how enterprise messaging helps secure communication

Deploy a mobile ready messaging strategy across your organization

Enterprise messaging, i.e. messages exchanged between businesses and consumers, is about to make a quantum leap into the digital world. So far, SMS was the only mobile messaging channel available to enterprises. But now, many more digital channels are emerging: apps such as Facebook Messenger, Whatsapp, Skype, Viber and more. Even voice channels are becoming available such as Alexa and Google Assistant. These channels have already enriched person-to-person communication and now they’re poised to do the same with business-to-consumer communication. The proliferation of so many messaging channels now gives businesses a rich variety of ways to reach and engage their customers.

Enterprises generally use messaging for transactional and promotional use cases. Transactional messaging is triggered when a user does a transaction e.g. when a consumer uses her credit card to make a purchase. Promotional messaging refers to the deals and offers sent to them by businesses. Both business and consumers depend heavily on messaging. Messaging is the essential lifeblood for enterprises, enabling them to acquire, engage, transact and support their customers. Consumers find these messages to be an essential tool to stay updated with their personal activities. The messaging industry has grown substantially accounting for over 10 billion messages per month in India alone, and many times that worldwide.

While SMS messaging has many advantages, it has a few limitations too. SMS is unmatched in terms of universal reach and simplicity. However, it limits businesses from sending rich, interactive messages to users. Also, regulations limit who they can send messages to. Consumers also feel they cannot control which messages they want to receive or not.

These limitations can be overcome by adding digital messaging channels into the mix. Messages sent through messaging apps can be considered as Smart Messages. Smart messages can include rich media such as images, audio and video etc. For example, a bank can send a scanned copy of the check along with the transactional alert. Smart messages are highly interactive – each message can have interactive, clickable elements that allow users to respond instantly with a single click. For example, a banking alert could enable the user to report fraud instantly, a package delivery notification can enable the user to reschedule instantly.

Furthermore, smart messaging leverages AI and chatbot capabilities to enable a conversational experience. This enables businesses to engage in a deeper conversation with users that can include both structured and natural language interactions. For example, after receiving a promo offer, users can request more details and even make a purchase through the chat bot. Smart messages enable a high degree of engagement and personalization. The chatbot can develop a detailed, personalized user profile and customize its interactions accordingly. Users also get fine-grained control enabling them to determine who, when, why and how frequently can a business send messages to them. Smart messaging enables consumers to consume content at their own convenience.

This offers an incredible opportunity for enterprises to transform their business communications. For example, enterprises can be more targeted in their marketing activities, while also being more respectful of consumer preferences. Enterprises can engage their customers better by designing their chatbots to be a trusted friend, advisor or assistant leading to improved conversion rates. Smart Messaging enables enterprises to take advantage of the new era of conversational experiences where virtually every customer interaction will be driven through conversations. Conversations will enable businesses to build long-lasting relationships with their customers.

Not only is smart messaging better but it's substantially cheaper. While these digital messaging apps are richer and more interactive, they do suffer from the limitation that the user must have the messaging app on their device. Therefore, most businesses will use a combination of both SMS and Smart Messaging. Smart Messaging platforms help businesses manage multi-channel environments by maintaining a user profile that includes the preferred channel. By using the right mix of messaging channels, businesses can optimize user engagement, messaging cost and marketing ROI.

One consequence of this evolution is that messaging will now become a more strategic function within the organization. Many enterprises have banished the management of their messaging services to the depths of IT departments. However, given its substantial impact on business, it now needs to be brought back to the strategic business and customer facing functions. Messaging will transform virtually every customer touchpoint and needs to be integrated into customer-facing business processes.

The combination of functionality and price makes this evolution a no-brainer. Bot building platforms are already seeing many of its customers adopt smart messaging platforms with incredible results. Smart messaging is poised to transform the messaging industry. Enterprises that are early adopters stand to benefit immensely.

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