New Study Shows Growing Adoption Of Business Messaging Across APAC

New study by Meta and BCG shows growing adoption of business messaging across Asia Pacific

A new study released today by Meta and Boston Consulting Group (BCG) shows growing adoption of business messaging across the Asia Pacific (APAC) region. According to the study, over 40 percent of people surveyed said they were messaging with a business more frequently than compared to the pre-pandemic period, with one in three consumers chatting with businesses at least once a week. The trend was similar across all age groups, especially among Millennials and Gen Zs who are messaging businesses up to eight times every month. 

The study, “Business Messaging: The Quiet Channel Revolution Across Tech” surveyed 6,500 respondents across Australia, Indonesia, Korea, Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam. It showed how business messaging has become integral to both businesses and consumers, as it continues to gain traction in the APAC region and is further accelerated by the pandemic. 

Tarandeep Singh, Managing Director at BCG explained, “The Covid-19 pandemic forced countries around the world to go into lockdowns, enforce strict social distancing rules, and restrict in-person business operations. This resulted in more people going online, and businesses across many industries to increase their investment and engagement on online channels to connect with customers.” 

“Based on our research, business messaging adoption is gaining traction beyond small businesses. While smaller businesses have been using Business Messaging to digitise and scale their online presence for years, large businesses now recognise messaging as a critical component of their ​business model. Seven in 10 large businesses rated messaging as very or extremely important to their overall business,” he added. 

The study also found that:

• Messaging is an integral communication channel for businesses and consumers 
  • 90 percent of businesses recognise that messaging apps are important for success 
  • 80 percent of consumers plan to continue using messaging to interact with businesses
• Financial Services (FinServ) is emerging as a high potential vertical for Business Messaging
  • Across APAC, consumers said it was important for them to message a business before they signed up for a financial product.
• Use cases for Business Messaging continue to expand across industries such as CPG, retail, finserv and e-commerce, ranging from basic enquiry, lead generation, one-to-one consultation, customisation, gaining feedback, re-marketing and signals collection.
  • More than half of businesses say that they use Business Messaging for after-sales services
  • 61 percent of retail and ecommerce businesses use it to process pre-sales enquiries 
  • An average of 50 percent of businesses said they use messaging to process orders and transactions

Dan Neary, VP for Meta APAC, said, “We are seeing fundamental shifts in how people and businesses connect and the last few years have accelerated these shifts. This report shows that the ability to message a business is emerging as a consumer baseline expectation. As business messaging largely takes place across social and messaging platforms, we are committed to enabling businesses of all sizes with capabilities to activate this channel for growth,” he added.

The report also provides recommendations for businesses on how they can start their business messaging journey. Key steps include: 

• Define clear objectives for messaging. Evaluate the potential of messaging throughout the whole customer journey and see where it can help solve unique pain points in each phase depending on business context and challenges.
• Prioritize business messaging in your marketing strategy. Customers want to hear from businesses when the information is timely, personal and relevant. Build conversations that are seamless and go deeper, providing customers a convenient and smooth shopping experience. 
• Adopt third-party messaging technology solutions and providers to rapidly scale messaging capabilities. This can result in higher chat conversion rates and ability to handle large volumes of enquiries.

Commenting on the value of business messaging, Charnae Morris, Head of eBusiness, Nestle IndoChina said “We are very encouraged by the integration of business messaging. 

 The business and brand value proposition for Nestle has been to really engage the consumer and shopper end-to-end from the moment they might have a question about our product, providing them with rich information, and for them to decide whether to purchase the product. We are using this as a proof-of-concept to potentially scale the solution to other businesses from coffee to pet care. As a next step, I would encourage marketers to understand the role business messaging can play in their overall brand strategy and channel mix. After which, they should allocate resources to orchestra ways of working to ensure success.”