The Conversational Messaging Era
Storefront experiences have evolved considerably over the last two decades. Physical locations and displays offered personalized customer experiences, which evolved to e-commerce websites and apps offering speed and convenience at scale.
But, in both of these scenarios, the customer has had the obligation to visit the storefront, whether in person or online. These days, however, we’re seeing a shift in this model. Today’s consumers want businesses to meet them where they’re at, in the channels they prefer most.
Enter the tool driving the next evolution of the storefront: Conversational messaging. Conversational messaging is the ability to communicate directly with a brand at the moment you need them, through channels like SMS, in-app chat, web chat, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Instagram.
As new messaging channels crop up and consumers expect more than just one-way bulk messages and notifications, demand for a new kind of storefront has emerged. Here, businesses bring the storefront experience to consumers, offering branded displays of goods and delivering personal service outside of their physical locations, websites, and apps. Consumers can interact with the business at any point in their customer journey within their channel of choice. Our latest research underscores the importance of conversational messaging to put consumers back in the driver’s seat and build trusted relationships that generate loyalty and bottom-line growth.
For this report, Twilio engaged Lawless Research to conduct a survey of 3,900 consumers in 10 countries: Australia, Brazil, France, Germany, Mexico, Singapore, United Kingdom, the United States, Indonesia, and India.
