Open for Business
We spoke to 34 product, marketing and CX leaders from the world’s most innovative companies about the state of conversational business in 2019. Here’s what we found.
Modern messaging has changed the way we communicate. It’s transformed how we keep in touch with friends and family, how we interact in the workplace, how we get our news, and how we wield language itself — think emojis, GIFs and Alexa commands. Yet despite ample evidence that consumers are ready to chat with brands, businesses have largely lacked the tools to message with customers in a personal, secure and scalable way. Until now.
In 2018, as they faced more public scrutiny than ever, many of the world’s biggest tech firms opened their messaging platforms to businesses. Meanwhile, relying on a potent combination of AI-powered automation and human-centric customer care, a new generation of conversational companies emerged in areas as diverse as healthcare, retail, media and politics. Together, these developments have produced a windfall of new opportunities for brands to engage and convert customers. They’ve also introduced a host of technical and operational challenges in an increasingly complex and competitive global economy.
In this report we speak to the people at the forefront of the conversational revolution — from the channel gatekeepers to the software vendors to the brand stewards and startup innovators. Along the way, we unpack the biggest industry stories of the past 12 months and look ahead to what 2019 may bring once the business messaging floodgates finally open.
Messaging is often the most convenient way to get things done with a business. As more businesses enable messaging, we expect consumer-to-business interaction to shift in a measurable way toward messaging, just as consumers have in their personal lives.
