Consumer messaging apps are gaining attention these days. The reason behind this is, almost everyone today carries a smartphone, is using a chatting app and is also present on the social platform. People are therefore more interested in getting a quick response to their queries and support. Also on the business end, business moves quickly towards success when people find immediate answers to their question through a fast customer support.

Therefore, companies are adopting the live chat support to communicate with its clients. There are apps such as LINE and WeChat that have already proven themselves to be successful for businesses in countries such as Japan and China.  The monthly active users here have been rising from 600 million to 200 million respectively. Here are some of the reasons that businesses are going to consumer messaging apps.

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A Huge number of Users

The messaging apps contribute to a significant portion of mobile app business in the market. Studies show that the messaging apps contribute to 6 of the top 10 most used apps on the market. Today billions of users worldwide are using messaging apps on their mobile, most popular among them are WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, WeChat, Kik, etc.

They are Private

Consumers like their queries to be solved privately. Therefore, a private messaging platform is all they look forward. Using private messaging for customers support is also beneficial for the business as having grievances on public areas or social platforms is not good PR for a brand. These discussions, therefore, should be best conducted as private messages.

Multiple Communication Options

The chat options available today across the various chat apps offer some choices. The most popular among them are:

• One-to-one message
• Mass message
• Group message
• Timeline Posts, and
• Stories

One to one message is the most obvious and preferable choice for consumers to use.

The Chat Bots

Chat Bots are undoubted, a set of programs that responds to users queries. The machine learning and artificial intelligence today have made this possible. These chatbots can have meaningful conversations and can provide feedback to customers online.

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They can integrate with your other software: Not all chat platforms can do that, but yes, some of the chat applications can integrate with the business software platform. Chat becomes necessary when business needs to manage their consumers, pushing out marketing materials and including e-commerce solutions. For example, LINE offers a solution called Line Business Connect, which lets business connect with other apps to its service through an API. The SME Partnership Programs also helps small and mid-sized businesses use LINE to promote their business.

Things to Note

If you are planning to use the messaging platforms for marketing purposes, some things are necessary to keep in mind.

• They will only work with people who are already using them. Forcing individuals or prospects will not work out in a positive way. The point is to capture the market people are already into.
• The popularity of the messaging apps also greatly depends on the geographic location. For example, LINE is more popular in Japan while WeChat dominates in China. WhatsApp on the other hand dominates across the Europe.
• Some of the chat applications still do not integrates with some of the business software. Using these apps can make it hard to keep track of the customers and their communications.

These things are to be kept in notice while going for a messaging platform.