Connectivity technology is being increasingly used by fintech and commerce companies to engage customers and overcome notification fatigue – where customers are inundated with too many notifications from their apps and begin not to pay attention. 

Conversational commerce provides an answer – find out how financial institutions are transforming their businesses with this new approach. 

What is conversational commerce? 

Conversational commerce leverages super apps like WeChat, TikTok, WhatsApp, and Facebook Messenger to integrate messaging with transactional capabilities. This approach provides customers with a highly personalised and seamless experience, enabling them to ask questions, make purchases, and receive customer support all within a single platform. 

Superapps such as TikTok also allow financial institutions to take advantage of influencers in their industry to attract wider audiences to their campaigns. Deniz bank used FinTokers as part of a conversational commerce campaign, doubling their conversion rate and reducing cost-per-acquisition by 52%. 

The benefits of one-stop-shop fintech 

Companies with the ability to offer this seamless and highly personalised experience have experienced 50% lower customer acquisition costs, 15% higher revenues and a 30% increase in marketing ROI. As younger generations start to gain more purchasing power, fintech companies who do not embrace 24/7 messaging-based interaction will find themselves losing business to those that do.  

In addition to offering superior experiences to customers, conversational commerce technology allows businesses to gather valuable information on customer behaviour and preferences, constantly improving their service offerings and increasing repeat business by 40%. 

Customer communications cloud company and GSMA member, Sinch, have been using conversational commerce for many years, helping financial institutions such as Nationwide to achieve a 90% engagement rate on messaging to their 15 million members.  

Striking a balance between human and AI 

Using chatbots and generative AI to answer common questions is an essential part of conversational commerce. Buyers expect to be able to get information as and when they want it, without having to wait for office hours or sit in long queues to be assigned an agent for simple queries on product offerings. GSMA member Infobip predicts that while currently 80% of customer support is dealt with via phone calls, over the next five to 10 years this will dramatically reduce to 40-50% with the rest being dealt with by AI.  

Therefore, there is still a need to provide access to live support agents for difficult questions, and this must also be provided seamlessly within one app. The live agents must be able to view the entire history of the customer’s experience with the company so far, avoiding the need for information to be repeated. As roughly 70% of customer churn is due to poor customer service, it is crucial to get this handover between technology and live support correct. 

Infobip customer and insurance provider Covéa Group saw a 11% increase in conversion rates with conversational marketing versus their multi-platform approach. Their users can now educate themselves on the product via interactive quizzes, assess their needs and request callbacks from live agents within the same channel, removing the drop-off they used to see when asking customers to move between platforms.  

The role of the GSMA in connected commerce 

The GSMA connected fintech and commerce community is dedicated to bringing experts such as Infobip, TikTok, Syniverse and Sinch together with financial institutions to share their technical knowledge and discuss current industry challenges. Whether it is at global events such as MWC Barcelona and MWC Las Vegas, quarterly forums, where members share their latest innovations, or high-value networking opportunities, GSMA membership facilitates collaboration between companies to achieve their goals.  

Find out more about the benefits of joining at GSMA membership.