Learn why conversational commerce matters more than ever this Black Friday and Cyber Week – and how to get it right.
Black Friday and Cyber Week are nearly here, and so is another opportunity to ramp up your customer communications and turn them into conversions.
In 2022, consumers spent more than $9 billion online on Black Friday, with mobile devices making up 76% of all Cyber Week ecommerce traffic. So, to cut through the noise and make the most of this once-per-year opportunity, you need to be present and ready to deliver fast, simple, consistent, and convenient experiences through your customers’ channels of choice.
Practically, that means delivering personalized interactions that empower, inform, and connect your customers to the best deals through their mobile devices. And that’s where messaging becomes an especially effective tool.
In this blog, we’ll explore why conversational commerce matters more than ever – and how it can help you drive more sales this Black Friday and Cyber Week.
Understanding the value of conversational commerce
As more Black Friday shoppers search ahead of and around Black Friday for winning deals and promotions, it’s essential that your brand is present wherever and whenever they are.
That’s why messaging and conversational commerce are so valuable at this time of year. Unlike dedicated retail apps – which 80% of customer service organizations will likely abandon by 2025 – they let you interact with customers where they already are. Be that SMS, WhatsApp, Google Business Messages, or even trusty old email.
75% of consumers prefer to engage with brands using messaging, and it’s an opportunity that leading brands already seem to know well. According to research by Salesforce, chatbot messages globally increased 57% on Black Friday and 53% on Cyber Monday in 2022 compared to the previous year.
And when you look at the benefits, it makes perfect sense. When your conversational commerce efforts are backed up by a single, shared view of the customer journey, messages can become much more than just messages. They can enable you to go directly to your customers with:
- Timely offers, promotions, and recommendations
- Personalized two-way interactions across all channels
- Flexible checkout services like Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL)
- Logistics updates as orders move through the supply chain
- Intelligent self-service tools with seamless escalation options
But, that doesn’t happen by default. To do it, you’ll need an enterprise-grade Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS) solution for orchestrating meaningful communications at scale.
How to identify the right CPaaS platform for Black Friday success
First and foremost, any CPaaS platform you adopt needs to connect to all relevant business systems, so that it can build up a clear view of customer journeys, histories, and preferences. Then, it must also be integrated with the channels your customers use.
If they’re equipped with the right capabilities and integrations, CPaaS platforms can help you deliver simple, consistent, convenient, and rapid customer interactions that span multiple channels.
But not all CPaaS solutions are built the same. And with Black Friday and Cyber Week just around the corner, you need peace of mind that yours has the speed, resilience, and flexibility to handle huge volumes of multimedia two-way messaging.
Stability and service continuity are paramount. A moment of downtime or disruption can lose you valuable sales and even formally loyal customers, with 64% of respondents to our study saying they will stop buying from a brand altogether following a negative CX.
Your Black Friday CPaaS success checklist
For a truly effective CPaaS strategy this holiday, you need a partner that can provide:
1. The latest channel and system integrations
A diverse API portfolio to help connect you to the latest communication channels and a library of pre-built integrations for popular business systems like Salesforce, Freshdesk, Shopify, Genesys, and Oracle.
2. Transparent customer management
Let customers consent when, where and how they want to connect with your brand and use this insight to tailor customer journeys that comply with industry regulations.
3. Easy-to-use automation tools
Democratize CPaaS for non-technical users with simple drag-and-drop visual tools so anyone can build and automate effective CX journeys.
4. Centralized visibility and analytics
Tap into a single, user-friendly dashboard for interactive reports, goal tracking, and node-level analytics to help everyone optimize their customer interactions.
5. Enterprise-grade security
Ensure customer data is always protected from emerging threats and backed up in the cloud for resilient disaster recovery.
Get conversational this Black Friday and Cyber Week
With Cisco as your CPaaS partner and Webex Connect as your solution, we can help you deliver rich conversational experiences that drive sales, nurture customer loyalty, and achieve an ROI of 330%.
To learn more about next-generation CPaaS and how to integrate your existing business systems with our enterprise-grade platform, please get in touch or schedule a demo.
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