Bajaj Auto: Increased conversions and click-through rates with WhatsApp and RCS

Challenge

Bajaj Auto is one of the world’s largest two-wheeler and three-wheeler manufacturers. The company primarily relied on SMS for all its communication with customers including promotional messaging. They realized, however, that SMS was only able to keep customers engaged until a certain point – as the number of customers scaled, the number of conversions via SMS started tapering drastically. This led Bajaj Auto to seek out a communication channel that would let them meaningfully engage with customers instead of sending out transactional, one-way communication.

This was even more important with the launch of their much-anticipated motorcycle, Pulsar 250, coming up. To create buzz around the launch, Bajaj Auto wanted to adopt a new, interactive way of communication that would draw customers into a conversation and increase conversions.

The existing communication process over SMS required customers to click on a link provided in the text message which would redirect them to a landing page. Once they opened the landing page, they had to fill out a form with multiple fields to download the information they needed about Bajaj Auto’s products. Of course, having to go through these numerous steps meant that customers often dropped off before filling out the form. Bajaj Auto wanted to avoid using this long-drawn process for the launch of Pulsar 250. They wanted the ability to engage with customers through a single chat which would let them get the information they wanted right away without having to jump through hoops.

Another challenge the company faced was the deliverability of one-time PINs (OTP). Customers who wanted to subscribe to updates from Bajaj Auto were sent an OTP after they filled out the subscription form. OTP deliverability rates were very low and the company’s support team struggled with constant customer complaints on this front.

Solution

Given these challenges, Bajaj Auto implemented WhatsApp and RCS as their new communication channels to boost engagement levels. Together, we set out to build an informative and intuitive experience that would deliver the right information to customers at the right time in a friendly and conversational way.

To test WhatsApp, the company decided to run a 3-month pilot campaign targeting its three-wheeler customer segment. Bajaj Auto was up and running with our WhatsApp Business solution quickly and a simple communication flow was built for the company’s WhatsApp chatbot.

With the increase in engagement rates during the pilot campaign, Bajaj Auto decided to initiate a WhatsApp campaign to promote the Pulsar 250 launch. The campaign hinted at the launch of a much-awaited motorcycle without revealing its name and asked customers to sign up on WhatsApp for more updates. Thousands of registrations poured in from customers. From the pre-launch campaign to today, Bajaj Auto has sent thousands of WhatsApp messages to promote Pulsar 250. These messages resulted in customers signing up for test drives and downloading product brochures.

The company continues to use WhatsApp to promote Pulsar 250 with its “Missed Call” campaign where customers give them a missed call to get more information about the product instead of filling out a form on their website. Customers then receive an automated message stating that an executive would be in touch with them soon and that they could message Bajaj Auto on WhatsApp to get the information they need.

The success of its WhatsApp campaigns led to Bajaj Auto’s decision to implement other communication channels with Infobip, such as RCS, as an alternative to SMS. Bajaj Auto wanted to approach RCS as a middle path between SMS and WhatsApp. We helped the company build the APIs needed to send out RCS messages, enabling its customers to chat with them in one place without being re-directed to a landing page. Customers can also select replies using the suggestion buttons feature so they don’t need to type out a message. An ensuing communication flow is triggered based on the customer’s response. In addition, RCS adds dynamism to Bajaj Auto’s communication with images, carousels, and the ability to start a conversation in real-time.

Since the company decided to keep SMS as a communication channel, they also implemented our OTP solution to address its deliverability issues.

Result

Bajaj Auto saw impressive results from its new WhatsApp channel. Customers were spending close to 3.5 minutes engaging with its chatbot and downloading brochures – compared to the 90 seconds they used to spend on their website.

It was an easy decision to expand the use of WhatsApp to the Pulsar 250 launch which resulted in a 2x increase in conversions. In fact, some campaigns over WhatsApp saw a rise in conversion rate as high as 3x with people eagerly signing up for test rides and asking to be put in touch with Bajaj Auto’s dealers.

Bajaj Auto has been equally impressed with the engagement seen through RCS. The visual and dynamic nature of RCS led to a surge in click-through rates – from 1% with text messages to 8% with RCS.

Additionally, with Infobip’s OTP solution, deliverability has increased and, as a result, customer complaints have decreased.

Today, Bajaj Auto has automated funnel management to a large extent thanks to the ability to collect customer preferences over WhatsApp and RCS and send them directly to its dealers instead of having call center agents reach out to each lead.

Happy with the success of their Pulsar 250 campaign, Bajaj Auto plans to widen the use of our WhatsApp and RCS solutions to promote other leading products including the KTM motorcycle.