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P2A Messaging & Brand Visibility

Communication as we know has evolved a lot. From sending letters which would take days or even months to reach via post to instant messaging, we have come a long way. And brands are noticing this shift and adapting to it. Enterprises have been using SMS marketing to increase their brand reach and acquire new customers. But now consumers have plenty of choices in front of them for various products and services. Therefore, it becomes important for enterprises to take the technological leaps and provide engaging ways to interact with them.

Person-to-Application (P2A) messaging is one way wherein end users can start engaging & seamless conversations with brands. Brands can then leverage these conversations to potentially gain a new consumer by meeting their requirements. This will help to generate highly qualified leads for brands.

Before we deep dive into the state of P2A messaging in 2020, let us understand what exactly is P2A messaging.

What is P2A Messaging?

P2A or Person-to-Application messaging refers to a form of messaging where the user starts a conversation or initiates an interaction with a given brand or enterprise. Consumer can get in touch with the enterprise directly using various touch points such as:

Sending a message to a brand’s social media page (Facebook Messenger,Instagram DM etc.)

Using WhatsApp, RCS or web chatbot to resolve their queries.

Opting in by sending SMS to vote or join a competition.

Above listed are some of the many ways an end user can initiate conversations and start interaction with enterprises.

P2A Messaging Statistics 2020

Mobile Ecosystem Forum (MEF) had launched a report earlier this year called P2A Business Messaging 2020, which surveyed nearly 6,500 users in 10 different countries to know if users are ready to accept P2A messaging or not.

The survey found out that:

55% of smartphone users are ready to have a conversation with automated solutions (chatbots or P2A).

81% of the users can see themselves using P2A messaging for specific use cases such as placing an order, tracking shipment, checking balance and so on.

31% of users prefer calling, but many are open to mixing both depending on the situation (28%), 21% would prefer the new P2A messaging chats channel.

These statistics clearly indicate that users are ready for the shift and are willing to accept P2A Business Messaging channels for specific purposes.

Enterprise Case Studies

P2A Business Messaging is an important method for enterprises to keep their users engaged and gain new customers. MEF has launched another report called MEF Future of Messaging Guide 2020, which sheds light on how various brands are using P2A messaging to increase brand awareness and grow their business using different messaging channels. Let’s take a look at some of the ways brands are leveraging P2A messaging in 2020:

Ask Mercedes

Mercedes-Benz has built a chatbot which can solve simple frequently asked questions by their customers using the chatbot, Ask Mercedes.The bot covers almost 100 of the most commonly-asked questions about how to use a Mercedes-Benz vehicle.

Ask Mercedes is a conversational tool. Questions like ‘How can I drive more economically?’ can be asked to the bot as well. The bot will also ask follow up questions to better understand what the customer is asking. With multimedia content such as graphics and drawings, Ask Mercedes can communicate in a more interactive way with the customer.

This virtual assistant also has the functionality to use the Augmented Reality technology. Customers can simply scan the object in their car using their smartphone and the explanation of that object will pop up. This is a new way of interacting with customers and keeping them engaged with the product.

UN75

The United Nations (UN) is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year. On its 75th anniversary, the UN wants to ask one simple question to the world: What kind of future do you want?

The UN launched a one minute survey which can be taken on its web portal. To spread awareness about the survey, UN partnered with Vodafone to launch UN75, an RCS bot which gives users all the information about the survey and why their voice matters.

Using interactive media like rich cards and carousels images along with suggested replies, It is expected to gain a higher user engagement rate which could lead to more people taking the survey. According to Liz McCord, principal product manager for RCS services at Vodafone, 6% users have responded to the RCS push. That’s many times higher than SMS.

Abi Global

Although telemedicine has seen growth over the years and especially in the COVID-19 era, users prefer not to download apps, but rather, use existing messaging channels like WhatsApp, SMS or Facebook messenger to get health advice from a trusted consultant.

And Abi Global exactly does that. Using WhatsApp, SMS and other Over The Top (OTT) messaging channels, users can send their questions directly to physicians and they can advise on what next steps should be taken. Abi uses natural language processing to mediate the initial query. The AI analyzes the text and then sends it to the most appropriate doctor (based on location, language, medical expertise and ratings).

Till date, Abi is available to 3 million people in 14 markets, and has registered around 600 physicians. The company is aiming to launch the service in 100 markets by the end of 2021.

These case studies indicate that brands have understood where their customers are, how to keep them engaged and what are the technological tools they can further implement within the existing platforms.

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Along with P2A messaging, discovering and accessing chatbots is equally important. Enterprises and network operators are heavily investing in creating chatbots but how can end users search and get access to them?

DotGo Bot Store is one such chatbot directory where users can search & get access to chatbots built by various brands and operators. It’s the largest RCS & WhatsApp chatbot directory in the world.

It will be interesting to see how enterprises can create meaningful partnerships with network operators and mobile messaging solution providers to capture a greater market share in coming years using P2A messaging & directories.

Business Messaging in 2020: P2A User Survey

Change might be hard but it’s inevitable. When it comes to adopting convenient and efficient technology, consumers usually embrace it quickly. Same is true for usage of chatbots by users. Placing an order, filing a complaint, tracking your order or simply giving customer service feedback, chatbots can do it all and users feel it’s easy to resolve their queries. With the advancement of technology, and arrival of OTT apps and RCS, chatbots have the potential to provide a more engaging and interactive channel for Person-to-Application (P2A) business messaging.

Mobile Ecosystem Forum (MEF), a non-profit association which aims to address issues in regards to widenning mobile reach, has recently launched a report a called P2A Business Messaging 2020, which surveyed nearly 6,500 users in 10 different countries to understand whether users are ready to adopt P2A messaging services or not.

Survey Snapshot

Here are some quick stats from MEF P2A Business Messaging Survey:

55% of smartphone users are ready to have a conversation with automated solutions (chatbots or P2A).

81% of the users can see themselves using P2A messaging for specific use cases such as placing an order, tracking shipment, checking balance and so on.

31% of users prefer calling, but many are open to mixing both depending on the situation (28%), 21% would prefer the new P2A messaging chats channel.

This snapshot of the data surveyed clearly indicates that the users are willing to adopt the P2A messaging business applications, especially if they are automated bots for a specific use.

Less Waiting Time: Advantage of Messaging Over Call

The survey suggests that users prefer messaging over call as there is less waiting time. If you ever call for a query to a call center, either the waiting period is long or you are kept on hold for an infinite amount of time. If you feel like that, you are not alone, 36% users from the survey felt the same way as well.

Evolution in P2A Messaging: RCS Business Messaging

Rich Communication Services (RCS) is revolutionizing business messaging by allowing users to interact with chatbots. RCS is the next generation of SMS which allows users to book appointments, view carousel images, place orders through it’s rich and interactive engaging features.

“With a growing number of RCS chatbots supporting use cases such as making appointments, delivering notifications, tracking packages, interacting with live agents, providing entertainment, and managing the engagement for online orders, users are increasingly looking to initiate conversations with chatbots. Indeed, market studies project that P2A initiated use cases will dominate the chatbot space in the long run.” says Surinder Anand, CTO & VP Product Management at Kirusa

Click here to download the full report.

Tech-Driven Solutions to Fight COVID-19

Do I have COVID-19 if I sneeze? How will governments ensure to reduce the spread of COVID-19? How will we flatten the curve? How will we stop community transmission? When and how can I reopen my business safely? Such questions continue to raise fear and anxiety among all of us.

In the current times, when the world is facing an unprecedented challenge to fight against this pandemic, people are again looking towards affordable, fast, and useful technological solutions.

Various organizations and medical institutions are investing billions of dollars to stop the spread of COVID-19 and possibly put an end to the pandemic.

This has created new opportunities for technological innovations to ease anxiety and stress among people, control people’s movement, aid in detection of body parameters in public places, and help businesses reopen safely.

Here’s a rundown of some tech-driven solutions launched by Kirusa to help combat COVID-19.

Intuitive App to Track Your COVID Symptoms

COVID Symptom, an iOS app, to help you keep a diary of your symptoms on a daily basis with the intention to reduce fear and paranoia among people in this pandemic.

For anybody who is anxious about COVID-19, is having any symptoms, or has come in touch with any COVID+ person recently, can use this app to:

Track and monitor their daily symptoms
Share history of your symptoms with doctor
Help scientists and researchers to track and study model prevalence of COVID-19 in our communities

The features and functionalities of this app have been carefully curated after consulting various medical researchers and professionals who have the expertise in understanding how COVID-19 transmits and all the related symptoms associated with it. This app also helps researchers use aggregated, non-personally identifiable data to create heat maps showing prevalence of symptoms in the community, in order to help them better understand the spread of COVID-19.

The app is free to use for all. The app can be downloaded by:

Dialing 1-337-516-0379
Searching for “COVID Symptom” on the Apple App Store
Visiting COVIDSymptom.org

Web-Application to Help Offices Reopen Safely

As the curve started to flatten, economies opened up and people started living in the “new normal”. Nearly 50% of states in the USA have either reopened or are in the reopening phase. As more and more businesses are reopening, providing a safe work environment, and complying with the safety policies and guidelines issued by the Center of Disease Control (CDC), Whitehouse, OSHA and State Government agencies is becoming extremely crucial.

The return to the business activity requires following strict workplace screening protocols in order to prevent an outbreak. Safe Reopening, an easy-to-use web application, therefore, will help enterprises ensure a safe working environment by tracking and monitoring the health status of the employees’ who are returning to work.

Here’s how Safe Reopening solution works:

Employees can:

Self-report their health status every day to ensure workplace safety for other employees’
Record symptoms & test results (if any)
Enter travel history (without using GPS or Bluetooth tracking)

Office Managers can:

Track the COVID-19 status of the workforce on a daily basis in their dashboard.
Provides immediate access to workforce’s health status.
Implements hassle free workplace screening as per OSHA and CDC guidelines

Safe Reopening Employer Dashboard — Safe Reopening Office Manager Dashboard

Safe Reopening solution also removes the hurdle of managing tons of paperwork and manually entering the data. Businesses can assure safety to their customers by displaying Certificate of Trust & Safety, which may even open doors for new business prospects. Visit safreopening.co to know how you can reopen your business in the middle of a pandemic.

WhatsApp Business Solutions to Communicate Effectively

It is important to stay connected with your employees and customers in these times when most of the companies are still working remotely. Businesses can communicate with their customers in real time, on the world’s most predominant messaging platform with two billion users by implementing WhatsApp Business Solutions.

WhatsApp Customer Support chatbot services can help enterprises streamline their communication processes by answering customer queries, collecting information as well as routing calls to live agents who can then start conversations and solve customer queries quickly.

Here are the benefits of using WhatsApp Business APIs:

Can be remotely implemented
Integrated with existing contact center
Facilitate two-way communication with customers
Has global reach and conversation can take place between any two parts of the world
Interactive communication using, images, audios, videos along with text
Automate customer support functions (account balance, payment due etc.)

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This year has been challenging for all of us, but every challenge presents an opportunity. We need to embrace these challenging times and see how we can utilize it for our own benefit. We are here to sail this storm with you.

Click here to get in touch with us to help you reopen your business safely, and let us provide you with innovative solutions to help you communicate with your employees and customers effectively.

Introducing Dotgo Bot Store – A Global Directory of RCS Bots

In the fast-moving ecosystem of conversational commerce over RCS, there is a need for users to be able to discover and connect to RCS bots, both from Android Messages and from Samsung Messages. Kirusa is launching Dotgo Bot Store, the first and only directory available for RBM agents globally. As RCS is gaining popularity, more and more RBM agents are being developed. Dotgo Bot Store is an easy-to-use and extremely relevant platform as it provides convenience and value to aggregators, brands and consumers. The platform can help brands attain more traction for their RBM agents and eventually witness a significant increase in engagement rate with consumers.

Our vision with Dotgo Bot Store is to have an open directory listing for RCS bots from all over the world and to facilitate a quick and easy way to search and connect to an RCS agent supported for the user – from the web, from a bot, and from the built-in client capabilities (e.g. Samsung messages).

Here are some of the advantages of listing a chatbot on Dotgo Bot Store:

Bot discovery – Users all over the world can search for RCS chatbots on Dotgo Bot Store, from the web, or from the directory bot. The search can be based on their country, carrier, name and even their use case like ‘Travel’.
‘Connect-Me’ Feature (P2A trigger) – Users can go through the bot details, screenshots and if it interests them they can connect to it directly from the directory. This will be a trigger to the enterprise to send the first RCS message to the user’s phone number.
Snapcall numbers (P2A trigger) – For each bot entered by the developer, Dotgo Bot Store assigns a unique snapcall number to the bot. Users who discover the bot can drop a missed call to this number from their phone number. This will, in turn, trigger the enterprise to send the first RCS message to the user. This feature is available only for select countries.
One place for all – Developers can always keep the users updated on what’s new in the agent, latest updates, have promotional offers, view & manage user reviews, and do a lot more.
Bot Store – A Bot for discovery. Bot Store is pushed by carriers as the default search bot, and users can search for bots using Bot Store from Android and Samsung Messages. Any user using Bot Store can discover, explore and connect to their favourite bot right within the native Messages app!

We have the Dotgo Bot Store live at www.dotgo.com and continue to enhance it with additional features in a phased manner.

Introducing IP Messaging

What is IP Messaging?

Communicating with target audience is extremely critical for any enterprise. This communication may involve transactional, promotional or informative exchange of details. Enterprises use various mediums such as email, SMS, calls and social media platforms to pass information to their audience. However, when it comes to sharing day-to-day transactional details or important updates, email and SMS are the most preferred communication channels used by enterprises. But as SMS has a much higher opening rate as compared to emails, SMS is widely adopted by enterprises globally.

SMS has been the foremost mobile messaging channel used for P2P (Person-to-Person), A2P (Application-to-Person) and P2A (Person-to-Application) messaging. P2P messaging stands for communication between two or more individuals, A2P messaging is when an enterprise sends a message to its audience from an application and P2A is when the audience initiates interaction with the enterprise via an application.

After reaching its peak in 2012 with nearly 8 trillion messages, SMS started to stagnate and decline. This was due to the introduction of smartphones and mobile internet that gave way to newer channels of communication. Messaging evolved and transitioned from SMS to IP (Internet Protocol) messaging. IP messaging is a two-way messaging channel over internet (mobile data, wifi). It includes OTT (over-the-top) apps and RCS (Rich Communication Service). OTT apps include WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, WeChat, Skype, Viber, etc. while RCS is the telecom carrier supported evolution of SMS. RCS is touted as the next generation native messaging evolution that can transform the experience for Android users.

Why IP Messaging?

SMS is simple, instant and universal. The benefits of SMS made it an attractive medium for enterprise communication for years together. But with the rise of IP messaging, we are able to witness the limitations of SMS. IP messaging is a modern channel of communication whereas SMS is traditional.

IP messaging brings along appealing services and features that enable real-time communication and sharing of rich media content like never before. These channels are a low-cost alternative to SMS, additionally providing interactive & richer user experiences, innovative offerings, convenience and enhanced engagement. These varied reasons have led to IP messaging channels revolutionise P2P messaging across the globe and gain immense popularity. These channels have the advantage of a huge, ever-growing user base of individuals which is now being leveraged by enterprises for A2P and P2A messaging. Enterprises are opened to the opportunity of IP messaging as it can successfully create high levels of engagement and personalisation.