RCS is widely touted as the future of enterprise messaging. Its rich immersive formats bring a whole host of opportunities for enterprises to engage with consumers, that, combined with the ubiquity of smartphones, is tipped to replace many of the functions currently locked up in enterprise applications. Where once a hotel chain might have offered an app to its customers, now everything in that…
Type: Blog Article
Personalization is helping enterprises finesse the ways in which they communicate with their customers. Where once personalization meant sending an email or text message that addressed individuals by name, now advances in technology, in particular the intersection between SaaS and messaging, are enabling enterprises to get much closer by communicating against an array of data points. A digital…
Type: Blog Article
Good times! For the fifth year running, Sinch has received a Tier One rating, in the annual A2P SMS Messaging Vendor Performance Report , recently published by the Roaming Consulting Company (ROCCO). The report definitively ranks the industry’s leading A2P SMS Messaging Vendors, based on scores and feedback from over 365 mobile network operators (MNOs). Only those vendors scoring higher than four…, ROCCO A2P SMS Messaging Vendor Performance Report 2019, here , to understand why the global mobile network operator community rate Sinch so highly.
Type: Blog Article
Matt Ramerman, President of Sinch’s mobile marketing business unit, Sinch Engage, recently joined MEF features editor, Tim Green, for a web chat. Entitled Strengthening Customer Relationships Through Mobile Engagement, the discussion took a deep dive on how personalized video messaging is engaging consumers, not just at the top of the sales funnel, but throughout the customer journey. For Matt,…, Customer relationships and loyalty, Loyalty marketing no longer works. Consumers don’t actually display loyalty to brands based on discounts or fremium offers, rather, they seek out the best deal for them and are fickle about it. For enterprises this ultimately becomes a race to the bottom, undercutting competition while eroding profits or average revenue per user. The concept of loyalty in itself should of course be a goal, but it…, The technology in our pockets, The proliferation of smartphones and formerly feature phones, has had a major impact on consumer marketing and communication. Engagement is instant, personal and effective. Importantly, this means that enterprises can now move away from discounting to scrutinizing what the customer journey looks like, and what the opportunities are to offer an amazing and relevant experience within that journey.…, Personalized messaging engages consumers like no other channel, In 2010 brands were moving aggressively toward making their own app. Time has taught us that consumers aren’t keen. They don’t like branded apps and tend to disable them after a short period of time. The alternative was email, yet the email inbox is crowded and hard to get any cut through. Mobile messaging on the other hand, in the form of SMS, has traditionally delivered open rates of 90% plus.…, 1. On-boarding for a wireless carrier, On-boarding a new customer that has recently signed up for a service is a classic CRM strategy. The objective might be a warm welcome to the service, an acknowledgement of what a particular customer has signed up for and some basic orientation around next steps. The communication is based on explicit known data - in this example, a customer’s tariff plan, their name and services that they have or…, 2. Upselling for a retailer, In this example, upselling leveraged implicit data analysis where customers were filtered based on cart abandonment, i.e. they looked at a particular garment but did not purchase it. Customers were also part of the mobile loyalty program, which meant they were opted in to receive notifications and offers. Sinch Engage was able to showcase the product they had been looking at in video format, link…, 3. Enhanced customer experience for an airline, Sinch Engage is currently involved with many airlines that use SMS for flight notifications. The platform ingests the same notification data but instead of a few lines of text, the consumer is presented with dynamic rich media. The original metadata can also be augmented with third party data so that where in the original information we knew the flight, its destination and the departure time,…, Significant results, In terms of the customer journey, messaging is already well ahead of other channels just because the engagement levels it provides is established as the number 1 consumer preference. When you couple that with personalized video, the results are significant. Sinch Engage has achieved a 20% plus reduction in churn - as an indicator of customer retention for subscription services like mobile carrier…
Type: Blog Article
Robert Gerstmann, Co-founder and Chief Evangelist at Sinch recently took part in a Q&A for MarTech Series, read on for his thoughts on consumer messaging, RCS, CPaaS and find out what tech he can’t live without!, Tell us about your journey into enterprise communications, I’ve been working in mobile enterprise communications for over fifteen years. Prior to Co-Founding Sinch , originally named CLX, in 2008 I held Commercial Management positions at Mblox as Director of the Global Mobile Messaging business line and at payments service provider Netgiro/Digital River., Tell us about the evolving state of the consumer message landscape, The rise of social communication has completely redefined how we communicate with our friends and family. Once the phone call was king. However, the emergence of SMS followed later by OTT-messaging applications like Facebook Messenger , WhatsApp , and WeChat has laid the foundations for a more instantaneous and richer form of communication. As a result, brands and businesses can now engage…, How is personalized messaging finally making a huge impact on ROMI?, Personalized messaging leverages the unrivalled engagement and open rates associated with application-to-person (A2P) SMS, adds the rich media experience using images, audio and video provided both by MMS today and new messaging channels RCS and OTT tomorrow but does this in a completely personalized manner as opposed to the generic nature of much business messaging of today. As a result,…, Why should brands be excited about RCS?, Often billed as SMS 2.0, RCS represents a major upgrade to today’s business messaging experience. RCS enables brands to engage with consumers using color, images, audio, and video content. RCS also offers features and functionality such as real-time and group chat, as well as the ability to automate responses with a chatbot . Marketers can also see when and how a person has engaged with their…, Are AI combined with A2P SMS still nascent in enterprise messaging? Can you share some use-cases?, Enterprises are beginning to understand how AI and enterprise messaging solutions can work together to enable a reduction in costs and improvement in customer service experience. For example, last year Walmart launched a text message powered personal shopper service called Jetblack – which uses AI to provide relevant product recommendations and thus save busy customers time. In many sectors…, How is Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS) driving the in-app Customer Service revolution?, In the last few years, there has been a major shift in what consumers consider to be good customer service. Consumers don’t want to wait on the phone to speak to their energy provider or queue at the bank to make a simple transaction. They want to access information whenever they need it, in the most convenient way possible. In most cases, this means via a mobile phone, which is why many new…, How do you prepare for an AI-centric world as a Business Leader?, We are doing this in a number of ways, but mainly we are working on making our data more available to our customers so that it can easily plug-in and support the next generation of AI-driven services and solutions., How do you inspire your people to work with technology?, Sinch is a technology company, so most of the people who work here already live and breathe it, so inspiring our people to work with technology isn’t really a challenge we face., One word that best describes how you work, I lead by example, that’s three words., What apps/software/tools can’t you live without?, It might not be the most glamorous choice, but Microsoft Office Suite is an essential part of how I work, alongside email and SMS. I’m also a big fan of Slack for staying in touch with the team, LinkedIn for networking, and Spotify for when I need some music., What are you currently reading?, Right now I’m reading, The Savage Detectives by Chilean author Roberto Bolaño., What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?, Don’t assume malice. As important with friends, family, and colleagues as with new people you meet. It makes it a lot more likely that you’ll end up with good relationships with most of the people you meet in life., Tag the one person in the industry whose answers to these questions you would love to read?, It would have to be one of the executives at SalesForce , so let’s go with Marc Benioff . , Thank you, Robert! That was fun and hope to see you back on MarTech Series soon., First published in MarTech Series .
Type: Blog Article
Buying loyalty from customers always seemed like a contradiction. Now, the game is up. Experts think the age of marketing based on loyalty is over, here we reflect on the coming era of relevance., Is loyalty dying? Well, the canine community might disagree. Even in the digital age, dogs generally seem quite pleased to see their owners. But can we say the same of customers and brands? Are the time-honored techniques for making customers loyal to companies and products on the decline? Possibly. The evidence is piling up. In a 2018 article for Harvard Business Review, three senior execs at…, 1. Mass market (60s/70s), The era of mass production, when scale and distribution ruled, 2. Segmentation (80s), More sophisticated consumer research enabled marketers to target customers in niche segments, 3. Customer level (90/2000s), Tech advances made it possible to target individual customers, 4. Loyalty (2010s), The age of CRM, tailored incentives and advanced retention Looking back over the list, it's obvious that technology plays a key role in the evolution of the discipline. The mass-market era of Coca-Cola and McDonalds was made possible by cars, freeways and the television set. The loyalty era of Amazon was brought into being by cloud servers and data mining. So, what's powering the move towards '…, To read the full article and find out how relevance is enabled by true personalization (the segment of one) download our latest eBook - Messaging and Personalization, transitioning from loyalty to relevance , where you’ll find further insights, use-cases and stats that outline the trajectory of personalization in enterprise communication. If you’re hungry for even more on personalization, check…
Type: Blog Article
It’s clear that digital technology, in particular smartphones, have sculpted new patterns of consumer demand. Rich personalized conversation with brands is replacing what was essentially a one-way channel. Email or SMS, for example, with the direction ‘donotreply’, represents a cul-de-sac of brand engagement - the end of the interaction. Savvy businesses have long-since realized that these…
Type: Blog Article
As an MVNO, you run a business optimized to offer attractive services tailored for specific market segments , carving out a niche in the market to win over customers from other service providers. When successful, MVNOs can revitalize the market, creating services that add more value to customers and converting part of that value add into profit. Starting and running an MVNO is a true journey…
Type: Blog Article
Enterprises are facing a new reality. Customer experience is now the primary way to compete for consumers who are typically fickle and increasingly less responsive to loyalty and marketing campaigns. Consumers want conversation and rich engagement with enterprises and seek out those willing to provide it. They find the instruction ‘donotreply’ on a customer service email or SMS somewhat…, enterprise study, from Gartner indicated that, 80% of companies now expect to compete mainly based on customer experience,, whilst a further 50% say they can track positive financial benefits from customer experience projects. Taking customer experience a step further, personalizing communication (right down to the individual segment of one) is upping the engagement potential of messaging and is in line with consumer expectations. Advances in A2P messaging and CPaaS, when integrated with CRM systems, enable…, critical moments can be singled out as opportunities to engage with a personal message., The communication might be to send some kind of loyalty offer (happy birthday, have a free coffee on us), on-boarding a customer once they have signed up to a service with an orientation message (thanks for signing up, here’s how you activate your service) right through to making contact at churn points (your contract with us will end in a month, why not upgrade to the latest device now for free…, movement and sound -, both play a significant role in conveying and simplifying complex messages. Compared to SMS or email, which rely on a specific choice of words, punctuation and possibly visual cues like emojis to set a desired tone, video messages execute just like a well-crafted spot ad. They are immersive, instantly understood and trigger emotional responses that help deliver on business, marketing and customer…
Type: Blog Article
Sinch AB (publ), a global leader in cloud communications for mobile customer engagement, has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire myElefant SAS for an upfront cash consideration of EUR 18.5 million with an additional cash earnout of up to EUR 3 million within two years if certain gross profit targets are met. Founded in Paris in 2010, myElefant has built a cloud-based software platform…
Type: News Article