steven maseka 
Ivan Ostojić, Chief Business Officer at Infobip
- Data Reveals WhatsApp, E-mails leading customer-brand chats during shopping season;
Record year-on-year growth in customer communications interactions on Infobip’s platform
New data from global communications platform Infobip reveals that consumers increasingly prefer conversational interactions during shopping events like Black Friday.
Brands are leaning into convenient, end-to-end conversational channels, with WhatsApp, E-mail and SMS emerging as the top three choices.
On Black Friday alone, these channels facilitated over 1.6 billion interactions worldwide.
Infobip recorded new levels of total customer communications interactions on its platform this year, with 3.4bn interactions on the day of Black Friday, which represents a 26% increase when compared to last year.
From the total number of interactions, the company identified 1.8bn coming from messaging interactions on its platform, up from 1.7bn last year.
Infobip’s messaging analysis reinforces the company largest messaging platform worldwide, and its reliability for brands during shopping season.
Infobip also reveals that, in this year’s Black Friday, Retail & eCommerce and Finance industries are between the top 5 sectors which generated interactions in the company’s platform, presenting increases of 42% and 36%, respectively, when compared to last year.
Infobip’s data reveals that, Black Friday sales extended across the entire month of November. Interactions across the whole month were higher than last year as brands sought to attract consumers looking for discounts pre-Christmas.
Ivan Ostojić, Chief Business Officer at Infobip, said: “Rich Communication Services (RCS) have emerged as a significant channel for shoppers this Black Friday.
The increase is driven by consumers seeking conversational experiences with brands and businesses seeking to provide end-to-end journeys for their customers in one channel.
Moreover, brands’ focus on hyper-personalization has helped drive conversational customer experiences and, we expect, will have boosted sales.
Our research also shows the traditional Black Friday discount days now typically stretch across November, with a big spike in interactions across the whole month as retailers and eCommerce firms seek more cost-conscious consumers this year.”
