Telekom Deutschland: Elevating customer engagement with RCS Business Messaging

2x

better performance than previous SMS-based campaign

Challenge:

Create dynamic cross sell campaigns to increase conversion rates

Telekom Deutschland, the operating subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom in Germany, wanted to spread the word about a Spotify Premium free trial offer to its subscribers. 

Traditionally, the telco provider had used SMS to communicate all of its subscriber offers (knowing that there is no better way to get people’s attention than the messaging inbox). But for such an exciting offer, they wanted a messaging campaign that was colorful and engaging enough to capture customers’ imaginations and convert them.

Telekom Deutschland knew that 50% of its subscribers’ phones were able to receive RCS messages — an upgrade to text messages with features such as images, video, carousels, and interactive buttons. 

Importantly, RCS (short for Rich Communication Services) messages can also be branded with a company’s colors and logo.  

Telekom Deutschland came to Infobip for help creating an end-to-end customer engagement journey. They wanted to send RCS messages to the phones that accepted it, and SMS messages to the phones that didn’t.

Solution:

Implementing an omnichannel campaign built around RCS richness

Telekom Deutschland and Infobip kicked off the collaboration by brainstorming innovative marketing ideas that would get subscribers to sit up and take notice of the Spotify Premium offer.

The campaign featured RCS messages with:

  • Rich media carousels
  • Suggested CTA buttons
  • Telekom Deutschland and Spotify’s colors and logos

To take customers from awareness all the way to conversion, our customer experience experts helped Telekom Deutschland create an end-to-end customer engagement journey using:

  • Moments: our omnichannel customer engagement solution, which helped setup the flows, automate the campaign, and send messages at the right times.
  • Conversations: our digital-first contact center which allowed customers to effortlessly contact a human agent from the RCS message to know more and activate their Spotify premium membership

The campaign ran like clockwork. Customers were sent an eye-catching RCS message straight into their default messaging app via Moments. Unexpected questions were directed to the right human agent via Conversations.

On the backend, Conversations also gave Telekom Deutschland agents a clear view of any customer’s interaction with a message. This helped the agents fast-track any conversation to conversion.

The team at Infobip understood the campaign objectives, so pairing this with their unrivaled technology expertise meant we could use RCS Business Messaging to communicate with customers the same way we would interact with friends.

Thomas Welzel

Senior Proposition Manager Messaging, Deutsche Telekom

Result:

RCS delivers twice the engagement of SMS

The first campaign launched in August 2021. The results were clear — the RCS messages performed 2X better than the SMS messages in terms of engagement and conversions.

Open rates were sky high. Branding RCS messages with Telekom Deutschland’s name and logo boosted customers’ trust and confidence. 

The second campaign began in October. Real-time analytics via our platform enabled Telekom Deutschland to make quick campaign tweaks to the campaign in Moments, resulting in even better performance:

  • 26% higher open rate
  • 66% higher engagement
  • 120% higher conversion

Following the successful rollout, Telekom Deutschland began looking to drive a wider adoption of RCS in Germany. Fast forward to 2024, and a crucial decision by Apple to support RCS messaging on its phones is set to turbocharge the use of RCS Business Messaging generally. Businesses will be able to reach a large majority of the population with rich and engaging RCS messages.

The ability to brand messages on RCS with the name and logo, along with access to customer support boosted their customer’s trust and confidence. Encouraging them to become a Spotify user.

It was great to work alongside Infobip right from the implementation process to ensure the creation of a rich media marketing campaign that would engage customers and convert them into audio streamers.

Thomas Welzel

Senior Proposition Manager Messaging, Deutsche Telekom

Company Profile

Deutsche Telekom AG

Deutsche Telekom AG is one of the world’s leading integrated telecommunications companies. It provides broadband, mobile communications, internet, and IPTV products and services to hundreds of millions of consumers. It also delivers information and communication technology solutions to businesses