Asia-Pacific companies increase investment in cloud-based solutions

The latest market research commissioned by global cloud communications platform Infobip – and prepared by leading IT market research and advisory firm IDC – highlights the rising role of AI-powered conversational commerce and omnichannel communication platforms in the Asia-Pacific region.

The IDC InfoBrief titled Revolutionising Customer Experience through the Power of Conversational Commerce provides a guide for brands to successfully adopt and leverage this strategy, ultimately maximising value for both businesses and customers.

According to the report, customers born and raised in the digital age have high expectations and carefully evaluate their interactions with brands throughout the buying journey. This has resulted in a move away from traditional transaction-level experiences to relationship-based ones.

In Vietnam, for example, telecommunications service providers have used conversational commerce platforms for account notifications and offer hyper-personalised promotions and discounts to customers.

Recent statistics demonstrate that brands adopting an omnichannel approach and delivering an end-to-end experience have higher chances of enhancing loyalty and customer lifetime value.

Conversational commerce relies on Communication Platform as a Service (CPaaS) and Software as a Service (SaaS) as crucial tools, empowering organisations to seamlessly integrate real-time communication features (such as voice, text, video, instant messaging, and social media) into their internal and external applications using a developer-friendly API as the building blocks.

Capitalising on the advancements in AI, conversational commerce has gained significant traction among businesses in the Asia-Pacific region.

In Vietnam, the potential for conversational commerce is incredibly wide thanks to the high percentage of Internet users (77.93 million out of a total population of 98.53 million), which contributes to the popularity of social networking platforms (64.4 million adult users at the start of 2023). In addition to Facebook and Instagram, users in Vietnam are very active on communication apps such as Zalo and Viber.

E-commerce is one of the fastest-growing business segments in Vietnam. Online retailers are using conversational AI-powered chatbots to address customer queries in real-time and keep customers apprised of orders.

CPaaS- and SaaS-based solutions enable businesses to provide a seamless customer journey that is visible across multiple touchpoints, empowering them to branch out globally.

Velid Begovic, vice president of Revenue at Infobip said, “As businesses embrace the potential of conversational commerce, they leverage AI technology to create meaningful connections and unlock new growth opportunities. Organisations need an actionable, customer-centric strategy and the ability to invest in the right set of tools to grow the business and keep customers happy. This will empower them to stay ahead in a dynamic marketplace.”

Nikhil Batra, research director of Telecommunications at IDC Asia-Pacific said, "Contextualised customer interactions boost profitability and foster emotionally fulfilling engagements. The rapidly increasing use of social networks in Vietnam further fuels businesses' desire to improve the customer experience, and thus they are investing in conversational commerce to help them grow more quickly."

Building out an ecosystem is quite necessary for not only startups but also e-commerce firms to grow and achieve a successful breakthrough.

The local e-commerce market is proving tougher than imagined by most as players drop out of the race left and right, while others are hanging on by a fingernail.

Leflair, an e-commerce platform specialised in flash sales and branded goods, officially announced suspending operations in Vietnam, yielding to the capital and cost pressure.

Livestreaming jobs are forecast to boom this year as the pandemic continues to stimulate the demand for online shopping. However, the trend is also putting the government on edge as it seeks suitable management modes.

In his most recent open sharing, Huy Nguyen, regional country lead, Growth Businesses, Southeast Asia at Facebook, has highlighted to Thu Huong the value of conversational commerce and how it is transforming businesses in Vietnam and across the globe.