Businesses are moving quickly during the pandemic but customers are moving even faster. Business development in the digital era is highly influenced by the desire of consumers for companies to continue innovating, making companies adapt quickly. Especially in the pandemic era, there are several changes in consumer behavior that have forced businesses to adapt and innovate especially when it comes to online shopping. In adapting to consumers, businesses have had to alter their marketing strategies as well as especially in building specific strategies to conduct interactions with consumers.
Based on research conducted by Deloitte, as many as 74% of consumers use social media as a platform for shopping. These platforms are also used as a place for transactions and interaction with consumers and are currently known as social commerce. As the most popular social commerce platform today, Instagram can be a platform for businesses to optimize transactional processes and interactions with consumers.
Instagram as a Platform for Transactions and Interaction
One of the features that can support the interaction between businesses and consumers is Instagram Direct Message. Not only that, Instagram’s release of its shopping feature in 2019 has been a game changer for businesses to begin using Instagram as a platform for transactions. A research by Facebook found that as many as 81% of consumers conduct product research through Instagram. This goes without saying that Instagram has significantly changed consumer shopping habits. However, in the era of the pandemic where customer-brand interactions are high, businesses also need to consider providing a positive customer experience (CX) during these interactions.
When businesses and consumers interact, this builds consumer trust. Not only that, interactions that create positive customer experience (CX) also influences consumer decisions to buy a product. Instagram Direct Message (DM) is usually the platform where customers on Instagram communicate with businesses. With the prevalence of high-volume interactions, Instagram released the Messenger API for Instagram
Optimizing Instagram DM Function
Instagram DM comes as a feature to interact with consumers. However, the question is, how can brands and enterprises optimize this function? The key improvement that Messenger API for Instagram brings is how it allows businesses to integrate Instagram DM with multichannel. By doing this, businesses can allocate customer service agents to manage their Instagram DM business accounts. In addition, businesses can also integrate other communication channels into multichannel and respond to messages from all channels through the same dashboard. This can significantly increase the response rates of businesses which creates positive CX with customers. It is found that 40% of consumers expect businesses to respond immediately to their queries and messages. Thus for consumers, the speed of a brand’s responses is an indicator of positive CX.
What is the Difference between Instagram DM and Messenger API for Instagram?
The difference between Instagram DM and Messenger API for Instagram lies in their features. The features available on the Messenger API for Instagram allow businesses to interact with consumers effectively and efficiently to create a pleasant shopping experience. Furthermore, the Instagram Messaging API can also be integrated and accessed in one dashboard using multichannel services. This way, businesses can save more time in responding to consumer messages.
Businesses can also continue to create positive CX by leveraging on other features of the Messenger API for Instagram, such as private replies, quick replies, generic templates, and ice breakers. The existence of these features also saves time for businesses when interacting with consumers. For example, the Private Reply feature allows brands to reply to comments via Instagram DM. When using this feature, consumers will receive messages from business accounts which can include answers to consumer comments. This feature makes it easier for businesses to initiate personal interactions with consumers.
For more details, you can learn about these features here.
Bringing Real Customer Experience to the Digital World
According to research conducted by PwC in 2017, speed, convenience, and helpful customer service agents are key benefits for consumers. With each reaching a score of at least 70% when consumers were asked to rate these benefits. The change in consumer behaviour due to the Covid-19 pandemic is quick and sudden, signalling the prevalence of using online platforms to carry out transactions with everyone going online. For businesses to win in this pandemic era, they need to adapt to consumer behaviour and develop corresponding customer experience (CX) strategies. It is clear that consumers want not only quality products but also positive experiences when transacting with brands. Integrating two or more messaging platforms in one dashboard for sure will be able to help your business deliver positive and responsive CX.
Ready to integrate Messenger API for Instagram through a multichannel platform to increase your business reach? Chat more with Qiscus here.
