend!
I would recommend SleekFlow to companies which produce fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) as they face a lot of customers every day. It also helps educational apps to communicate with kids and parents.
Tai Seng Yee
Executive Director, ZENXIN
See how ZENXIN Organic achieved higher read rates of above 70%, as opposed to the usual 12-15% observed with traditional e-mail campaigns with SleekFlow.
Get paid instantly in chat (coming soon in Nov 2022)
No news of WhatsApp pay arriving in Malaysia? Do it on SleekFlow.
By integrating with Stripe, a top-notch payment provider with solid security, SleekFlow bridges business owners to the world of social commerce. Upon solving the customer enquiries, your team can generate a payment link directly to get paid in the chat instantly. With SleekFlow, the complete, frictionless shopping experience can be achieved in the chat on any messaging channel your customers prefer.
Unified CRM to convert prospects with accelerated speed to lead
Consumers are now expecting an almost immediate response when they contact a business. If the response time is slow, they are very likely to give up altogether or make purchases from your competitors instead. Automated responses are surely useful to reduce the loss of leads and drive conversion as customers are provided with the answers at once. And as we all know, happy customers share their experiences with others. That’s free marketing!
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
Furthermore, CRM integrations allow businesses to properly categorise customers into different categories and automatically assign them to the most appropriate person in charge. With a structured and detailed customer database, even retargeting marketing campaigns can generate much more impressive results.
Read the success story of PSB Academy, one of Singapore's leading private education institutions.
Switch to SleekFlow without losing your WhatsApp Business API number
Many customers have tried other platforms similar to SleekFlow without getting the desired results. They have then transferred to SleekFlow with the assistance of our professional team. Be rest assured, as you will not have to lose the existing WhatsApp Business API number. Chat history and customer contacts can be imported as well.
Visit SleekFlow’s YouTube channel or blog posts for more detailed guides.
Get started with SleekFlow today to generate more sales
We understand that businesses need to weigh the pros and cons of every decision made. It is only reasonable to have doubts before starting something new. This is why SleekFlow has a free trial version with no expiration for businesses to explore what’s right for them.
*Note: Respond.io only has a 14-day free trial
From the campaign analytics included, marketers will also be able to see the results generated from using SleekFlow. Experience the convenience and find the best solution for your business.
SleekFlow guarantees a stronger commitment to customers. Features with premium quality will definitely bring forth highly promising results, maximise revenue and increase sales and conversion, no matter for online or brick-to-mortar stores.
Success begins with trusting the right people. Embark on your journey with SleekFlow today.
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