Infobip x Rakuten Viber – working together for seamless customer experiences

We met up with Limor Bailey, Partnerships Account Director, Rakuten Viber, to talk about how we’re working to help businesses deliver seamless customer experiences.

“We’ve been working with Infobip for more than 7 years, and we believe that we were Infobip’s first OTT channel that was integrated to their platform. We’re very proud of that,” Limor starts before adding that in the time since we’ve gone from strength to strength.

A powerful motive underpins the cooperation between Infobip and Viber. This is a strong focus on powering direct interactions between businesses and their customers. And vice versa.

Limor explains that “Both Infobip and Viber are continuously looking to the future, continuously looking to understand what both businesses and customers want — and to make the experience as seamless as possible.”

Seamless, chat-based interactions between businesses and their customers are the future as we enter the age of conversational everything.

Businesses understand this. And customers are demanding it.

Limor knows better than most that we’ve entered the era of conversational commerce.

“Businesses are keener and keener to work with Viber Business Messages. We understand this because we have a lot of customers that want to have this direct interaction with the businesses.”

To create direct, immersive engagement, brands need to take advantage of the rich messaging features chat apps offer.

Limor shares an example: “A great example would be customers who want to purchase shoes and want to see the shoes from a 360 angle and not from the one or two pictures that they saw on the website. And they’re able to have this direct communication, they’re able to send a video. The brand is then maybe able to send maybe a model walking with the shoes. So it really allows for a fuller experience for the customer.”

This example illustrates how easy it is for brands to use rich media content to help customers almost literally picture themselves buying a product.

If chat apps make it simpler for businesses to engage with customers, the opposite also applies. Chat apps give customers a direct channel to reach out to businesses.

This is helpful for simpler customer service issues. Customers can use Viber to quickly get information about a variety of common queries, but also more complex ones.

“It’s also great for the end-user, for the customer, who might, e.g purchase furniture they need to assemble at home. And they might not be able to do this. But they’re able to send a picture, send a video, or speak directly with an agent and say ‘Listen, I’m having complications, could you help me?’”

This is a customer service game changer.

Customers benefit from receiving instant, expert responses. Businesses benefit by servicing more customers at scale in a matter that is convenient for both sides.

“That instant communication between the brand and the user is really what is elevating Viber to the next level in the brand communication with the customers,” Limor explains.

Businesses invest heavily trying to discover the best ways to reach their audience. Sometimes, the best way is literally at your fingertips.

“Millions of people are using Viber on a daily basis, communicating with their family and their friends and their colleagues, and today with businesses we want to make sure that clients are able to speak directly with the businesses just as they are with their family and their friends,” Limor says.

“Viber has tried to make this as seamless and as easy as possible, and we have developed an array of features that will only enhance this product and make it this fantastic seamless experience.”

Businesses can already begin to capitalize on this expansion by using Viber to create direct engagement with its millions of users who habitually use this app in their daily lives.

But there is more to consider than just customer habits.

Businesses and their customers can both be the targets of malicious actors, preying on trusting customers.

Viber is aware of the threat of cybercrime and pretenders that lurking for unwary customers.

Limor explains “Viber is a very popular app which is used all over the world and we need to make users know that when businesses are working via Viber that they are compliant. We work with all of the regulations that need to be abided by per country, or per region.

“For businesses we ensure over and above the standard regulations. We also ensure that every business that is onboarded via Viber has a manual check.”

But how can customers be absolutely certain that they’re communicating with their favorite brands and not some predatory pretenders?

Simple.

“We ensure that this business receives then a blue verified tick, which then authenticates the business and verifies to the user that this has gone through the manual check,” Limor explains.

This goes towards creating a safe environment where users can trust brands. But Viber also wants to make sure that their users receive only relevant messaging they want to see.

Not only do brands run the risk of turning customers away with unwanted messaging, but this can turn users away from Viber.

Because of this, Viber takes user privacy and opt-ins very seriously.

Limor explains “We also make sure that each business is only sending messages to its database and only to its opted in users. Meaning only a user of that brand that has accepted or has requested to receive a message from that brand within their database will receive a verified message from Viber.”

This safeguards users from any unwanted messaging while keeping brands and Viber compliant with user privacy regulations.

As we move deeper into the era of conversational commerce, Viber and other chat apps will become the meeting place of choice for brands and customers.

Brands who don’t chat with their customers will lose out to the competitors who are.

Adding Viber to your communication strategy can be fast and easy when you talk with the right expert.