A few months ago, I wrote about our first global Business Messaging event, Conversations, which brought together our business, partner and developer communities. We shared vital product announcements and the investments we’re making to help businesses use messaging to start conversations with customers, achieve scale, and deliver a seamless experience. You can read a useful recap here.

We continue to see Business Messaging gain momentum across industries, especially in the Asia Pacific. This is why I’m excited to share the results of a recent study by Meta and Boston Consulting Group (BCG), which surveyed 6,500 respondents across Australia, Indonesia, Korea, the Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.

According to the study, over 40 per cent of people surveyed said they were messaging with a business more frequently than compared in the pre-pandemic period, with one in three consumers chatting with businesses at least once a week. The trend was similar across all age groups, especially among Millennials and Gen Zs, who are messaging businesses up to eight times every month.

Changing trends

The study, Business Messaging: The Quiet Channel Revolution Across Tech, packs a lot of insights, but here are the ones that stand out to me.

Messaging is an integral communication channel for businesses and consumers:

90 per cent of businesses recognise that messaging apps are essential for success
80 per cent of consumers plan to continue using messaging to interact with businesses

Financial Services (FinServ) is emerging as a high-potential vertical for Business Messaging:

Across APAC, consumers said it was vital for them to message a business before they signed up for a financial product

Use cases for Business Messaging continue to expand across industries such as CPG, retail, FinServ and e-commerce, ranging from basic enquiry, lead generation, one-to-one consultation, customisation, gaining feedback, re-marketing and signals collection:

More than half of businesses say that they use Business Messaging for after-sales services
61 per cent of retail and e-commerce businesses use it to process pre-sales enquiries
An average of 50 per cent of businesses said they use messaging to process orders and transactions

The power of business messaging

So what should a business do if they want to become more conversational? Here is a clear pathway we’ve defined to help businesses start, scale and delight customers with business messaging:

Start

Define clear objectives for messaging. Evaluate the potential of messaging throughout the whole customer journey and see where it can help solve unique pain points in each phase depending on business context and challenges.

Also Read: How small businesses can boost brand visibility via videos and messaging

Take the case of Philippine-based courier company LBC express, they saw an opportunity to automate common queries for customer service while providing live service for more complex queries. By using proactive package notifications on Messenger, they received 4.5x more loyalty programme sign-ups compared to traditional methods.

Scale

Adopt third-party messaging technology solutions and providers to scale messaging capabilities rapidly. Meta has a vast ecosystem of Meta Business Partners specialised in messaging solutions.

Our messaging partners are expert developers who build messaging experiences at scale. They can help solve specific challenges, from building a chatbot through messaging automation to handling payment and logistics. They provide simple and affordable solutions to help a business manage a high volume of conversations and personalise the experience at the same time for each customer. You can find a complete list of our partners here.

Delight

Delight customers with a seamless experience. Customers want to hear from businesses when the information is timely, personal, and relevant.

era-won, a Thai menswear brand, had customer queries around the clock and found they could not respond to customers in real-time. The brand decided to try an automated Messenger solution that could respond to messages and also update customers about tracking numbers and order delivery status.

To achieve scale, they worked with Meta Business Partner Zwiz.ai to set up a Messenger-powered digital assistant to help manage a large volume of customer queries. They saw an 8x return on ad spend, which they attribute to delighting customers with a smooth shopping experience.

The future looks bright

The conversational future is here, and businesses need to start now. Certain verticals such as financial services, beauty, apparel and automotive should definitely explore how to incorporate business messaging in their marketing strategy, given the nature of their customers’ path to purchase.

To learn about the report and unlock the power of business messaging, you can find more information here.

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