Many industry experts have deemed 2016 as the year of conversational commerce (ConvComm), a term first used in early 2015 by Uber’s Chris Messina, which speaks to the intersection of business and social messaging applications like the popular and ubiquitous Facebook Messenger. 
Messaging applications have now surpassed social media networks in monthly active users by nearly 500 million, and savvy businesses that want to improve marketing and customer service by sticking with the popular mantra, “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.” In other words, since all your customers are already on social messaging apps, you’d be doing your business a disservice by not finding them there.
One driving force behind the rise of ConvComm is the introduction of chatbots—intuitive, intelligent assistants designed to imitate human interactions, similar to the conversations you’d have with friends, via text or messaging applications.
Technology and design have improved chatbots to the point where they have become highly intuitive, and can communicate in common language without sounding like, well, robots. When chatbots are responsive and helpful, they are attractive to consumers, making people more inclined to hop on apps like Facebook Messenger, which they’re already doing at a rapid rate, and gain immediate help finding deals on products, locating nearby stores and resolving customer service issues conveniently and quickly.
This trend is a coup for businesses, too. ConvComm offers an additional way to increase brand awareness. Businesses are gaining an edge with consumers by coming to them where they socialize, speaking with them in social media’s native tongue, and building a digital relationship with them at a fraction of the cost incurred from developing, deploying and managing a proprietary mobile application that may gather digital dust on users’ smartphones before being unceremoniously uninstalled to free up space.
The question any business with a digital presence should ponder regarding Conversational Commerce is this: “What is our business saying?”
If you want to show consumers you understand their desire for more personalized relationships and prove that your organization is on the cutting edge, get in on the conversation today.
Learn more about improving relationships with your customers through automated SMS customer service.
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