According to a recent McKinsey survey, more than 75 percent of customers in the U.S. have tried something new when it comes to how they shop, the services they use, or how they communicate with companies. Many of these changes are likely to stick around long after the pandemic is over messaging channels .
On the customer service side, customers are flocking to messaging channels faster than any other at a moment’s notice, so support staff are drowning in requests . Are customers being driven to new channels due to sky-high wait times? Maybe, but messaging channels like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger aren’t always the quickest messaging channels ways to resolve an issue. And even as ticket volumes have dropped in recent weeks, usage of these channels remains high.
To better understand this surge in messaging
usage and what it means for businesses and customers, we turned to the Benchmark Snapshot , which tracks the support operations of nearly 23,000 businesses around the world following the onset of the COVID-19 crisis.
Behold the power of messaging apps
Messaging apps are hugely popular, and for good reason. It’s an easy way to check in or chat casually without having to get on the phone. Even before the pandemic, 2.7 billion people were expected to use messaging apps by the end of the year .
And now, with many people stuck at home, the amount of time they spend on phones (and messaging apps, in australia telegram data 3 million particular) is increasing rapidly:
Facebook saw messaging rates increase by 50 percent on its Messenger app in countries hardest hit by the virus.
In Mexico, customers want a quick response: 59% of Mexicans expect a telephone response of less than 5 ux and seo: how to optimize user experience for search success minutes as a contact channel.
Agile companies in LATAM have seen a 20% increase in messaging adoption and a 10% increase in live channel adoption.
Although it’s a powerful form of communication between friends and family, messaging still represents a relatively small percentage of how businesses
But that’s changing quickly
Since February, requests coming through channels like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Twitter DMs, and SMS have increased by nearly 50 percent, compared with more measured increases for live chat (up 16 percent), email (8 percent), and phone support (no gains). WhatsApp alone saw usage increase by more than 150 messaging channels percent over the same time period.
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Popularity varies from region to region or even person to person, but a few platforms dominate the conversation. WhatsApp is the 1000 mobile phone numbers leading chat app in at least 112 countries, according to our State of Messaging 2020 report , with some notable outliers. In Latin America, for example, WhatsApp is the leader.
Facebook, Twitter and other regional favorites like Line and WeChat are the most popular messaging channels for customers, while WhatsApp usage increased by 14 percent.
Keep it simple
As customers are increasingly willing to communicate with support agents in the same way they do with friends and family, it seems that an interest in
Data shows that it takes agents longer to resolve customer issues via messaging channels, often because many teams haven’t yet figured out how best to resolve and operate them, as they have for other channels. This is especially noticeable when compared to live support via phone and chat.