Platform businesses have become a significant force in the global economy, transforming traditional commercial models and disrupting industries across sectors. By leveraging technology to create digital ecosystems that connect different groups of users, platforms have the potential to unlock new sources of value and drive innovation.

“Many of us interact with each other and our favorite brands daily on popular digital channels, and digital platforms use those channels to help businesses connect, communicate, and engage with their customers,” said Admir Masin, Head of Platforms at Infobip. “However, some businesses still struggle to use digital channels effectively.”

“At least 40% of all businesses will die in the next 10 years…if they don’t figure out how to change their entire company to accommodate new technologies,” CISCO’s John Chambers commented as well, echoing Masin’s views on the challenge businesses face today.

What makes businesses struggle to boost customer engagement?

According to Masin, platform businesses face challenges with digital channels, such as maintaining competitiveness, finding a dependable partner for growth, and delivering fast and secure customer interactions throughout the entire journey.

Currently, platforms are choosing to expand their services with traditional channels such as SMS (162%), Voice (121%), and Email (32%). However, rich messaging channels including WhatsApp (67%), RCS (631%), and Viber (50%) are also important components to an extensive offering. The ability to use rich features makes digital channels appealing to platform customers that want to upgrade their communication.

Despite businesses often choosing multiple platform providers based on specific industry solutions, capabilities, or regional strengths, integrating with them can be challenging. Statistics reveal that changing omnichannel and Communications Platform-as-a-Service (CPaaS) service providers often occur due to user interface scalability or solution flexibility issues.

In fact, most platforms offer a combination of traditional and rich media channels – using SMS as a constant and combining it with customers’ preferred channels such as WhatsApp and Email.

Source: Infobip

This challenge raises the question of how to use digital platforms to boost customer engagement and achieve long-term business success.

Prioritizing customer success for long-term loyalty and satisfaction

Masin recommends a strong communication strategy for digital platforms to boost engagement and achieve long-term success. This is where cloud communication providers play a crucial role – in delivering information, tracking satisfaction rates, and creating engagement with customers.

“Developing a comprehensive communication strategy that fits the platform’s needs is crucial for its success, and we refer to this as the engagement network effect. The more interactions a platform can handle, the more satisfied and engaged customers will be, leading to growth and insights that can improve services,” he added.

Platforms that enjoy the capacity to onboard customers quickly, and engage every user intelligently, on any combination of channels, can tap into a kind of engagement network effect. The platforms that successfully give themselves a compelling opportunity to unlock their hypergrowth potential, and ultimately succeed need to:

• master the art of handling every single customer interaction at scale
• support users at every point of their platform engagement lifecycle
• and reduce the complexity of their overall engagement strategy.

To ensure customer satisfaction, businesses must prioritize customer success by deploying AI bots across various communication channels and adapting channels to different scenarios along the customer journey. This approach allows for consistent interaction with customers, regardless of the platform used.

Source: Infobip

By covering various entry points throughout the customer journey, from initial research to post-purchase, businesses can provide support and assistance to ensure a positive experience and increase the chances of repeat business.

For example, a technical issue may require a quick response through live chat or phone, while general questions or comments can be addressed through social media or email.

How Infobip defines customer platformization and its objectives

Infobip is dedicated to staying ahead of industry trends and predicting the next big thing. Its team engineers business solutions that offer the necessary tools to improve customer engagement. These ensure seamless integration with their platform partners and development teams.

When technology and creativity converge, “platformization” occurs. At Infobip, the company defines customer platformization as a method that addresses immediate challenges and invests time in studying and analyzing offerings, business apps, portals, system architectures, and industry trends.

“Our focus spans several industries, including MarTech platforms striving to be the engagement engine for their clients, Fintech platforms that connect businesses with digital banking and online payment options, and insurance companies seeking to sell their products,” said Paolo Miguel Reucaza, Platforms Expert at Infobip. “All of these fall under the umbrella of platformization, which has three primary objectives.”

Firstly, Infobip co-builds solutions by integrating its omnichannel capabilities into clients’ existing platforms. Secondly, Infobip offers a learning and development stage where it provides insights and analysis to inform future development efforts. Finally, Infobip utilizes its gathered collaborative intelligence to grow and add more products to its clients’ solutions.

“For Cheetah Digital, our enterprise customers know the value of SMS and continue to use it with success across the globe. CPaaS providers create the connectivity to hundreds of operators around the world and offer the connectivity over which services can run. This connectivity is not the core business for SaaS companies and therefore there is a dependency on the reach, deliverability and performance of a CPaaS provider to ensure that the channel performs well and remains reliable,” said Andy Galdwin, Global Senior Director at Mobile GTM.

“For Cheetah, we place an emphasis on using tier one providers such as Infobip where it removes hops in the delivery of greater end-to-end control of the service which in hand helps to differentiate us and benefit our customers.”

Why choose Infobip? It’s simple: “One partner, one platform, and infinite opportunities”

Why choose Infobip? According to Norair Bogharian, the Platform Director at Infobip, the answer is simple: “One partner, one platform, and infinite opportunities.” Infobip understands that every business operates under the principle that customers are key to success. Customer satisfaction and retention are essential for any business to thrive. Infobip focuses on engaging and retaining customers by creating value, engaging them at the right time, and increasing satisfaction, ultimately leading to optimal retention rates.

“We strive to meet the customer at their preferred time and channel of communication, whether it be through text, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, or any other available platform,” said Bogharian. “It is essential to repeat this because customers have varying preferences on how they want to communicate.”

Bogharian concluded that Infobip also analyzes every customer interaction, learning from patterns, behavior, and trends. This approach allows the company to tailor and provide a more personalized and humanized experience, adding value to customer interactions.

It’s time to upgrade your customer communication with new channels and technology. Add new digital channels and capabilities to your business through Infobip and enable your customers to scale their business while you grow revenue.