There is no doubt that we’re in an era of technological innovation. With everything going digital, industries are looking for ways to improve and optimize their business opportunities. We take a look at the trends that will transform the telecom industry growth.

Introducing 5G:

5G’s arrival is transforming tech. This next generation of mobile broadband will replace the existing 4G connection, as we see exponential growth in terms of downloads and upload speeds. With connectivity at the heart of technological transformation, 5G will play an extremely crucial role in changing the landscape in terms of communication across industries. As the need for improved connectivity grows, “5G is an opportunity to create an agile, purpose-built network tailored to the different needs of citizens, industry and the economy.” (Source: GSMA) Also, as we embark on the 5G era, there will arise a need for operators to evolve in an attempt to transform businesses to address new opportunities. (Source: Ericsson)

5G will go on transform not only the technology distributors but also service providers. This transition will involve telecoms partnering with governments and enterprise customers to help customers leverage the power of 5G. (Source: Forbes)

Artificial Intelligence (AI):

It goes without saying that AI marks the beginning of a digital revolution. Technological advancement in artificial intelligence (AI) space has captured the public imagination. Artificial intelligence is projected to have a market reach of $70 billion by 2020 transforming how consumers, enterprises and government around the world operate and interact. (Source: GSMA)

AI is seen to dramatically improve the workplace efficiencies and augment the work humans do. Industries across will heavily depend on AI to drive their operational needs, especially with Conversational AI. Human interactions are now structured around quick problem-solving abilities. Companies around the globe are trying to capitalize on this space by adopting chatbot as one of the primary means of communication with its users. It is estimated that the chatbot market will witness a 24% growth in the coming years to come and reach $1.25 billion by 2025. (Source: Infopulse)

Telecom industry is one of them and their usage of artificial intelligence is in many aspects of business today. One of the prominent areas where they can optimize the use of virtual assistants and chatbots is drive customer service and satisfaction. In addition to this, predictive analysis and AI creates a space which allows telecoms to “glean actionable business insights from the volumes of data they gather everyday”. (Source: Forbes)

Customer Engagement:

For years, customer interaction has been crucial for businesses, service and governments, but its evolution has dramatically increased in recent times with internet, mobile and smartphones coming into play. A “personalized and timely customer interaction’ has become crucial to ensure growth and drive engagement across channels. (Source: GSMA) One of the most exciting things to look out for is Google’s RCS — an attempt to make customer interaction engaging and meaningful.

All the smartphone manufactures, and the telco industry is coming together to enhance the native form of messaging. Termed as Rich Communication Services (RCS), it plans to upgrade the way we communicate with people over text. In other words, “RCS is a new online protocol that was chosen for adoption by the GSM Association in 2008 and is meant to replace the current texting standard SMS (Short Message Service), which has been around since the 1990s. The GMSA represents a wide variety of organizations in the mobile industry, including device and software companies, internet companies, etc. Naturally, given all those players, it took a while to come to an agreement, and so it wasn’t until 2016 that the GSMA was able to come up with something resembling a standard.” (Source: The Verge) Building on the limitations of native messaging, RCS is giving a whole new meaning to interactions between brands and their customers. By bringing branded chats, authenticity and richer medium to a native messaging app, RCS will be breaking barriers and will be transforming engagement between brands and their customers. This is without a doubt an opportunity the brands will be waiting to get their hands-on as it will ensure interactive and effective communication with its customers. Kirusa, one of Google’s messaging partners are already on the forefront in bringing the RCS experience to life and have built a unique directory “DotGo” that has a compilation of RBM agents from across the world which are built for diverse brands serving numerous purposes.

How will RCS add value to your business? Click here to know more.

The rise of chatbots:

The impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on customer service has been one of the widely debated topics in recent years. With the emergence of chatbots, powered by AI, the brand interactions and customer experience have taken a new shape.

A recent survey by Oracle stated 80% of the brands prefer to use to chatbots in solving customer queries by 2020. A smoother customer experience and quicker problem-solving skills make chatbots a winner.

How is chatbot changing customer communication?

Chatbot helps simplify human interaction with the help of artificial intelligence. A software designed to simulate a conversation with a user in natural language through websites, messaging applications, mobile apps etc.

The question then pop-ups is how are chatbots seen as transforming customer experiences and increase work productivity. This software designed to handle repetitive and mundane aspects of the business such as responding and solving customer queries, processing data, etc. in a manner that is immediate. This has also led employees to focus on more critical and creative tasks. Work productivity has been another factor that is driving more and more organizations to shift to chatbots.

Will chatbots survive in the long run?

Research has shown that despite the advancement of AI and Natural Language Processing, Chatbots are still in a primitive stage. In other words, they are only as intelligent as they are programmed to be. So, there can be situations where chatbots might not be able to give the desired output. This is where the human factor comes in. Human’s empathy and intelligence are needed to solve problems. A chatbot, therefore, can be considered as “the first line of defence and human agents come to play when that line is breached”. (Source: kommunicate). With brands striving to deliver unique customer experiences, it becomes extremely critical that the transition from bot to human agents is smooth and leads to quality resolution.

There can be multiple scenarios which demand bot to human transition. Let’s take a look at few of them:

– The complexity of the issue: As stated earlier, chatbots are only as smart as they are programmed to be. In a situation, where customer queries fall outside the scope of its capabilities, chatbots tend to fail. It is crucial to understand customer intent and respond accordingly or suggest an alternative. But the majority of the chatbots are not programmed to understand specific scenarios. This requires human handover.

– Understanding user sentiment: It is essential to sense if the customer interaction is going the right way. It is known that “natural language process and sentiment analysis” have trained bots in a manner capable to comprehending mood of the user. At any moment, the chatbot senses “the user is edging on frustration, it can simply slip in “Chat with a human agent” as an option. The end-user can then select the option if he believes the chatbot to be incapable of solving his problem.” (Source: kommunicate)

– User preference: Chatbots are fed in data based on the possibilities of any given situation that a user might initiate. One of the ways of executing this by building up a user-driven menu. Chatbots can be trained to provide a few options to the users, which it is capable of handling and an additional option of chatting with a human agent. The human handover automatically happens if the users select the specific option.

Are chatbots here to stay?

With brands shifting to customer-driven resolution, chatbots are here to stay. Understanding the user intend continues to be the significant point of concern. This is yet to be mastered in the manner chatbots are trained based on the business jargons. The human dependency remains, but the focus should be on minimal interaction. The problem that needs immediate attention is how long can a chatbot sustain a conversation without raising the flags of hesitation or frustration. Human handover should come in only at the last stage.

There has been a dramatic change in the way brands and customers have been interacting over the past few years. With everything going digital, consumers are increasingly opting for ways to communicate that are accessible, simpler and faster. Similarly, brands are looking for opportunities that will elevate different forms of customer engagement.

Marketers no longer want to conform to the conventional forms of marketing and are always on the lookout for newer opportunities to engage with its users. After social media marketing, the shift has been to a more direct form of marketing through messaging. The shift has been gradual but now has acquired momentum with the emergence of OTT apps like WhatsApp, Facebook messenger, WeChat and more.

Chatbots as transforming customer experiences:

A chatbot is a service, fuelled by both rules and artificial intelligence. End users converse with a chatbot using a chat interface. This chat is similar to how they would talk to people in real life.

Below are the four ways chatbots are going to transform marketing and how brands are going to capitalize on this:

1. Improved engagement with customers: Engagement in online advertising is defined by clicks, likes, shares and comment. The parameters of engagement therefore remain restricted. With chatbots coming into play, customers can deep dive into real-time conversations which enables them to have an interactive experience and a better understanding of the brand when compared to the traditional form of advertising.
2. Feedback directly from users: The best practices of collecting customer feedback has been through surveys and emailer. However, the problem lies not in the amount of feedback collected but the usefulness of it. With chatbots, brands will be in a position to engage in a highly personal and interest-based conversations with the customer. This will result in collecting constructive feedback.

Trending Articles on Chatbot Marketing:

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4. Chatbot Conference in San Francisco

3. Personalized customer experiences: Brands are always looking for ways to engage with its customers. Interactions that are appealing enough to trigger responses and targeted based on their interests. With Chatbots, brands will be able to make the most out of it. Brands can filter their interests through a series of quick question and suggests relevant solutions over a short span of time to the users- something that every customer seeks out for.

4. Build brand awareness: Brand awareness through online videos ads, banner ads and billboards have been the most common and now considered traditional forms of marketing. With chatbots, marketers can go beyond the conventional forms of marketing and introduce its brand colors, stories and more in the conversations.

How can chatbots built by Kirusa add value to your business?

Kirusa provides Kirusa Konnect™, an omnichannel Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS) for enterprises that help bolster brand-customer engagement through chatbots available across RCS & OTT apps such as WhatsApp, FB Messenger, Viber, Websites and RCS.

Kirusa’s technology and connectivity to OTT messaging platforms and RCS providers and carriers, including Google, enables enterprises to build and deploy chatbots seamlessly.

Enterprises can use these chatbots to have conversations with their audience with rich media, natural language processing, and machine learning over OTT messaging apps, and the built-in Android messages app using RCS.

For more enquires, drop us an email at ipmessaging@kirusa.com

When APIs were first introduced to encapsulate business functionalities for internal end users, who would have thought that external users such as business owners, customers, or suppliers could also leverage its benefits?

Today we have the solution to integrate our web and mobile applications by working with third parties for their software.

For a long time, marketers have invested in call centers and telecallers to reach out to their customers. An elaborate system of call centers had emerged to cater to this marketing requirement of enterprises. However, now, marketers can do more with less, with the help of Voice APIs.

As per Twilio, a voice API is a tool for software developers to make and receive phone calls with a simple, easy to understand Application Protocol. Behind the scenes, a voice API bridges the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) and applications connected to the internet. By using a voice API, software developers can program voice calling into their applications without specialized telecommunications knowledge and hardware.

Using a voice API enables developers to build call logic that extends to users on any device, over any network, anywhere in the world. It also allows developers to add full VoIP functionality to apps to make and receive calls over the internet alone, without interfacing with the PSTN.

Software developers can integrate outbound and inbound voice calling into their application without the pre-requisite of gaining specialized knowledge about how a call works.

You may adopt voice APIs for any of these five use-cases:-

Payment reminder

In the banking and Insurance world, payment reminders always need a touch of politeness and personalization. Sending on-time payments is a task for every business, but one should check their text’s tone before asking the customer for payment. They have to ensure that their customers do not get flustered. It is better to send automated reminders instead.

Reminders via outbound calls can be set up for users whose insurance premium fall, for example, within the 10th of each month, using the outbound call API.

Promotions

The digital space is oversaturated with millions of ads. According to Apifonica, viewers remember only 10% of the content when it is being read.

A smarter choice is to use inbound calling tools such as a ‘snap call’ to transform your marketing campaign. By telling a customer to leave a missed call on an assigned number, you can call back those customers with the desired information about a product and service.

Travel updat­es

Planning to go on a trip? Now you can receive travel updates via a phone call! You may receive automated calls to inform you that the time of flight departure has been postponed on the day of your journey. That is known as OBD (outbound dialler).

Pre-recorded messages/audio of choice

Outbound calls playing the desired audio content can be initiated for users who have subscribed to or interested in some category of audio/voice-based services.

Make use of voice API’s to explore IVR or interactive voice response. It is a method used by enterprises to create a dialogue between the enterprise and the customer by pre-recording a voice message without having to attend to each customer manually.

Are you planning to run a marketing campaign via Voice APIs?

In that case Konnect with Kirusa!

Kirusa Konnect is an enterprise suite composed of 10+ communication channels for enterprise needs. It is an all-in-one premium messaging toolbox for your enterprise needs.

Outbound dialers (OBD) from Konnect’s CPaaS portal enable brands to leverage the power of voice, delivered programmatically to their audience.

Brands can seamlessly launch voice communication campaigns to their audience, with just a few clicks — powered by Konnect’s CPaaS portal. Additionally, with advanced customization, reporting, and analytics, brands can fine-tune their campaigns to optimize marketing ROI.

The attention of your audience is worth every penny of billions of dollars. Communication in real-time can solve half of your business problems with the help of Konnect.

By harnessing the power of voice APIs, enterprises can deliver 24/7 customer support or send essential reminders and updates with easy-to-use Konnect APIs!

Enterprise marketing campaigns often suffer from myriad challenges of database management, campaign creation, and ease of delivery to consumers. Since mobile is a ubiquitous device nowadays, it is a moot point that businesses now have to market to their consumers through mobile as well.
Service providers are increasingly introducing new and improved ways for mobile engagement to leverage the power of mobile in launching and sustaining their marketing campaigns.
CPaaS, Communication Platform as a Service, is a cloud-based communication platform to bolster audience engagement over mobile channels. With no other platform allowing cloud architecture and integration with telcos to run two-way omnichannel communication over voice, data, and rich media tools, CPaaS is clearly emerging a winner in this segment.
CPaaS allows the provision of software to integrate with SME’s existing application through APIs.

To understand how businesses can transition into this collaboration, read how CPaaS can support you in running your marketing campaigns seamlessly:

An outbound dialer (OBD) can be used to generate bulk calls to a broader audience, thus improving outreach and connectivity.
Suppose a non-government organization (NGO) wants to promote the dangers of the Ebola virus in Africa, the benefits of using OBD are tremendous as it assists in campaign management.
One can send out pre-recorded messages to the citizens of the affected region with the help of OBD to maximize prevention.

IVR, also known as interactive voice response, is a service used for handling customer queries through IVR dialogue, without the intervention of the representative.
If you are not happy with your purchase, call customer care. Press the right button pertaining to your issue. You will hear a pre-recorded message which attempts to resolve your query by further directing you on how to proceed.

Empower customer interaction with SMS tagging!
As the name suggests, SMS tagging means that service providers can roll out product information in SMS campaigns. This appears as an addendum to transaction messages appearing in your phone.

SMS marketing is still making the headlines — with good reason. No other medium of delivery reaches out to the mobile handset of all your consumers at one go.
Sending messages to thousands of people using bulk SMS is a cost-effective solution for improving brand presence. Make the most of it!

Making a Snapcall helps a consumer to leave a missed call on a company’s advertised number, thereby expressing their interest in the firm’s goods and services. Companies love this tool!

Are you planning to run a marketing campaign?

Kirusa is a global leader in communication solutions for enterprises. Their offering, Kirusa Konnect is the best omnichannel communication platform for launching robust marketing campaigns over mobile channels. Enterprises can mix and match tools to create stellar marketing campaigns.

Kirusa’s approach to innovation in Africa is unique. It has promoted Kirusa Konnect for social awareness purposes to enable enterprises to build connectivity where it was not possible. Companies in Africa are thrilled with this enterprise suite and are making the most of it!