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Rakuten Viber / 8x8 webinar

<p><i>(Original version published on the </i><a href="https://www.8x8.com/blog/speak-the-language-of-customers" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow"><i>8x8 blog</i></a><i>, October 2021)</i></p><p><a href="https://www.8x8.com/events/fy22q2-hook-customers-with-human-experience-in-a-digital-world" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">8x8's webinar</a> "How to Hook Customers with a More Human Experience in a Digital World" took place on September 30 and among the speakers who discussed business growth in the era of mass digitalization was our Senior Director of Business Messaging Solutions Etienne Dupont who shared Viber's experience as one of the world’s most popular messaging apps.</p><p>While acknowledging that it is indeed difficult, the webinar panel mused over how businesses can use chat apps to maintain quality service at any time of day. Chat apps like Viber not only allow free-flowing human conversation, but they also provide rich content that people can relate to in the form of videos and emojis. With consumers spending more and more time on their devices, it absolutely makes sense for businesses to get in on the action.</p><p>The panel agreed that to keep customers coming back, frictionless customer care is a must-have and chat apps make this possible.</p><p>The icing on the cake is that chat apps are also a cost-effective option. With apps like Viber, companies can reach out to new audiences, and communicate better with their existing customers, in a native environment. It’s possible to send targeted offers and promotions that turn prospects into paying customers, and then gain their loyalty over time by building deeper relationships. While the future ahead is indeed uncertain, all signs indicate that chat apps will only get bigger and better in the business world.</p><p>Of course, live service staff will always be required to do the heavy lifting—especially for high priority tasks and emergencies. In that sense, chat apps have been proven to be useful during interim periods, working symbiotically with service agents to keep customers informed.</p><p>Register to watch back the webinar <a href="https://8x8.hubs.vidyard.com/watch/nnUxxTLSzJAAPgsJC33UpG?" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">here</a> and be sure to <a href="https://b2b.viber.com/newsletter-opt-in" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">sign up to our newsletter</a> to receive future event updates.</p>

Get the low down from our recent webinar with 8x8 

Event recap: Rakuten Viber / 8x8 webinar

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Event recap: RESHAPE

<p><a href="https://reshapesummit.com/">RESHAPE</a>, the world's largest leadership and experience virtual summit took place on September 15 - 16 2021 and Rakuten Viber's Chief Growth Officer Anna Znamenskaya held a panel delving into customer experience and brand engagement in the time of information overload of the post-COVID world. In her Impact session, she shared what matters most to the audiences in order to stay loyal to brands.&nbsp;</p><p>The second edition of the event brought together a community of 10K+ attendees and over 100 top names from world-famous companies such as IKEA, Unilever, Google, Rakuten Viber, Booking.com, Pepsico, HSBC, and many more, along with the star speaker, the 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama.</p><p>Together with her guest speakers ​​Enric Llopart, Digital Director at FC Barcelona, and Edward Partridge, Senior Corporate Partnership Manager at WWF they agreed that the COVID-19 pandemic has significantly accelerated the transition to digital channels and increased users’ demand for personalized content with interactive opportunities. Both FC Barcelona and WWF are long-standing champions of digital communications, and Viber long-term partners. They have fully utilized the power of social engagement on the platform by launching their branded stickers to either convert users to engage with chatbots or join communities, where both the products offer various engaging features. Chatbots, for example, could be utilized for personalized quizzes, games, and donations, while communities are a fruitful channel for getting a message out loud and promoting the user to join a cause, get the latest news or learn more about a topic, such as wild tigers preservation.&nbsp;</p><p>Get your doing-digital in a post-covid world black belt and learn how to break through information clutter by watching Anna's panel below.</p><figure class="media"><oembed url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGS_ORBCgbw"></oembed></figure><p><i>Be sure to </i><a href="https://b2b.viber.com/newsletter-opt-in"><i>sign up to the Viber for Business newsletter </i></a><i>to receive future event updates and visit our </i><a href="https://www.forbusiness.viber.com/en/blog/"><i>blog</i></a><i> for knowledge, news, and more.</i></p>

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Viber Business Messages vs. SMS: Which is better for you?

<p><i>According to </i><a href="https://www.outerboxdesign.com/web-design-articles/mobile-ecommerce-statistics" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow"><i>Mobile eCommerce statistics</i></a><i>, more than three quarters of mobile phone users have bought products through their phones in 2021. The numbers clearly show that businesses need to upscale their mobile marketing strategies and communicate with customers through their mobile devices.&nbsp;</i></p><h2 style="text-align:justify;"><strong>Trends in messenger and SMS marketing&nbsp;</strong></h2><p style="text-align:justify;">Every business has to send information to their clients from time to time. From notifying them about deliveries, changes in the status of an order, providing special offers or informing about upcoming appointments. Simultaneously, businesses face the challenge of building a mutually beneficial communication with their clients - informative for the customer and effective for the business. Traditional formats, including emails and SMS, may simply go unnoticed. In order to elevate communication with a client base, businesses can turn to a channel that their clients use most often – messaging apps.</p><p style="text-align:justify;">One of the main tendencies of recent years is being closer to your customers and communicating with them at their convenience. Users prefer to keep all the correspondence in a single app where they spend most of their time. <a href="https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170214005027/en/Organizations-Wasting-Billions-Customer-Loyalty-Programs-Don%E2%80%99t" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">According a study by Accenture</a>, 81% of people are more loyal to brands that communicate with them through their preferred communication channels.</p><p style="text-align:justify;">The demand for personalised, non-intrusive communication is something that companies should keep in mind. Users want to have control over their interactions with businesses: to have an opportunity to start and end the conversation, solve their issues in a chat with a brand and receive relevant information that targets their specific interests.</p><p style="text-align:justify;">Business messaging is a relatively new solution for brands to share important information with their customers - a natural evolution of SMS with an extended set of features. At the outset of SMS marketing, bulk messaging was a more appealing solution for user engagement, however with changes of consumption of technology and information they have become&nbsp; more selective. From all the brands they interact with, customers tend to choose the ones that can build mutual communication with them and accept their feedback. Gradually, messenger marketing has developed from a one-way communication channel (where only brands can send information to clients without an option for clients to send a response), to two-way conversations (dialogues) with clients - an even more beneficial solution for businesses.</p><h3 style="text-align:justify;"><strong>Why you need an official Viber business account&nbsp;</strong></h3><p style="text-align:justify;">Brands around the world see the advantages of personalised messaging and prefer to communicate with their clients through messaging apps. Banks, retailers, delivery services and many businesses of different industries, regions and sizes can use business messages in their mobile marketing strategies.</p><p style="text-align:justify;">It is important to show your customers that they can trust your business messages. For this reason, Viber Business Messages are sent only to those people who are part of the company's client base and have given their consent to receive notifications from the brand, for example, when filling out a loyalty program form or when making an online order. At the same time, users can easily check whether the brand is verified – official business accounts have a "blue tick" near their name.</p><p style="text-align:justify;">The "Blue tick" shows that the account has been verified by the Viber team and guarantees authenticity. In addition, an <a href="https://www.forbusiness.viber.com/en/blog/post/how-to-open-a-viber-business-account/">official Viber business account</a> may include information about the brand, logo, address and phone number. In the first message from the brand, customers can see the reason why they were sent a message, the sender's name and the message context even before they open it, thanks to the Overlay feature - a pop-up window on top of the business message. This means users can decide whether they want to interact or refuse receive notifications from the brand. There is the option to adjust these settings at any point during the conversation.</p><p style="text-align:justify;">Apart from convenient brand verification, Viber also provides businesses and users secure communication enabled by end-to-end encryption of private chats and calls, as well as encryption in transit for Business Messages. Viber does not store messages on servers and uses only a secure HTTPS connection - all designed for safe and secure communication between brands and users.</p><figure class="image"><img src="https://env-stage-hosting.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/Why_Viber_Business_Messages_are_better_than_SMS_Linkedin_4fddd9cebd.png"></figure><h3 style="text-align:justify;"><strong>Benefits of Viber Business Messages</strong></h3><p style="text-align:justify;">Business Messages are not only a native, secure and bilateral way of brand communication, but unlike regular SMS, they are also an efficient and cost-effective channel with a wide set of analytical tools.</p><h4 style="text-align:justify;"><strong>Interactive Viber marketing</strong></h4><p style="text-align:justify;">While an SMS is a short text of up to 160 characters and, sometimes, a link, <a href="https://www.forbusiness.viber.com/en/messaging-solutions/">Viber Business Messages</a> are a format that significantly expands the possibilities of interaction with customers. They can contain text of up to 1000 characters, images, a link, and various types of files including instructions, warranty cards, etc. For example, brands can send invoices to customers, discuss the terms of the order, and solve customer queries, including receiving photos or videos from them, all in one chat.</p><h4 style="text-align:justify;"><strong>Fair Viber business pricing</strong></h4><p style="text-align:justify;">Apart from being convenient for customers, Business Messages are also cost-effective for businesses: brands only pay for Business Messages that have been delivered rather than just sent ones. In addition, brands can save their budget and deliver time-sensitive messages by setting TTL (Time To Live) – the maximum period of time to deliver a message before it is canceled or redirected to another channel. For example, if a sender sets TTL for 1 hour, the messages that are not consumed within this time frame will expire. With TTL on Viber, a company won’t pay for a message that doesn’t reach a user in a limited time frame and ultimately save money.</p><h4 style="text-align:justify;"><strong>SMS fallback for important messages</strong></h4><p style="text-align:justify;">If a brand’s customers don't have internet access or the Viber app installed, they can still receive important and urgent messages with SMS fallback (using SMS as a backup option - delivering a message via SMS if delivery on Viber has failed). Brands can be confident that, if needed, all of their customers will get key notifications, for example, a one-time password or about financial transaction information via SMS.</p><h4 style="text-align:justify;"><strong>Real-time analytics for your messenger marketing strategy</strong></h4><p style="text-align:justify;">Companies can access a report on customer interaction with Business Messages in real time. They can see the status of the message: whether it was delivered, received, or failed. They also have access to detailed statistics, including open and click rates, which can be taken into account while adjusting mobile marketing strategy, segmenting the audience and personalizing communication with customers.</p><h4 style="text-align:justify;"><strong>Integration with CRM</strong></h4><p style="text-align:justify;">Brands can easily integrate their CRM system with Viber Business Messages to save customer interaction history, analyze behavior and send useful and relevant personalized messages.</p><figure class="image"><img src="https://env-stage-hosting.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/Different_types_of_Viber_Business_Messages_85a26f3dfe.png"><figcaption><i>The different types of Viber Business Messages</i></figcaption></figure><h3 style="text-align:justify;"><strong>How to maximize effectiveness of your business messages&nbsp;</strong></h3><p style="text-align:justify;">Of course, not every business message sent through a messaging app will have the same impact. Here are some tips that will help you to effectively interact with your users, achieve your business goals and retain customers:</p><ul><li><strong>Personalize your messages.</strong> According to <a href="https://smarterhq.com/privacy-report" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">SmarterHQ's "Privacy &amp; Personalization"</a> study, 72% of users want to receive individual offers from businesses, and messenger marketing allows that. You can do bulk messaging hoping it will resonate with your audience (aka "Spray and Pray" marketing), or you can use a messaging app connected to your CRM system to target specific audiences. The second approach will help you to communicate with your audience in a more meaningful way, as well as to achieve higher conversion rates and excellent marketing results.</li><li><strong>Speak your customers’ language </strong>- adopt a communication style that matches your customers’ needs. Messaging apps are a space for personal communication, therefore you can afford to be more informal in your conversations with customers. You can not only adjust your tone of voice depending on your customer’s age or interests, but also change it based on their mood during the real-time communication. This approach will make your conversations with customers more engaging and elevate your messenger marketing.</li><li><strong>Endorse conversations and stay in touch after the purchase.</strong> According to <a href="https://www.salesforce.com/au/blog/2019/03/-real-time-engagement--marketers---1-priority-and-challenge.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Salesforce</a>, 71% of users want to communicate with companies in real time. Chatting with the customers in a messaging app allows businesses to instantly respond to requests and increase so-called CLV (“customer lifetime value”). Furthermore, such communication makes it easier for companies to provide services and helps consumers to receive a better service. With real-time customer support you can get instant feedback and show your customers that they are valued. Just because people aren't in a physical store, it doesn't mean they should miss out on the experience that only a sales assistant can offer.</li><li><strong>Integrate with your CRM and keep your customer database updated.</strong> You can access your customer’s history by integrating Viber Business Messages with your CRM. This way you will have the opportunity to follow your customer’s journey, see what parts of your business they are most interested in and modify your marketing efforts accordingly. With the ability to track real interests of your customers, you can send truly personalised messages and create a natural end-to-end user experience.</li></ul><p style="text-align:justify;">Business messaging allows you to start communication with users on a platform where they spend most of their time, maintain an informal tone of conversation and solve all important issues in a single conversation. Detailed analytics, interactivity of business messages and easy integration with CRM help brands to segment their audiences and personalize their messages. Companies around the world are already benefiting from the rich set of features, security and cost efficiency of business messages. If you want to keep your brand relevant and interesting to your clients, you can integrate Viber for Business solutions into your marketing strategy and enjoy advantages you can get from two-way conversation with customers.</p><p style="text-align:justify;">Do not hesitate to <a href="https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?fs=1&amp;tf=cm&amp;source=mailto&amp;to=messaging@forbusiness.viber.com">contact us </a>to learn how to use Viber for Business services to benefit your business.</p>

How to improve your mobile marketing strategy with Viber Business Messages

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How to manage and benefit from your Viber Community

<h2>Managing a Viber Community for global audiences</h2><p>In August 2019, Viber partnered with Australian tennis influencer Samuel Begg (<a href="https://www.instagram.com/samuelbegg/?hl=en">@samuelbegg</a>) to launch the Global Tennis Community on Viber. While covering tennis news across the world and allowing users to go behind the scenes of their favorite sport, an exclusive Viber Community has grown to over 685,000 tennis fan followers over the past two years. Success that came from a well thought-through content strategy, engaging campaigns and effective moderation which shows the benefits that can be achieved with a messaging app community. We caught up with Samuel below to discuss the journey of the GTC, what he has learned about Viber Communities and what tips he has for online community managers.</p><h3>What are the advantages of communities in messaging apps?</h3><p>Viber Communities are convenient both for users and creators. On a messaging app, you can send messages to all community members at once and gather fans together. It gives you an unmatched opportunity to establish one-to-many communication. At the same time, people can access information anytime and anywhere on a mobile device. My ability to also utilize the desktop version of the app has been a huge bonus in terms of time management - allowing me to easily add exclusive content or videos directly from my laptop to the Viber GTC.</p><p>Another benefit is a wide variety of available content. You can animate your community with news, updates, polls, and quizzes. Fans love new info about their passion subject and appreciate creative posts. What is more, they enjoy sharing ideas. Considering this, having different tools to entertain fans allows for a more engaging tennis fan experience.</p><p>In communities, fans can react to messages with likes, emoticons, and shares. It's an excellent feature, as you can see and respond to their thoughts, expectations, and feelings. It makes communication with your audience easier and more valuable, allowing me to adjust my content strategy to be more in line with what GTC tennis fans enjoy most.</p><p>Throughout my time working on the GTC, I also learned the importance of utilising relevant emojis (eg. tennis ball or country flags) to enhance the “eye catching” aspect of text copy. This strategy contributes to achieving higher engagement and keeping the feed aesthetically pleasing to followers.</p><h3>What is the value of the Global Tennis Community on Viber for its subscribers? Did GTC geography expand on the messaging app?</h3><p>The Global Tennis Community and I partnered with Viber in 2019, with the aim to deliver tennis news, videos, and discussion to fans around the world. The purpose of the community was to bring people who love tennis together, no matter who or where they are. Viber, with a diverse user base all over the world, was the perfect platform to embody this idea. Now, the Global Tennis Community has over 685k subscribers on a messaging app, with people worldwide gaining equal access to their favorite players’ routines and updates. We have engaged members from different countries and continents. Fans from Russia, Greece, Serbia, France, the Philippines, and many other countries now get together. As an already established social media tennis influencer with over 200k combined followers on other platforms, it was a hugely exciting opportunity to partner with Viber and assist them in launching, promoting and managing a new tennis focussed community on their platform. As a tennis influencer, I also was able to extend the “reach” of the GTC to countries such as Australia and the USA which assisted making our Viber Community truly global.</p><p>In a community like the GTC, every follower counts. Imagine, people can talk to their friends, and check the news about their favorite sport all in one place. This way of communication is deeply personal and puts the audience at the center – Community members can enjoy natural conversations and share information with people they love.</p><h3>How do you manage such a huge fanbase? What are the tips for Viber Сommunity management and keeping the Community feed interesting and entertaining? &nbsp;</h3><p>Viber Communities have clear and powerful managing features. There are two moderation types to allow different access levels: superadmins and admins. For example, I am the superadmin and have ultimate control over the chat. It means I can post and pin messages, add, ban or block other members, decide if they can take part in conversations, or invite new members. I use these tools to moderate the chat and keep the feed relevant to the participants.</p><p>You can also grow your Viber Community by enabling a share link or revoking the link at any time, as well as assigning admins among Community members, which I do during the live chats. In these live chats, 10-15 lucky GTC followers become admins on a random basis and take part in a live conversation. Admins can boost engagement in the Community this way, creating loyalty to your niche and also keeping users returning to the Viber app in the process.</p><p>Additionally, you should take advantage of the diverse content formats offered in Viber Communities. I make sure to post at least twice a day and update fans with news, polls, player practice videos, memes, and jokes. During the Adelaide Davis Cup Qualifier, GTC crafted an immersive experience for fans. I made video tours of the grounds, daily live previews of actions and matches to plunge fans into the event. Also, I covered players' press conferences and practice footage to advance the experience. You can create a content plan and stick to it to keep your feed structured and consistent. Remember to alternate between static visuals, videos, news, learning modules, and entertaining content.</p><p>In my experience, another important strategy I’ve learned in Viber communities, is the value of allowing “high traction” or “important” posts to stay at the top of feed for a minimum of 12 hours - this technique allows for a higher number of followers to see the key post, instead of it being overlooked amongst our other engaging GTC content. A prime example of this would be the Tennis Tip Tuesday segment or one of our Wilson giveaway posts which we wanted to achieve maximum traction.</p><figure class="image"><img src="https://env-stage-hosting.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/GTC_Viber_Community_content_exampes_b5493b294d.png"><figcaption><i>Different content formats in Global Tennis Community on Viber</i></figcaption></figure><h3>What can admins do to better engage the audience of the communities?</h3><p>You can capture audiences with competitions and giveaways. People love participating in competitions, and the opportunity of winning a quality prize will inspire them to engage. In fact, giveaways are among the top-performing content in our Viber community. We arrange 1 valuable giveaway each month and see an increasing engagement of fans. You can gift not only products but also experiences to people. I welcomed 12 GTC prize winners to the Davis Cup Qualifier by Rakuten in Adelaide. What better reward for a sports fan than going to the grounds of a prestigious tennis event? User contests such as these can drive activity in communities and also attract new audiences to the platform.</p><h3>How do you raise awareness about the Viber Community and attract new members?</h3><p>There are a lot of <a href="https://www.forbusiness.viber.com/en/marketing-solutions/">Viber Advertising features</a> for community promotion. These tools attract new members within the messaging app in a non-intrusive way and you can choose how to advertise on Viber. You can place your advertisement in a native environment of a user, such as Viber Chats or Viber Calls lists or many other options. We promoted GTC with such Viber Advertising solutions as Explore Screen banners and Sticker packs.</p><p>Explore Screen is a perfect place to draw a new audience because people visit Viber Explore to find new brands and content. It means users are already open to new experiences.</p><figure class="image"><img src="https://env-stage-hosting.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/unnamed_89d3d8d78b.png"><figcaption><i>Global Tennis Community advertising through Viber Explore Screen and Viber Stickers</i></figcaption></figure><p>Fans also love Sticker packs! Viber Stickers are fun, interactive, and help people express feelings. We've had over 1.5M messages sent with branded Viber Stickers which raised awareness about the chat. The stickers we planned out together intermixed tennis themes, with “relatable” messages which can be used in everyday conversation on the Viber platform. A classic example of this would be the “Hey Mate” and “Thank you” GTC stickers which are universally applicable for everyone, not just tennis fans!</p><p>Additionally, a powerful tool has been to promote the Global Tennis Community on Viber through my own Samuel Begg (<a href="https://www.instagram.com/samuelbegg/?hl=en">@samuelbegg</a>) and Hit With Me (<a href="https://www.instagram.com/hitwithme/?hl=en">@hitwithme</a>) social media channels to elevate the game of the GTC. Influencing through external channels adds to the recognition of the brand and in the case of the GTC, allowed for us to establish instant credibility and trust from users to join this new communities’ journey. You can advance your promotion this way. For example, I shared glimpses of our community content to spread the word about GTC on Viber. An example of this would be the “Swipe Up” feature on Instagram which allows me to create a call-to-action and directly lead my followers to the Viber app content.</p><figure class="image"><img src="https://env-stage-hosting.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/Samuel_Begg_s_Social_Media_Promotion_fd8967d0b0.png"><figcaption><i>External promotion of Viber Community through Samuel Begg’s Instagram stories</i></figcaption></figure><h3>You’ve mentioned Viber Sticker packs, what do you think about this promotional tool? How effective are branded stickers in attracting audiences?</h3><p>Sticker packs are an attractive and fun way to increase Community awareness. It is true that fans enjoy showing emotions with branded images. On average, one user shares each sticker 11 times. Besides, you can use Stickers to target the audience and grow your following. People can download branded stickers for free and automatically subscribe to your community - this is a really cool Viber Advertising tool to attract an engaged audience.</p><p>GTC launched two branded Viber Sticker packs with over 1.9M downloads. Fans from all over the world downloaded and shared with friends stickers that were sent over 5.5M times. It helped to strengthen and brand GTC on Viber. With stickers, you can animate your communication with the Viber Community and increase interactivity. Tennis fans have definitely appreciated the creativeness of curated Viber Sticker packs which are tailored to their passion!</p><figure class="image"><img src="https://env-stage-hosting.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/Samuel_Begg_GTC_6ea87bca7b.png"></figure><h3>You have a very engaged and specific audience – many brands are seeking to have direct access to such communities. Have you ever thought about brand collaborations? What are the potential formats for brand integration?</h3><p>Yes, indeed, we had successful partnerships with various brands. Our Viber Community is a natural platform for such promotions. Communities unite people around a certain topic, cause, or passion. Businesses can use it to discover a specific audience for their product placement. There is a higher chance of finding users interested in your services this way. It's a win-win game!</p><p>For instance, we collaborated with Wilson for the majority of giveaway contests. Wilson is a famous sports equipment manufacturer, so our fans were excited for the opportunity to win world class prizes. For our partner, it was a chance to showcase their products to their target audience of over half a million people. GTC on Viber has a wide geography, so Wilson had the opportunity to enter foreign markets. It means the company had direct access to targeted consumers from all over the world. Sponsors can also promote their brand image by collaborating with devoted communities. We also had the pleasure to giveaway several Luxilon Tennis products, the tennis string brand used by legends of the sport such as Roger Federer and Serena Williams.</p><p>Of course, there are a variety of other options that can be created for specific brand needs: events promotion, sponsorship of selected topics, branding of visuals, and many more.</p><h3>Name your top 3 recommendations for those who want to launch a community on a messaging app?</h3><p>First of all, define your content strategy and find admins that will share your passion for the topic of your community. You should aspire to captivate and entertain your followers with your posts. Then, <a href="https://www.forbusiness.viber.com/en/viber-for-business/">attract new audiences and keep people engaged</a> with promotional tools. Features like Sticker packs will strengthen your brand and draw members to your community. Finally, find the right partners to collaborate with and benefit from the win-win synergy. Desirable global brands in your community will make your followers happy to participate in your activities and giveaways.</p><p><i>There are many ways to raise brand awareness and help you communicate with your audience in a better, more meaningful way. If you want to get the most out of your Viber experience, you can </i><a href="https://www.forbusiness.viber.com/en/viber-for-business/"><i>learn more and contact us</i></a><i> for information on how Viber can help your brand grow, gain better visibility and attract new audiences with Viber Advertising and Stickers.</i></p><p>&nbsp;</p>

Tennis influencer Samuel Begg explains effective management of Global Tennis Community on Viber


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Event recap: International Telecoms Week 2021

<p>Capacity Media's International Telecoms Week event took place 29 August – 1 September and Viber's Senior Director of Business Messaging Solutions Etienne Dupont was featured on the panel "Accelerating RCS &amp; adapting to omnichannel approaches".</p><p>Rich messaging has had a challenging year and the industry is divided on OS lines. The panel discussed the hurdles still to be overcome, how to change mindsets to get off the ground as well as the trend for enterprises to adopt an omnichannel approach to maximise messaging reach according to recipient preferences and technical capabilities.</p><p>You can watch back the panel below. Be sure to <a href="https://b2b.viber.com/newsletter-opt-in">sign up to the Viber for Business newsletter </a>to receive future event updates and visit <a href="https://forbusiness.viber.com/en/blog">our blog </a>for knowledge, news and more.</p><figure class="media"><oembed url="https://youtu.be/Qh8DU0o_Py0"></oembed></figure>

Get the low down from Capacity's International Telecoms Week

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MEF Changing Dynamics In Business Messaging

<p><i>(Original version published on the </i><a href="https://mobileecosystemforum.com/2021/08/13/the-changing-dynamics-in-business-messaging/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow"><i>Mobile Ecosystem Forum</i></a><i> blog, August 2021)</i></p><p>The <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/mobile-ecosystem-forum/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Mobile Ecosystem Forum</a> webinar "The Changing Dynamics in Business Messaging" took place on the 22nd of July 2021 and our Senior Partnerships Account Director Noa Bar Shay was invited as a speaker to discuss how the business messaging landscape continues to evolve.</p><p>From MEF Director of Programmes James Williams:</p><p>Rakuten Viber was the first chat app out of the gate with a <a href="https://www.forbusiness.viber.com/en/messaging-solutions/">business messaging proposition</a> and is also very busy in the areas of SMS and voice and here’s what Noa Bar-Shay had to say: “The Messaging Ecosystem has already made a huge step forward in its development. <a href="https://www.forbusiness.viber.com/en/blog/post/product-evolution-business-messages/">Business messages have played an important role</a> in this evolution and continue developing the industry.</p><p>Despite this, we are all still in a process of self-improvement, the big value being that all the industry players can learn from each other and therefore make the ecosystem bigger and stronger. External circumstances also play a significant role in <a href="https://www.forbusiness.viber.com/en/blog/post/vibers-10th-anniversary/">the evolution of the Messaging Ecosystem.</a> E.g., the pandemic has accelerated the industry to a much higher degree than anyone would have expected – progress that would normally take five or six years was achieved in just five to six months.</p><p>Since it works anywhere and everywhere without the need for internet access, SMS technology will keep its important position in the Messaging Ecosystem, however, messaging apps will continue taking over the market share. Especially with the constant growth of <a href="https://www.forbusiness.viber.com/en/blog/post/4-ways-to-boost-customer-loyalty-through-conversational-ui/">conversational commerce</a> since chat apps provide a native environment for rich communication between users and brands. Together with other industry technologies, SMS has to move to transformation in order to be up to date and meet customers and business needs”.</p><p>So, there we have it from a chat app company – SMS is a long way from being dead when it comes to Business Messaging!</p><p>The variety of speakers gave some great perspective and coming from Nadir Patel who has a lot on his plate at Omantel was: “We all agree that the messaging ecosystem players have made efforts thus far, there is no doubt that there is a lot to work to be done on in order to for us to meet the enterprise customer requirements and expectations. Stakeholders need to collaborate and cooperate right from the MNOs, platform providers, aggregators, security experts, and last but not the least, the Regulatory bodies.”</p><p>You can watch the Viber highlights here:</p><figure class="media"><oembed url="https://youtu.be/9IOHc2yQXzk"></oembed></figure><p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>

Get the low down from the MEF Changing Dynamics in Business Messaging event 


Event recap: MEF The Changing Dynamics In Business Messaging

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Mobile marketing strategy 101

<p>The number of mobile users has skyrocketed in recent years: according to <a href="https://datareportal.com/global-digital-overview" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">DataReportal</a>, there are more than 5.2 billion mobile internet users worldwide – that’s two thirds of the global population. Recent events have helped fuel the growth of mobile: during the pandemic, 70% of users said they used their devices more, while during the same period of 2020-2021, the number of unique mobile users grew by more than 90 million. The message to marketers is clear – if you want to reach consumers, do it through their phones.</p><p>But how? In this article, we’ll take you through some mobile marketing strategy fundamentals to get you started, so you can reach your target audience and grow your business. Because a conversion is only ever a tap away.</p><h2>The importance of mobile marketing strategy</h2><p>We take our phones everywhere – to the shops, to bed, and yes, even to the bathroom. This is an amazing opportunity for a business – how else can you instantly reach a consumer during 99% of their waking hours?</p><p>Add in all the tech tools that smartphones allow, and you’ve got the 21st century way to reach your customers.</p><h3>What is mobile marketing?</h3><p>Mobile marketing is promotional activity that leverages digital, social, and other channels to reach audiences on their smartphones or tablets. Mobile marketing not only helps businesses reach potential clients, it also provides a framework for valuable customer care interactions like chatbots, user feedback, after-sales care and user reviews.</p><h3>What is a mobile marketing strategy?</h3><p>A mobile marketing strategy is a cross-media, digital marketing strategy to reach users on their mobile phones or tablets. Which channels or types of content to use depends on the audiences you aim to target and your goal for targeting them.</p><p>Let’s take a look at different mobile marketing strategies you can use.</p><h4>In-app advertising</h4><p>When you unlock your phone, what is the first thing you load? That’s right, an app. According to <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2015/06/22/consumers-spend-85-of-time-on-smartphones-in-apps-but-only-5-apps-see-heavy-use/?guccounter=1&amp;guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&amp;guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAIm6vklDlhDOCh-vLTrL-7_ByJVuiqrdBEjJkY5p7_gpw3HkL9iEm5GP48TGB1mJvUTDI8SuH4mYEAcj3JKI598pk0C2yT67mn1oh-7rHTS5jybGAYAzHwYHobQ-8bmBNQeD9YiGZ-h3UyBmuYSSnlaj-yDgVjCPcHiyMLtIWnHK" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">TechCrunch</a>, consumers spend 85% of their smartphone time in apps. And 77% spend most of their time in their top three apps (with messaging apps among them), which gives great insights as to where marketers should concentrate their marketing budget with in-app advertising.</p><p>In-app advertising comes in a variety of formats:</p><ul><li>Display advertising: banners / MPUs</li><li>Native advertising: promotions customized to look like the app in which they appear</li><li>Video ads – instream/outstream video, or rewarded video (where watching the video ‘rewards’ the user, say with an extra life in an app game)</li></ul><p>In-app advertising is a great mobile marketing strategy to reach target audiences and capture their attention.</p><h4>Social media marketing</h4><p>Social media is one of the most popular uses of a smartphone – social network platforms <a href="https://backlinko.com/social-media-users" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">almost tripled</a> their total user base in the last decade, from 970 million in 2010 to over 3.81 billion users in 2020. Hence social media should be high on your priority list when devising a mobile marketing strategy.</p><p>But it’s not just about sheer reach. The nature of social media – with comments and direct messages (DMs) – makes it easy to create an intimate, personal connection with your customers, and you can show your customer referrals and recommendations to advance your business image Whether someone has had a good or bad customer experience, they are sure to share it on social media!</p><p>Though some companies choose to focus on organic social media posts, it’s increasingly common to use social media advertising to reach the right customers. Some options include:</p><ul><li>Facebook ads, or boosted (i.e. promoted) posts</li><li>Promoted tweets on Twitter</li><li>Shoppable or promoted pins on Pinterest</li><li>LinkedIn ads or promoted posts</li></ul><p>This mobile marketing strategy lets you build an audience using demographic information, and define your campaign’s goals, budget and how long it will last.</p><h4>SMS marketing</h4><p>SMS or text marketing sends customers business-related messages via the medium of text message. This messaging can include promotional information about products or services.</p><p>Text messages don’t rely on mobile internet, so they can reach consumers in more far-flung locations. It also comes as default on all phones, so is easy to use with no software to install.</p><p>But SMS have a character limit, and come with a high cost, to both send and sometimes to receive. They also lack more advanced features like multimedia and rich text. For those, you need SMS’s natural evolution, which is messaging apps…</p><h4>Messenger marketing</h4><p>Messenger marketing is similar to text marketing, but uses mobile chat apps instead of SMS to connect with customers. It leverages mobile messaging platforms such as Viber, Facebook, WhatsApp, or WeChat to create a seamless, native experience that is often no different to messaging a friend. Depending on the messaging app capabilities, this can be, for example, business messages with personalised offerings to your existing customers or chatbots that help you to attract and grow a new audience.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p><p>Connecting with customers through a messaging app is cheaper, as it avoids the maintenance costs of using your own app. And it’s more effective, as you’re meeting customers on a platform where they are already active.</p><h4>Email marketing</h4><p>Half of all email opens happen on mobile devices, so if you’re pursuing an email marketing strategy, your emails need to be optimised for mobile. Emails not optimised for mobile (i.e. not incorporated into your mobile marketing strategy) will be harder to read on a mobile device, and can sacrifice functionality like gifs and web links.</p><h4>Mobile search</h4><p>Mobile search refers to searching for information using search engines accessed through a mobile device. As more people access Google on their phone than their desktop (61%, according to <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/275814/mobile-share-of-organic-search-engine-visits/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Statista</a>), you’ll need to optimize your Google Ads for mobile search. This will help you reach the majority of searchers who aren’t using a desktop computer.</p><figure class="image"><img src="https://env-stage-hosting.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/Jean_Marc_Alomassor_Advertising_Director_at_Rakuten_Viberpng_cc374591b7.png"></figure><p>&nbsp;</p><h3>Benefits of Mobile Marketing</h3><p>Mobile marketing has many benefits, including its sheer scale and reach, and measurable results that tell you more about your audience.</p><h4>1. Takes your brand truly global</h4><p>Not only does mobile marketing let you reach customers all over the world, you can choose exactly who to reach based on demographic preferences for your ideal audience (think age, income, location, and so on).</p><p>You can even target users based on more sophisticated metrics like interests, hobbies, purchasing behaviour, and more. That way, you can really laser in on your target audience.</p><p>If you don’t know exactly who your customers are, mobile marketing will help you find out – just start with a broad brush mobile marketing strategy and refine it as you go. Once you have found your audience, focus on them to maximise your return on investment (ROI). But don’t stop testing and optimising your mobile marketing campaigns for better results – the job is never quite done!</p><h4>2. Mobile in-app advertising has better performance than other platforms</h4><p>Mobile click-through rates are usually higher compared to tablets and desktop computers. And the more clicks an ad gets, the greater the chance of making a sale.</p><h4>3. Easy to track results</h4><p>Mobile marketing lets you track a campaign’s performance to quantify how successful your mobile marketing strategy was and refine it to make it more accurate, relevant and adaptive. This lets your business react instantly to trends and events.</p><h4>4. More personalized communications</h4><p>People check their phones constantly, generating lots of user data which allows marketers to serve their customers with personalized content designed to appeal to their tastes. This feeds back into creating an even more intimate experience, as customers feel like the brands really understand what they want.</p><h4>5. Cost-effective</h4><p>A mobile marketing strategy is actually cheaper than most traditional marketing techniques. Optimizing your website for mobile use or sending marketing communications via messaging apps is a lot more affordable than you might think – good news for small businesses without big budgets.</p><p>Campaign elements for mobile also have to contain less information, forcing you to distill the content to its essential components. That makes your marketing simpler, to-the-point, and hence more effective.</p><h4>6. Diversification of formats</h4><p>As well as the classic formats there are more advanced ad formats available in mobile marketing, such as rewarded video, playable ads, in-play ads, and AR advertising.&nbsp;</p><h4>7. Location-based mobile marketing</h4><p>Marketers can leverage the always-connected nature of smartphones to devise a mobile marketing strategy that targets customers based on their location, making the ads more relevant to the user.&nbsp;</p><p>Imagine if you received a digital coupon for a clothes store that you had just walked past. Wouldn’t you be tempted to pop in?</p><p>Geofencing sets a virtual fence around your business, and triggers coupons or other offers when a device enters your predesignated area (a shopping mall, say). This is known as hyperlocal targeting. You can even set your virtual fence around a rival business to steer customers away from it and towards yours (what’s known as geo-conquesting). Sneaky.</p><h4>8. Better tracking solutions available for marketers</h4><p>Mobile marketing throws up all kinds of metrics to show how your campaigns are performing. The main ones are:</p><ul><li>Cost Per Acquisition (CPA): How much it costs to acquire (or convert) a user into a paying customer</li><li>Lifetime Value (LTV): Sometimes called Customer Lifetime Value (CLV), this is the amount of revenue created by a user over their lifetime</li><li>Average Order Value (AOV): The amount a user spends per transaction</li><li>User engagement: How active users are with your brand once they have downloaded your app or otherwise engaged with your business somehow</li></ul><p>It is much cheaper to retain existing customers than to acquire new ones, so make sure your mobile marketing strategy looks after your customers and they will reward you by staying loyal.</p><h3>Mobile Marketing Examples</h3><p>You can learn from all sorts of brands how to create an effective mobile marketing campaign. Here are some examples.</p><h4>Coca-Cola Easter messenger marketing campaign</h4><p>On the eve of Easter in Eastern Europe, Coca-Cola decided to engage users in a fun and interactive way. It devised a lively animated game called<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9MOlK-NQZE"> Easter Egg Fighter within Viber messenger</a>. It follows the Eastern European tradition: a coloured Easter egg fight, in which only the toughest eggs survive. Users could play with their family and friends no matter where they were.</p><p>To attract more people to the game launched within the Coca-Cola chatbot, they used a complex marketing campaign on Viber: creative Sticker pack with free downloading that led new users subscribe to the chatbot promotion among members of the Coca-Cola Community on Viber to increase involvement personalised outbound messages for existing chatbot subscribers to engage them in the game</p><p>The campaign lasted three months. In only three weeks in Bulgaria, it saw impressive results: 350,000 user interactions, an average play time of over five-and-a-half minutes, and over 188,000 total played minutes. Chatbot subscribers also shot up by 30%, and there were over 63,000 sticker pack downloads.&nbsp;</p><figure class="media"><oembed url="https://youtu.be/f9MOlK-NQZE"></oembed></figure><p style="text-align:center;"><i>Coca-Cola Easter campaign in Bulgaria on Viber</i></p><h4>Urban Outfitters party dresses location-based marketing campaign</h4><p>Clothing retailer Urban Outfitters used mobile location data to gain incredibly valuable granular insights into its customers.Their party dress campaign is a great <a href="https://www.marketingdive.com/news/how-urban-outfitters-leveraged-location-marketing-for-a-75-conversion-gain/436943/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">example of successful location-based marketing</a>. By targeting women who had recently been to a nightclub or bar with in-app push notifications promoting party dresses, Urban Outfitters managed to increase conversions by 75%, and revenue by an astonishing 146%. Certainly worth getting dressed up for.</p><h4>Enabling online purchases with Viber Business Messages</h4><p>The Primer Group of Companies is a retailer in the Philippines that specializes in distributing consumer goods from different brands. With malls affected gravely due to pandemic quarantine restrictions, Primer turned to Viber Business Messages to establish their online footing.</p><p>Primer enabled online purchases with digital vouchers using codes with discounts sent through Viber Business Messages with the help of their messaging partner Infobip. The brand achieved a 53% code redemption conversion rate, and a 401% uptick in total sales.</p><figure class="image"><img src="https://env-stage-hosting.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/Viber_Business_Message_from_the_Primer_Group_edd066588f.png"><figcaption><i>Example of Viber Business Message from the Primer Group</i></figcaption></figure><p>Viber makes it simple to build personalised communication with your customers. We are ready to help you with your mobile marketing strategy: from an in-app advertisement to messenger marketing. <a href="https://www.forbusiness.viber.com/en/viber-for-business/">Reach out to us</a> and enjoy direct access to your preferred audience, better analytics and profitable campaigns.&nbsp;</p>

Learn how a mobile marketing strategy can turbocharge your business

Mobile marketing strategy 101: mobile marketing and its benefits

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How to open a Viber business account

<h2>Launching a Viber business account</h2><p style="text-align:justify;">Opening a Viber business account is a great way to elevate your mobile marketing strategy. Viber is one of the leading messaging apps today with users in 190 countries all over the world, with the average Viber user is active and engaged, sending over 30 messages and launching the app 12 times daily.&nbsp;</p><p>Defining your business aims is key before launching your business profile on Viber. We&nbsp;offer <a href="https://www.forbusiness.viber.com/en/messaging-solutions/">two integration options </a>for different company goals. You can choose to create a Viber Chatbot if you want to get a new audience and stay in touch 24/7, or opt for Viber Business Messages to work with your existing client database. Both integration options allow brands to reach their customers at each step of the customer journey. You can get in touch with your customers with order confirmations, delivery notifications and other transactional messages or update them with the latest products and promotional information. You will both provide better customer support and strengthen your two-way conversations. Once you have clarified your audience and goals, you are set to go further - here is your guide on how to launch a Viber business account in three simple steps.</p><figure class="image"><img src="https://env-stage-hosting.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/Viber_Business_Messages_and_Chatbot_examples_558022194e.jpg"><figcaption><i>Viber Business Messages and Chatbot</i></figcaption></figure><h3>1. Choose the right messaging partner</h3><p>If you want to use Viber Business Messages to your advantage, you need a verified profile. Our trusted messaging partners worldwide will assist you in launching your Viber business account and support you from the beginning till the end of your business journey with Viber to make sure you are getting the best experience. You can choose a partner from the <a href="https://www.forbusiness.viber.com/en/messaging-partners/">list </a>of official Viber partners to fit your country, industry, and aims and approach them directly, or you can also <a href="mailto:messaging@forbusiness.viber.com">contact </a>us and we will help to navigate you depending on your region and set goals.</p><h3>2. Register your business account</h3><p>Your chosen messaging partner will help you to set a Viber business account - they will provide you with all the necessary details to register you quickly and easily. During this process, you will decide on your account name and logo to establish your Viber business profile. You can share contact information, website URL, company profile and other relevant information in your official account, creating a mini-homepage for your customers. You tell your customers who you are and ways they can connect with you, then you can show you are a trusted brand and display information about your business. When Viber verifies your brand, you will receive a unique ID and move one step closer to enjoying our business solutions.</p><figure class="image"><img src="https://env-stage-hosting.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/Official_Viber_Business_Account_39eb302eb9.jpg"><figcaption><i>Official Viber business account</i></figcaption></figure><h3>3. Receive a blue tick and official Viber business account</h3><p style="text-align:justify;">In order to send official Business Messages, all companies are manually checked by Viber. An official verified “business account” and “blue tick” will be granted once the brand accepts user privacy rules to ensure you are recognizable among customers. Your profile will display the information you have provided: logo, company description, website and contact information that users will see after pressing your brand name.&nbsp;</p><p>Your first message info will be shared at a glance with overlay. An overlay appears on Viber the first time you message customers - they see why they’ve received a message, who it is from and what it says. Companies utilising overlay on Viber saw their block rates drop.</p><figure class="image"><img src="https://env-stage-hosting.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/How_to_open_a_Viber_business_account_Noa_cff9447e4d.jpg"></figure><h2>Start benefiting from Viber Business Messages</h2><p>Once you have an authorised business account with a blue tick, you can start communicating with your customers and benefiting from Viber Business Messages:</p><ul><li>Get real-time data on your messaging activity on Viber - whether the messages were delivered, received, or failed, open and click rates. Discover how customers interact with your content, analyse their behaviour and adjust your mobile marketing strategy.</li><li>Send rich content messages with an image, CTA button, link or file. The message can contain up to 1000 characters.</li><li>Easily integrate Viber Business Messages with your CRM system and personalise your messages according to predefined variables.</li><li>In case your clients do not have Internet access or are not registered on Viber, with SMS fallback you can be sure that none of your customers will be left behind. SMS fallback ensures that your messages will be delivered via SMS if the delivery on Viber fails.</li><li>Pay only for the messages that were delivered to your customers. Viber doesn't charge you if the delivery failed and enables alternatives to reach your clients. You can also save money on undelivered messages by setting up TTL (Time To Live), a period of time when your message exists before being discarded. If the message was not delivered within your time limit, Viber will not charge you for it. As a brand, you have nothing to lose, because your every message is cost-effective with Viber business pricing.</li><li>Be confident in your security with Viber Business Messages: Viber is one of the most secure, if not the most secure, messaging app out there, providing all levels of security a user or a business needs to feel safe, whether it is personal chatting or interacting with businesses. It offers end-to-end encryption for private chats and calls, and encryption in transit for business messages. The messages are not stored on Viber’s servers, so no hacker can steal them. Connections with our servers are secure and HTTPS only, push notifications do not reveal the content of your message on your customer’s device lock-screen -&nbsp; measures we undertake so you can rely on your Viber experience.</li></ul><p style="text-align:justify;"><i>Creating a business account is an important step in your mobile marketing strategy and at Viber, we do our best to provide our customers with premiere business solutions. With Viber for Business, you can establish your brand on one of the most popular messaging apps in the world and will start benefiting immediately with our branding, security, analytics and variety of messaging options.&nbsp;</i></p><p><i>Do not hesitate to </i><a href="mailto:messaging@forbusiness.viber.com"><i>contact us </i></a><i>and start your journey on Viber.</i></p>

Learn how to get started to benefit both your business and customers

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Viber Business Messages July 2021 feature updates

<p style="text-align:justify;"><strong>Viber provides brands with opportunity to serve customers better by presenting new features in business conversations</strong><br>&nbsp;</p><p style="text-align:justify;"><i>Rakuten Viber continues to make users’ communication with brands even easier: users can now pin important information in business chats and reply to a specific message inside a business conversation</i></p><p style="text-align:justify;">Viber, one of the most popular messaging platforms in the world, has announced the latest set of new features in Viber Business Messages that will seamlessly allow users to find important messages in a business chat and respond to specific messages in conversations with brands. Viber for Business has extended the “Pin-to-top” feature: in order not to miss key information included in a message, users can now pin a selected message inside a business conversation, or use the other recently &nbsp;announced option to pin the whole thread at the top of their chats list (similar to a regular conversation with friends). With the “Pin-to-top” feature any important message will be kept handy - for example, a customer signing up for a lab test or booking a hotel room can have quick access to the specific message with details of the appointment or booking confirmation.&nbsp;</p><p>To pin a message inside a business conversation:</p><ul><li>Select a message</li><li>Long press, select “Pin”</li></ul><figure class="image"><img src="https://env-stage-hosting.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/Pin_to_top_business_messages_and_chats_on_Viber_394d567334.jpg"></figure><p>In addition, users can now reply to a specific message inside a business conversation, allowing users and brands to better maintain and follow the conversation. For example, in an active conversation with a shop with multiple orders, the customer is able to reply to a specific message and be sure that nothing will be misplaced or misunderstood.</p><p>Replying to a specific message in business chat is just the same as in a regular private or group chats with other users:</p><ul><li>Select a message</li><li>By long touch, select “Reply” or swipe right on the message you would like to reply to</li></ul><figure class="image"><img src="https://env-stage-hosting.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/Reply_to_a_business_message_on_Viber_d6d2d527c3.jpg"></figure><p>According to statistics, 56% of users prefer to text brands rather than calling them. Viber for Business continues to simplify customer communication with brands by adding new enhancements to the app. Previously, Viber announced other File, Photo &amp; Video sharing functions available in Viber Business Messages whereby users can send photos, videos and up to 200 MB files to businesses. This allows brands to build more meaningful and convenient communication with users and provide customer support they need. All files shared by businesses and users are protected by encryption in transit.</p>

Viber for Business extends “Pin-to-top” and “Reply” features in business chats

Viber Business Messages feature updates: July 2021

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Rakuten Viber Partners with Snap

<p><strong>SAN FRANCISCO, June 30, 2021</strong> - <a href="https://www.viber.com">Rakuten Viber</a>, a global leader in cross-platform messaging and voice-based communication, will bring the magic of augmented reality (AR) Lenses to its app through a partnership with Snap Inc. Using Snap’s developer tools including Camera Kit, Creative Kit and Bitmoji, the Viber app will integrate AR Lenses, enable sharing to Snapchat, and bring customizable Bitmoji avatars to Viber.</p><p>Viber Lenses Powered by Snap will offer AR-enabled video messaging and photos to Viber users for the first time. The launch includes 30 new Viber Lenses, including animal masks and Viber Characters, an underwater Lens, silly cat interactions, and more. The company plans to add between 50-70 additional Lenses per month, amounting to at least 300 Lenses by the end of 2021. Businesses will also have the opportunity to create their own exclusive Lenses on Viber. The World Wildlife Fund, FC Barcelona, and the World Health Organization are among the first Viber partners to offer new Lenses on the messaging app.</p><p>Viber is a calling and messaging app that connects people and allows them to express themselves creatively -- no matter who or where they are. Personal and group chats on Viber are end-to-end encrypted, so users can be sure that their communications are always private and secure.</p><p>Viber Lenses are an uplifting addition to the app’s existing sticker collections, which allow users to express themselves visually while chatting away. And the adoption of Snap’s Camera Kit, Bitmoji, and Creative Kit by Viber are additional ways for Viber to bring people closer together and make those connections even more meaningful and enjoyable.</p><p>New Viber features include:</p><ul><li>Instant Augmented Reality - Overlay images on top of surroundings and harness the power of AR at your fingertips</li><li>Attention-Grabbing Filters - Add a creative layer to your visuals and spark conversations with friends</li><li>Expressive Masks - Select from a variety of masks that accurately follow users’ facial movements</li><li>Beautification Features - Enhance your images with realistic touches like lipstick, blush, and a variety of hair colors</li><li>Customized Bitmoji - Integrate personalized Bitmoji characters into photos and videos</li></ul><p>The ability to offer sponsored and branded Lenses will provide an additional revenue stream to Viber, as business partners will be able to create custom Lenses for their communities on the platform.</p><p>“Snap’s partnership with Rakuten Viber is a win-win situation for us both,” says Elliot Solomon, Director, Camera Platform Partnerships at Snap Inc. “It will help us expand our Augmented Reality technology into regions where Viber already has a solid footprint, and help Viber’s users express themselves through AR on the Viber platform.”&nbsp;&nbsp;</p><p>“We’re excited to bring the Snap camera to Viber users,” says Djamel Agaoua, CEO of Rakuten Viber. “Through this partnership, we want to empower the creativity of our users with AR, and we’re looking forward to inspiring new fun-filled ways for people to keep in touch with their friends and family members. Viber is more than a messaging app. It not only connects people with each other, it is also a place where users can create entertaining, exciting, and rewarding content to share with their communities.”&nbsp;</p><p>The iOS version of the app with these new features, as well as the Android beta version in English language, will be available starting June 30 in the following countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, England, Finland, France, Germany, Greenland, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Maldives, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the USA. Viber will progressively roll out the features to all top-30 Viber regions and to all Android users by the end of August.</p>

Rakuten Viber and Snap will bring AR Lenses to Viber video messaging and photos

Rakuten Viber Partners with Snap to Bring AR Lenses to its Messaging Platform 

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Capacity Messaging & SMS World

<p>The <a href="https://events.capacitymedia.com/event/ce5fe6fc-7ebe-4ac0-a745-dd3993210393/summary" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Capacity Messaging &amp; SMS World</a> event took place June 8 - 10 and Viber's Senior Director of Business Messaging Solutions Etienne Dupont was featured on the panel "Conversational commerce – it’s a two-way street".</p><p>The rise of e-commerce over the past decade and more has arguably been even more intensified as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. As the world entered lockdown, end customers have used online retailing channels, but are somewhat missing the physical interactions and touchpoints seen in a brick and mortar store. &nbsp;</p><p>The concept of conversational commerce intends to fill part of that void, creating a hub for direct conversations between a brand and end user that eventually result in transactions in commerce. So how can this vision be realised and how can CPaaS, AI and RCS players create that framework in areas such as payment solutions and providing an omnichannel experience, as well as the security implications?</p><p>You can watch back the panel below. Be sure to <a href="https://b2b.viber.com/newsletter-opt-in" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">sign up to the Viber for Business newsletter</a> to receive future event updates and visit <a href="https://forbusiness.viber.com/en/blog" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">our blog</a> for knowledge, news and more.</p><figure class="media"><oembed url="https://youtu.be/-cIqQ0WXpv0"></oembed></figure>

Get the low down from the Capacity Messaging & SMS World

Event recap: Capacity Messaging & SMS World

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Rakuten Viber / Route Mobile webinar

<p>The Viber team hosted a webinar with our trusted partners Route Mobile on June 17 - Business messaging: Elevate your customer experience with Viber’s business communication channel.</p><p>Our Senior Partnerships Account Director Noa Bar Shay and Route Mobile's Head of Product Marketing Vishal Modh covered:</p><ul><li>Viber’s leading SEA business footprint and how it enhances customer experience</li><li>Route Mobile's SEA presence and partnership with Viber</li><li>Introduction to Viber for Business Messaging Solutions</li><li>Viber Business Messages and Viber chatbot: advantages, difference, key features</li><li>How Chatbots and conversational AI enables automation and increases conversions for brand communications</li><li>What’s next for Viber messaging solutions- conversations (Business Messages, Chatbots), transactional messaging</li><li>Industry-specific use cases</li><li>How can your brand start using Viber Business Messages with Route Mobile</li></ul><p>You can watch back the webinar below and download the deck <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/17ZCfG6CmBGu1ggfR3Q9puNNRBWyigtCc/view?usp=sharing">here</a>. Be sure to <a href="https://b2b.viber.com/newsletter-opt-in" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">sign up to our newsletter</a> to receive future event updates.</p><figure class="media"><oembed url="https://youtu.be/gT-4IILVVoc"></oembed></figure>

Get the lowdown on our recent webinar with Route Mobile

Event recap: Rakuten Viber / Route Mobile webinar

Viber as a brand communication channel

<p>As part of our drive to further educate our customers and partners on the power and diversity of Viber for Business, today we take a deep dive into our brand communication solutions - Business Messages, Chatbots and Communities.</p><p>Each product has its intricacies, process and how-tos, so in order to break down the solutions side by side we have produced new documentation that summarises key features, discoverability, pricing, setup procedure and other useful information.</p><p>Select the communication channel to match your needs and engage with your audience on Viber today.</p><p>Learn more here: <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QksxglYvnBooFpH9zbSO5Ehq0BLFFV5c/view?usp=sharing">English </a>/ <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EVN4taRoaYPdYtf0eUEjztY6W9R9S9iW/view?usp=sharing">Russian</a></p>

We break down Business Messages, Chatbots and Communities

Viber Business Messages May 2021 feature updates

<p><i>Viber is rolling out a new function with the help of which users will be able to send photos and videos to businesses. The new feature will help them to manage meaningful conversations with brands and easily solve ongoing issues: for instance sending their ID cards to authenticate themselves or terminate a registration. The function is already available to users who have updated their application.</i></p><p>Viber, one of the world’s most popular messaging applications, announces new functions that will allow businesses to serve customers better and give users an opportunity to chat with brands like they would with friends. Through this new function users can exchange photos, videos and GIFs with brands using Viber’s internal camera. This follows Viber introducing an option for users to share different types of files with businesses.</p><p>As part of this new feature, Viber has aligned the design of the business conversation page with the private conversation page that a user can have with their family and friends, by adding the camera and gallery buttons.</p><p>There are two ways for users to send documents, videos and photos to brands:</p><ul><li>From mobile device: by tapping on the “Gallery” button and then selecting photos videos, files for sharing from the internal phone gallery or using internal Viber’s “Camera” button;</li><li>From desktop: by tapping on the button “+” and selecting pictures, videos, documents they need to send.</li></ul><p style="text-align:justify;">The new feature supports the exchange of the most commonly used types of photo (.jpg, .jpeg, .png, .bmp, .svg, .webp) and video (.avi, .wmv, .mov, .mp4, .3gpp, 3gpp2, .asf , .mkv, .mp2ts, .webm). The size of the video material should not exceed 100MB and the size of the GIF should not exceed 24 MB. For photo exchange there is no size restriction. In addition, the size of files that can be shared by users with brands has increased from 25 MB to 200 MB. All files shared by businesses and users are protected by encryption in transit.</p><p style="text-align:justify;">The new feature has many use cases - for example, someone buying a new table in a shop can receive post-sales support without trying to explain via call if there is an issue with assembly, needing only to send video to a support chat with the business. Support specialists can now assist with technical problems via chat rather than having to book an in-person visit, which is very convenient especially for pandemic times.&nbsp;</p><p style="text-align:justify;">The announcement came a few months after Viber introduced another function designed to help customers to easily find brand chats they needed - the pin-to-top function, whereby a user can pin a business chat to the top of their chat list. To use all these functions users simply need to update Viber to the latest version.</p><p>&nbsp;</p>

Now users can send photos and videos to businesses via Viber

Viber Business Messages feature updates: May 2021

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Your guide to Viber Chatbots

<p><i>N.B English language version of this article follows below</i></p><p>&nbsp;</p><h2>Инструкция для чат-ботов в Viber&nbsp;</h2><h3>Как создать чат-бота в Viber и начать работать с ним</h3><p>Чат-боты – “мини-приложения” внутри мессенджеров. В отличие от мобильного приложения, пользователю не нужно скачивать чат-бот на свой смартфон. Чат-бот не занимает места на устройстве и обновляется самостоятельно.&nbsp;<br><br>Основное преимущество чат-ботов для компаний и бизнеса – низкая стоимость вовлечения и удержания клиентов. Пользователю, который начал диалог с ботом, можно многократно отправлять push-сообщения, предлагая новые товары, услуги или акции.</p><p><br>Взаимодействие с чат-ботом происходит в приложении Viber – привычной среде для личного и рабочего общения пользователей. Чтобы уточнить состояние заказа или найти ответ на вопрос, не нужно открывать другое приложение или искать сайт в веб-браузере.</p><p>Есть несколько видов чат-ботов, которые могут помочь в развитии вашего бизнеса:</p><ul><li><strong>Коммуникационные</strong> Упрощают взаимодействие между клиентом и компанией: боты для сбора обратной связи, боты с готовыми ответами на часто задаваемые вопросы, боты службы поддержки и т.д.</li><li><strong>Маркетинговые</strong> Информируют клиента о новостях, акциях, спецпредложениях и розыгрышах, а также приглашают оформить покупку, участвовать в опросе и т.д.</li><li><strong>Функциональные</strong> Помогают реализовывать необходимые функции: обмен документами с банком, HR-боты, боты для поиска работы и т.д.</li></ul><p>Продолжая недавнюю <a href="https://www.forbusiness.viber.com/ru/blog/post/what-is-viber-for-business/">статью о Viber для бизнеса</a> в нашем блоге, давайте рассмотрим процесс создания чат-бота в Viber подробнее.</p><h3>Шаг 1: создание аккаунта</h3><p>Зайдите в личный кабинет на сайте <a href="https://partners.viber.com/">Панель администратора Viber&nbsp;</a> и укажите информацию: имя и аватар чат-бота, уникальный URI, категорию и подкатегорию, а также общую информацию о чат-боте.&nbsp;</p><p>После этого у создателя чат-бота появится раздел с чат-ботами в меню настроек мобильного приложения Viber. В этом разделе пользователь может увидеть всех созданных им ботов, менять их настройки или добавлять других администраторов.</p><h3>Шаг 2: привязка чат-бота с платформой</h3><p>После создания чат-бота, скопируйте ключ доступа (токен) на сайте <a href="https://partners.viber.com/">Панели администратора Viber&nbsp;</a> или в разделе с чат-ботами в мобильном приложении Viber. Настройте логику работы самостоятельно в конструкторе чат-ботов или с помощью внешних разработчиков, затем используйте токен, чтобы подключить разработчиков к чат-боту.</p><h3>Шаг 3: поиск чат-бота в Viber</h3><p>Пользователи Viber могут найти вашего чат-бота по названию и ключевым словам через строку поиска в Viber на главном экране, а также по прямой ссылке. Чат-бот будет добавлен в поиск после подтверждения со стороны Viber – для этого свяжитесь с региональной бизнес-командой Viber.</p><h3>Нужна помощь?&nbsp;</h3><p>Ниже Вы можете найти список авторизованных разработчиков чат-ботов в СНГ:</p><ul><li><a href="https://corezoid.com/">Corezoid</a></li><li><a href="https://pipe.bot/">Pipe Technology</a></li><li><a href="https://chatbots.studio/">Chatbots.Studio</a></li><li><a href="https://july.moscow/">Агентство ИЮЛЬ</a></li><li><a href="https://fstrk.io/">Fasttrack</a></li><li><a href="https://botmother.com/ru">Botmother&nbsp;</a></li><li><a href="http://devinotelecom.by/">DVN Telecom</a></li></ul><p>Вы можете найти <a href="https://forbusiness.viber.com/ru/messaging-partners/">по ссылке</a> больше авторизированных партнеров, которые помогут вам создать чат-бота.&nbsp;</p><h4><strong>Хотите стать партнером?</strong></h4><p>Вы можете <a href="https://share.hsforms.com/19di0lVt7TPizUGt1NmkDTg4fpwx">обратиться к нам</a> и стать авторизованным разработчиком чат-ботов. Дополнительная информация о чат-ботах доступна в <a href="https://developers.viber.com/docs/api/bot-payment-api/">документации для разработчиков</a>.</p><h4>Полезные ссылки&nbsp;</h4><ul><li>По вопросам добавления в поиск чат-бота в регионе СНГ -&nbsp; <a href="mailto:BDRussia@viber.com">BDRussia@viber.com</a>. Запрос должен быть с официальной почты компании.</li><li>Документация для существующих владельцев и разработчиков чат-ботов: <a href="https://developers.viber.com/docs/api/bot-payment-api/">Bot Payment API</a></li><li><a href="https://help.viber.com/ru/article/%D0%BF%D0%BE%D0%B4%D0%B4%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B6%D0%BA%D0%B0-%D1%87%D0%B0%D1%82-%D0%B1%D0%BE%D1%82%D0%BE%D0%B2-%D0%BF%D0%BE%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%B7%D0%BD%D1%8B%D0%B5-%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%BD%D1%82%D0%B0%D0%BA%D1%82%D1%8B">Поддержка чат-ботов: полезные контакты</a></li><li><a href="https://help.viber.com/ru/article/%D0%BA%D0%B0%D0%BA-%D1%81%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B5%D1%80%D1%88%D0%B0%D1%82%D1%8C-%D0%BF%D0%BE%D0%BA%D1%83%D0%BF%D0%BA%D0%B8-%D0%B2-%D1%87%D0%B0%D1%82-%D0%B1%D0%BE%D1%82%D0%B0%D1%85-viber-%E2%80%93-%D0%B2%D0%BE%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%8B-%D0%B8-%D0%BE%D1%82%D0%B2%D0%B5%D1%82%D1%8B">Как совершать покупки в чат-ботах Viber – вопросы и ответы</a></li></ul><p>&nbsp;</p><p>*****</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Chatbots are “tiny apps” inside messaging apps. Unlike a mobile application, the user does not need to download the chatbot to their smartphone, the chatbot does not take up space on the device and updates automatically.</p><p>The main advantage of chatbots for companies and businesses is the reduced cost of client engagement and retention. A user who has started a dialogue with a bot can repeatedly receive push messages with new products, services or promotions.</p><p>Communication with the chatbot takes place in the Viber app, benefiting users as all activity can take place in the environment where they have both personal and work conversations. To receive a status update of an order or find an answer to a question, the user does not need to open the app or browse a website.</p><p>There are several types of chatbots that can help you grow your business:</p><ul><li><strong>Communication</strong> Simplifying interaction between the client and the company: collecting feedback, ready made answers to FAQ, support bots, etc.</li><li><strong>Marketing</strong> Informing clients about news, promotions, special offers and sweepstakes and inviting them to make a purchase, participate in a survey, etc.</li><li><strong>Functional</strong> Helping to implement needed functions: exchange of documents with the bank, HR bots, searching for jobs etc.</li></ul><p>As a follow up to our recent <a href="https://www.forbusiness.viber.com/en/blog/post/what-is-viber-for-business/">Viber for Business FAQ blog post</a>, let’s take a closer look at the process of creating a chatbot on Viber.</p><h3>Step 1: Create an account</h3><p>Please visit the <a href="https://partners.viber.com">Viber Admin panel (VAP)</a> and provide the relevant information: chatbot name and avatar, unique URL, category and subcategory as well as general information about the chatbot.&nbsp;</p><p>Following this, the chatbot creator will have a section with chatbots in the settings menu of the Viber app. In this section, the user can see all the bots they have created, change their settings and add other admins.</p><h3>Step 2: Connect the chatbot to the platform</h3><p>After chatbot creation, copy the access key (token) on the <a href="https://partners.viber.com/">Partners website </a>or in the chatbot section in the Viber app. Configure the logic of chatbot yourself in the chatbot constructor or with the help of external developers, then use the token to connect the developers to the chatbot.</p><h3>Step 3: Search for a chatbot on Viber</h3><p>Viber users can find your chatbot by name and keywords through the Viber search bar on the home screen as well as using a direct link. The chatbot will be added to the search following approval from the Viber team - for this, contact your local Viber business representative using your company email address.</p><h3>Need some assistance?</h3><p>Below you can find a list of authorised bot-developers in Russia and CIS</p><ul><li><a href="https://corezoid.com/">Corezoid</a></li><li><a href="https://pipe.bot/">Pipe Technology</a></li><li><a href="https://chatbots.studio/">Chatbots.Studio</a></li><li><a href="https://july.moscow/">Агентство ИЮЛЬ</a></li><li><a href="https://fstrk.io/">Fasttrack</a></li><li><a href="https://botmother.com/ru">Botmother&nbsp;</a></li><li><a href="http://devinotelecom.by/">DVN Telecom</a></li></ul><p>You can visit the <a href="https://forbusiness.viber.com/en/messaging-partners/">website</a> to find more authorised partners who are on hand to help you with the creation of your very own chatbot.</p><h3>Want to work with us?</h3><p>You can <a href="https://share.hsforms.com/19di0lVt7TPizUGt1NmkDTg4fpwx">apply to be listed</a> as an authorized chatbot developer. For more information on chatbots, please review the <a href="https://developers.viber.com/docs/api/bot-payment-api/">developer documentation</a>.</p><h3>Useful links</h3><ul><li><a href="https://developers.viber.com/docs/api/bot-payment-api/">Bot Payment API</a></li><li><a href="https://help.viber.com/en/article/chatbot-support-useful-contacts">Chatbot Support: Useful Contacts</a></li><li><a href="https://help.viber.com/en/article/how-to-buy-from-a-chatbot-on-viber-faq">How to Buy From a Chatbot on Viber - FAQ</a></li></ul>

How to create and get started with your chatbot on Viber

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4 Ways to Boost Customer Loyalty Through Conversational UI

<p><i>(Shorter version published on </i><a href="https://www.thedrum.com/profile/viber/news/4-ways-to-boost-customer-loyalty-through-conversational-ui" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow"><i>The Drum</i></a><i>, April 2021)</i></p><p>A loyal customer is a happy one. Not only do they spend more, they are also cheaper to attract – it costs <a href="https://www.invespcro.com/blog/customer-acquisition-retention/">five times more to attract a new customer</a> than it does to retain an existing one. And then there’s the reputational cost of losing customers – people are <a href="https://www.zendesk.com/blog/customer-service-and-lifetime-customer-value/">more likely</a> to share bad customer care experiences than good ones. What are you more likely to tell people about: the customer care experience where everything went smoothly? Or the infuriating time you were kept on hold for hours, only to be cut off?</p><p>To keep customers coming back for more, great customer care is a must. Conversational UI using a chatbot in messenger and business messaging tools can streamline the experience, making it easier and more cost effective for the business, while also frictionless and seamless for the customer. And crucially, there’s no keeping anyone on hold. Ever.</p><h2>What is conversational UI?</h2><p>Conversational UI is a way of communicating that replicates human conversation. It uses artificial intelligence-powered tools like chatbots and voice assistants to process language in a natural way to make it seem to the customer like they are conversing with a human. This has enormous potential in customer care settings, where customers want quick – and often templated – answers.</p><p>Chatbots are hugely useful in conversational UI, as they are faster and more efficient than live chat operators. And customers love them. One <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-39540-7_16">study</a> showed that quick access to information at any time of the day or night far outweighs any friction customers may experience when dealing with a chatbot. No wonder they are on the rise – according to <a href="https://www.financedigest.com/ai-will-power-95-of-customer-interactions-by-2025.html">another study</a>, 95 per cent of customer interactions will be powered by chatbots by 2025. So it makes sense to get in on the ground floor.</p><p>Why the fuss? Because AI-powered chatbots have evolved significantly in recent years. While once they were simple, text-based chat windows, now they are fully-fledged, versatile virtual personal assistants, able to help with everything from changing passwords to fixing a leak in your holiday let. Not only can they now read into the context of a conversation in order to give an appropriate answer, they can be custom-fitted to your brand’s tone of voice, so a chatbot from a skateboard brand will sound very different to that from a pension fund. (Tip: Don’t mix up the two.) The trick is to meet your customers’ needs quickly and efficiently, and to speak their language while you are doing so.</p><p>They’re interactive, too. So not only will customers love getting information from them, they might even stick around for a chat and a laugh. The best customer support chatbots no longer sound like robots, but could in fact be mistaken for human customer service agents, ones that reflect customers’ priorities and outlooks. Conversation with them should feel as natural and free-flowing as chatting to a friend.&nbsp;</p><p>So how can you best use conversational UI tools like chatbots?</p><h2>Friends with benefits: How to win loyal customers with a conversational UI chatbot</h2><h4>Interact and entertain</h4><p>As the name suggests, conversational chatbots can imitate human conversation in a natural, free-flowing manner. What’s more, the use of value-adds such as emojis, funny clips, language preferences, etc. works wonders in personalising the customer-company support interactions. Chatbots that can catch typos, understand the jargon, and read between the lines are the ones that garner every customer’s imagination and unconditional support. Otherwise you may as well be talking to a toaster.</p><p>Looking for guidance? HelloFresh’s chatbot in messenger is the stuff of legend. The bot is easy to use and offers helpful information in a friendly and warm manner. But that’s not all. It also comes with in-built interactive ‘food-themed’ quizzes to engage and entertain the users in equal measure. The result? HelloFresh enjoyed a <a href="https://www.userlike.com/en/blog/best-chatbots">47 per cent increase</a> in incoming messages and a staggering reduction of response time rates by 76 per cent. Fresh indeed.</p><h4>Respond quickly</h4><p>Just as yoga is a game of inches, customer care is a game of seconds – <a href="https://www.callcentrehelper.com/omnichannel-acceptable-waiting-time-140566.htm">40 seconds</a>, to be exact. That’s how long you have to respond before your customers will give up and go elsewhere. This isn’t just about customer convenience: during a global pandemic, offering help within seconds can literally be a matter of life and death.&nbsp;</p><p>Take the <a href="https://www.who.int/news-room/feature-stories/detail/who-and-rakuten-viber-fight-covid-19-misinformation-with-interactive-chatbot">WHO’s chatbot on Viber</a>, which offers free health information on COVID-19 to millions of people around the globe in multiple languages. With the latest news on Coronavirus and information on symptoms, tests and what to do if you think you have the virus all at your fingertips, passing on information quickly is literally saving lives.</p><h4>Promotions</h4><p>Seamlessly connecting with customers is a great start, but to really thrive you need to stand out from the competition. American Eagle Outfitter’s chatbot uses convenience as a prime differentiator to maximum effect, using humour and fun to promote products and engage customers in a sustainable manner. Its tongue-in-cheek approach makes excellent use of memes, GIFs, images, you name it, taking the conversation to the next level. And based on the audience’s interest and user responses, the conversational bot offers practical advice and tips.</p><p>Helpful, engaging, entertaining… it’s everything a chatbot should be. And it’s pretty much guaranteed to have customers coming back for more.</p><h4>Be ‘always on’</h4><p>Today’s customer is always online, and they expect brands to be available to them 24/7. You can’t only offer support during business hours – people work shifts and odd hours (especially since the boom in flexible working brought on by the pandemic), while some customers might be in a different time zone. Ignoring their needs shows you don’t value them, or at the very least haven’t thought of them. The result? They will just turn to a brand that will serve them out of hours.</p><p>You need to provide high-quality customer support at all times, be it 5 am or 5 pm. Because the internet never sleeps.</p><h4>Helping, not replacing, human agents</h4><p>A word of warning. As smart as chatbots are, they can’t completely replace customer care agents – and nor should they. The top customer support chatbots can pick up on the tone and type of query a customer is making and hand over to a human agent who is better suited to handling it. If a customer is infuriated at having been ignored, they are unlikely to be impressed by your chatbot, no matter how witty their use of emojis. Having human agents oversee chatbots and being on hand to de-escalate tensions when needed will prove invaluable, and prevent angry customers doing your brand irreparable reputational damage. Because the last thing you need is an angry customer social media blast that goes viral.</p><p>Chatbots are best used to handle the <a href="https://www.salesforce.com/blog/2019/08/chatbot-statistics.html">standard customer inquiries</a> – like opening hours or simple product FAQs – that make up the bulk of most business’ user dealings. They are another tool that, if used wisely, will help create a delightful and seamless experience that will have customers coming back again and again, to browse, buy, or even just to catch feels.</p>

To keep customers coming back for more, great customer care is a must

4 ways to boost customer loyalty through conversational UI

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Viber at MEF Connects Business Messaging 

<p>The <a href="https://mobileecosystemforum.com/events_/mef-connects-business-messaging/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Mobile Ecosystem Forum Connects: Business Messaging</a> event took place March 22 - 24 and the Viber team were excited to be involved in a varied and excited programme of content and thought leadership.</p><p>Our Chief Revenue Officer Cristina Constandache was featured on Day 1’s The Jury event and hosted a Day 3 presentation “How do enterprises arm themselves to succeed with Rich Business Messaging in 2021?”, where she was joined by Messaggio’s CEO Artem Podstreshny for a fireside chat and Q&amp;A hosted by MEF's James Williams.</p><p>Our Senior Director of Business Messaging Solutions Etienne Dupont was featured on Day 1's pаnel "Business Messaging Everywhere: How To Integrate In A Frictionless Way".</p><p>You can watch back Viber highlights from the event, below.</p><figure class="media"><oembed url="https://youtu.be/UdZgA_RqcOU"></oembed></figure><figure class="media"><oembed url="https://youtu.be/_j8Vf3EXVNA"></oembed></figure>

Get the low down from the MEF Connects Business Messaging event

Event recap: MEF Connects Business Messaging 

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Viber for Business FAQ

<p>Here at Viber, we love speaking with our customers existing and new to help them solve problems, maximise revenues and achieve business goals.</p><p>Along the way we encounter a lot of different questions about how things work and as part of our mission to help, the team have collated some of our most frequently asked questions to help you on your journey with Viber for Business.</p><h2>How do I open a Viber for Business account?</h2><p>Viber for Business is not an account in the typical sense - it’s more a collection of solutions. Let’s break them down:</p><h3>Business Messages&nbsp;</h3><p>Built as an alternative to SMS, Business Messages allow brands to initiate a conversation and create a deeper connection with their existing opt-in customer base in a one-to-one setting.</p><p>Whether you need to provide customer care, delivery updates, transactional services or promotional messages, our <a href="https://www.forbusiness.viber.com/en/messaging-solutions/">solutions offer it all</a>.&nbsp;</p><p>To get started, select one of our approved <a href="https://www.forbusiness.viber.com/en/messaging-partners/">Business Messages partners</a> to create your channel and start sending your messages - they are on call to help you achieve your goals.</p><p><i>To learn more about how Business Messages have evolved, check out </i><a href="https://www.forbusiness.viber.com/en/blog/post/product-evolution-business-messages/"><i>our blog</i></a><i> from Noa Bar Shay, our Senior Partnerships Account Director.</i></p><h3>Chatbots&nbsp;</h3><p>Chatbots are the perfect channel to engage the conversation with new and existing customers. Your bot can be a true sales channel to offer your services and sell your goods. Automate workflow by adding buttons and customizing your user keyboard.</p><p>To get started, create your bot account and develop your chatbot in-house by following our <a href="https://developers.viber.com/docs/api/rest-bot-api">API guidance</a>. Need assistance? Our <a href="https://forbusiness.viber.com/en/messaging-partners">trusted partners</a> can help you to develop your bot.</p><p><i>To learn more about how Chatbots have evolved, check out </i><a href="https://www.forbusiness.viber.com/en/blog/post/product-evolution-chatbots/"><i>our blog</i></a><i> from Etienne Dupont, our Senior Director of Business Messaging Solutions.</i></p><h3>Communities&nbsp;</h3><p>People love to gather on Viber and we’ve made it easier than ever to engage your audience with exciting content, news and updates - whatever your industry. Create your community and spread the word to gather your fans on it to keep them updated with your latest news and updates. See and measure their reactions to your messages, videos or pictures and get their attention with polls and quizzes.</p><p>Create your community in 3 clicks directly in the Viber mobile app from your Chats screen:</p><p>"Write” icon &gt; New Community &gt; Add a name - Save</p><h3>Advertising solutions&nbsp;</h3><p>We offer various advertising touch points within Viber for you to reach our global audience as they interact with their family and friends. Our ads are non intrusive, multi-format and versatile.&nbsp;</p><p>To get started, head over to our <a href="https://www.forbusiness.viber.com/en/marketing-solutions/">Advertising Solutions</a> page, browse and pick the solution that’s right for you then get in touch using the “Get started” button - the team will be happy to assist you further.</p><h3>Stickers&nbsp;</h3><p>We believe that a picture really is worth a thousand words. That’s why we offer numerous ways to express yourself with Viber stickers - whether it be through branding with sound or animation - we’ve got you covered. With each Viber sticker shared 11 times on average with 1 billion sent per month.</p><p>To get started, as per above, head over to our <a href="https://www.forbusiness.viber.com/en/marketing-solutions/">Advertising Solutions</a> page and navigate to the Stickers section.</p><p>Want to learn more about all of the above? Be sure to check out our <a href="https://b2b.viber.com/media-kit-request">latest media kit</a> to learn more.</p><h2>How have others successfully used Viber for Business?</h2><p>Countless brands have used Viber for Business for successful customer relationships, campaigns and more - head over to our <a href="https://www.forbusiness.viber.com/en/success-stories/">Success Stories</a> page<i> </i>for more information and get inspired!</p>

We have collated some of our most frequently asked questions to help you on your journey with Viber for Business

What is Viber for Business? Your questions answered

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Messaging’s march

<p><i>(Originally published on </i><a href="https://www.thedrum.com/profile/viber/news/how-brands-can-find-the-most-secure-messaging-app-for-business-use" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow"><i>The Drum</i></a><i>, March 2021)</i></p><p>Messaging is the most personal way to communicate digitally, not only between people and their friends, families and colleagues, but also between brands and their customers. More and more brands are embracing messaging as a more human and effective way to speak to their customers. But some remain resistant. They usually have two main questions: Can they trust messaging apps as a secure way to send sensitive information? And what steps are messaging apps taking to ensure brands' messages are secure?</p><h2>Messaging’s march: entering a new era of customer communication</h2><p>Whenever a new technology emerges, or an existing technology is used in a new and innovative way, it prompts fears of it being misused or leaking customer data. To allay this fear, it’s useful to look at the example of how technology has revolutionised banking in recent years, and inexorably improved the relationship between bank and customer.</p><p>Time was, any banking that required sensitive financial or personal information meant a long, drawn out process: you had to gather up all sorts of documents verifying who you were, trudge down to your local branch and spend hours in a queue. Mobile technology has improved this dramatically. Now, all you need is a phone to open or close an account, move money, edit payments or do virtually any other type of banking. Both businesses and consumers have benefitted from the change. And while now we might take it for granted, when it first arrived, mobile banking was regarded with suspicion by many who saw it as unsafe.</p><p>The same is true of messaging apps today. And just like mobile banking, messaging apps like Viber, WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger are opening a whole new way for brands to communicate with their customers.</p><h2>How to pick the most secure messaging app for your brand</h2><p>If you’re looking for what is the best secure messaging app, you need one that will tick certain security boxes.</p><ol><li><strong>End-to-end encryption&nbsp;</strong>This is something of a gold standard when it comes to security. It means that messages are encrypted (i.e. scrambled into an incomprehensible code that any hackers will be unable to decipher) on the sender’s device before they are sent. The messages are only converted back into readable text once they arrive on the recipient’s device. That way, even if they are intercepted by hackers along the way, they won’t be able to be read.&nbsp;<br>End-to-end encryption primarily applies to private chats between individuals. For businesses wanting to send messages to their customers, the closest thing is encryption in transit.</li><li><strong>Encryption in transit </strong>Encryption in transit is used when messages are sent not by an individual but through a brand’s platform using an API protocol. As soon as the message is sent (it’s “in transit”), it’s encrypted, and is only decrypted once it reaches the messaging app’s back-end system. The back end then encrypts the messages again before sending it back to the user or service.<br>Encryption in transit provides an exceptionally high level of security for brands who can rest assured their messages are safe from hackers.</li><li><strong>Messages not stored on servers </strong>Messaging can be so much more secure than email because the messages aren’t stored on the messaging provider’s servers. With email programmes, your emails are stored on the provider’s servers. Chances are, your email provider then allows other companies to read your emails in order to serve you with targeted ads. But a trustworthy messaging app involves no such invasions of privacy.</li><li><strong>The https protocol </strong>Wondering how to decide what is the most secure messaging app? HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) is a must.<br>It means a secure connection between the partner’s protocol and the system used by the messaging app. It’s another level of security that will protect any messages the brand sends out to its customers.</li><li><strong>An IP whitelist </strong>A good messaging app will also have a way of verifying incoming business messages to guarantee that they're coming from who they should be, and not scammers pretending to be the brand. This is done using an IP whitelist limitation.<br>This means the messaging provider only accepts messages from external partners from certain IP (Internet protocol) addresses. These IP addresses have been duly accepted, verified and set up on the messaging provider’s system. That way, if a message purports to be from a partner brand but is actually sent from a different IP address, it will be rejected by the messaging provider and won’t be sent on to its users.<br>Now you know what security provisions a messaging app should take, you need to think about your priorities as a business, and how you will use messaging to achieve your business goals.</li></ol><h2>Getting the message: how messaging apps trump email marketing</h2><p>For many businesses – especially banks and other financial institutions – security and delivery time are the most important aspects when choosing how to communicate with their customers. They want to deliver messages in the safest, and most convenient way for their customers, and also in the most cost-effective way.</p><p>Messaging excels in all of these areas. It can be cheaper to send messages via messaging apps than with traditional SMS, and messaging apps have a much higher open rate than emails –<a href="https://reckless.agency/insight/email-vs-push-notifications-vs-in-app-messaging-which-has-the-highest-engagement/"> one study</a> put it at 75 percent, which is over 45 times higher than email and nearly three times higher than push notifications. Messages sent via messaging apps can also have more characters than traditional SMS – in some cases, 1,000 versus 160 for SMS.</p><p>Even though messaging is a great choice for communicating with customers, they may still be wary about receiving communications from your brand in this way. Let’s look at some of their concerns and how you can address them.</p><h2>Putting the customer first: allaying their fears, communicating more</h2><p>Security will be the most pressing concern for most customers. As long as you choose a messaging app with the security features mentioned above, and you communicate this with your customers, their minds should be put at rest.</p><p>The other major concern is whether the entity they are communicating with is actually the brand it purports to be. Some messaging apps have several measures in place to verify this – for example the message sender will appear as the company name rather than just a mobile number. The sender will also have its own profile replete with company information like an official logo, physical address, phone number if you want to call them up, and a blue tick showing they have been verified by the messaging app as an official partner brand.</p><p>Lastly, users can rest assured their messages will stay confidential once they arrive on their devices. That’s because the most secure messaging apps for business don’t display the contents of the message on the lock screen notification – instead, all the user sees is “1 new message”. To read the message, they will have to unlock the device and open the messaging app.</p><p>It’s all about giving customers the confidence to use messaging in this way. Once they have that, we’re sure they will embrace messaging as a tool to communicate with brands in a manner that’s quick, safe and convenient for both parties.</p>

Messaging’s march: entering a new era of customer communication

How brands can find the most secure messaging app for business use

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GSMA WAS#13

<p>Our Telecom Services Senior Director Matan Barth and Senior Partnerships Account Director Noa Bar Shay hosted "The role of OTTs in current Telecom Industry trends" at GSMA's recent WAS#13 event.</p><p>They were joined by Zvika Caspy (Telecom Italia Sparkle), Dan Richards (Messagebird) and Krešo Žmak (Infobip).&nbsp;</p><p>Key talking points:</p><ul><li><strong>SMS A2P Industry trends and how Rakuten Viber has evolved from an OTP sender to an SMS A2P Hub Service provider</strong></li><li><strong>International voice industry trends and the shift of focus of Rakuten Viber from retail offering only to both retail and wholesale services with its International Voice Hub</strong></li><li><strong>How OTTs have changed the business to/from consumer messaging communication by introducing a new engaging way to communicate on the app and the benefits of Rakuten Viber’s Business Messages solution</strong></li><li><strong>How Rakuten Viber continues to innovate and lead the market with its new Business Calls (beta) offering. The Business Calls solution allows businesses and consumers to make voice conversations on the Rakuten Viber app in addition to messages.</strong></li></ul><p>You can watch back the webinar in full, below.</p><figure class="media"><oembed url="https://youtu.be/4KWpuza-mp4"></oembed></figure>