Bangladesh’s market is evolving at an unprecedented pace, wherein the uptake of the internet and smartphones has been rapid.
In 2020, about 25% of the country’s population had access to the internet, a significant gain over 2011 when only 5% of the people were using the internet.
With rising demands and awareness among customers, businesses are experimenting with chat apps and social media messaging to deliver seamless customer service in response to growing customer demands and awareness.
One such global cloud communication company, Infobip, which is directly connected to over 700 telecom networks across six continents, already makes it possible for businesses across sectors to build connections across all stages of the customer journey.
It provides solutions based on proven global best practices that are adapted to specific needs and local requirements. Being a CPaaS leader, Infobip offers an unrivalled range of channels like emails, messaging apps, WhatsApp, SMS, Messenger, Live Chat, Instagram, Telegram, Line and voice tools, from a single platform to create omnichannel journeys.
It is operating at a point where technology, relevance and convenience should meet to create ultimately connected customer experiences.
With the advent of technological advancements like Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) algorithms, customer service is now being delivered through different channels that can directly engage with customers without the need for human or live agent support in the backend.
Looking at global figures, about 23% of customer services companies entirely rely on AI-backed chatbots to deliver support and after-sales support. Infobip’s intelligent chatbot building platform ‘Answers’ enables brands to create and deploy a smart virtual assistant that supports customer service, marketing, and sales results by bringing a new level of automation, speed, and availability.
It can be employed across all key communication channels, including WhatsApp, Messenger, Live Chat, SMS, and RCS, from a single platform.
Technological penetration in Bangladeshi businesses
Among industries, the retail, banking, financial services, and insurance sectors have been experiencing major technological modifications. With the telecom revolution taking a footing in the country, a report estimates that over 62% of Bangladeshi users will have smartphones by 2025.
Also, aggressive financial inclusion in the banking sector is becoming a priority in Bangladesh, as reflected well in the National Financial Inclusion Strategy of 2020-2024.
Also, the country is rapidly picking up in the retail sector, including e-commerce. The industry reports indicate that this sector will steadily grow at the rate of around 25.6%. About 3 billion more buyers will come online in developing nations including Bangladesh and gradually bridge the gap between brick-and-mortar stores and digital shopping avenues.
Besides, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has developed the Digital Strategy 2022-2025, which will further aid innovation and digital transformation in the country.
With the rise in business opportunities in Bangladesh, Infobip’s SaaS (Software-as-a-service) and CPaaS (Communication platform-as-a-service) offerings are matching the pace equally to deliver transformation, slick omnichannel engagement, and security solutions on a single, scalable, and easy-to-use cloud-based communications platform.
A 360-degree business communications service provider, Infobip, is already supporting enterprises across several verticals like banking, insurance, and e-commerce, along with many D2C players.
Growing customer base requires predictive chat apps to meet demands
The growing demand from online consumers is only putting more pressure on the country's already flourishing digital services space. As per estimates, there were about 51,937,600 Facebook messenger users in Bangladesh as of May 2022, accounting for about 29.9% of Bangladesh’s total population.
Additionally, the country has about 40 million registered WhatsApp users. This trend of growing usage of chat applications is not only limited to Bangladesh. According to the latest findings developed and released by Infobip, nearly 49% of millennials worldwide now prefer to use WhatsApp and other chatting applications as their preferred communication channel.
In fact, Infobip’s platform has registered 171% more WhatsApp chat interactions (or usage) in 2021 compared to 2020.
This growing buzz around chatting apps is also because they are convenient and offer a personalized experience. Additionally, a big factor leading to growing sales is also because of a smooth customer experience (CX) being offered by a web interface, which is the core of Infobip’s connected tech services.
Chat apps have great potential to build a personalized experience with their growing smartness, given that AI and predictive algorithms are improving daily.
Infobip researched and found out that chats offer a conversational experience, with about 46% of consumers agreeing that technology, with a smoother interface, significantly encourages them to engage with brands and that 35% of consumers are happier interacting with brands digitally since the pandemic started.
Irrespective of real humans powering the customer service domain, chatbots are conveniently available 24X7, and some surveys conclude that they have cut business operational costs by nearly 30%.
AI-powered chatbot with an omnichannel approach is the future
With less human intervention and more reliance on AI, predictive technologies, and ML, these chatbots are gradually becoming smarter and more independent. A few of the most prominent applications of these chatbots are in the banking sector, wherein they can quickly tell customers about their transactions or help them apply for debit cards on WhatsApp itself.
Further, in the retail and e-commerce space, chatbots serve customers in managing their carts and knowing about order statuses on Messenger. Travel, hospitality, and healthcare sectors also have newfound applications through chatbots, which deliver smooth user interactions swiftly.
Instead of relying on multiple channels, the companies like Infobip are today offering the most advanced, unified, and smooth Application Programming Interface (API) solutions, which allows numerous chat applications to interact with each other freely.
This is called the omnichannel approach, which allows different channels like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and other live chatting applications to be integrated into a single and combined module.
This omnichannel offering has a 100% improved response time and can cut operational costs significantly. Conversational and predictive AI-powered chatbots are the future, and their integration is a step closer to reducing interactive complications and making business delivery smoother.
The way ahead
The world is gradually evolving from an information-centric approach to a conversational-centric approach to enhancing customer experience (CX), which is a big factor in retaining customers.
A business’s success is counted on how smoothly it engages with its customers from when the buying journey starts to when it is concluded. The more effortless the customer experience is with the chatting interface, the more sales it will register and bring in strong customer loyalty.
Modern chatbots are the future of smooth customer experience (CX), and the omnichannel approach can combine inputs of different chatting applications in an unwrinkled manner.
With a conducive business environment and ever-growing digital penetration in Bangladesh, brands need to know what their customers need, when they need it, and in what way. Chatbots offering trouble-free and fully featured customer experience is the future.
These technologically advanced chatbots provide a preferred channel of communication for customers to interact with their brands, meeting the fast-paced demands, providing convenience, and offering a desired level of personalization to the buyers.
