Chat commerce in South Africa is growing rapidly, with many brands increasingly adopting technology to better reach their clients and potential new customers.

With about 59% of South Africans in the age range from 16 to 64 years old on WhatsApp, it has become the go-to chat platform in the country, with business interactions growing significantly, particularly in the financial services, retail and insurance industries, easing pressure on call centres and avoiding cart abandonment with in-chat payments.

“South African companies are inherently innovative and many local brands are keen to engage with new technologies to better serve their customers,” mobile communications and chat commerce specialist Clickatell Middle East and Southern Africa commercial senior VP Werner Lindemann says.

More customers prefer contacting a company through digital channels, rather than using interactive voice response technology, the traditional answer to call centre automation, he says.

Lindemann points to the company’s own performance in the region as proof of the success of chat, with the number of WhatsApp messages or business interactions doubling over the past year.

In particular, Clickatell has reported strong demand for its new Chat 2 Pay solution, which enables merchants to securely accept payments in chat messaging by sending consumers a payment link through SMS or WhatsApp.

“Driving payments within chat channels is an effective way to address cart abandonment because customers can move seamlessly from their browsing experience to payment. Capturing customers in the moment has proved invaluable and this has struck a chord with local companies hoping to boost their customer experience,” he says.

“The growth in business interactions also shows that we have helped brands ease the pressure on their call centres – a need which has skyrocketed in the last 20 months.”

Some local brands have been strategic with how chat platforms are used, with iterative deployments across the company once they have seen evidence of success.

“Successful implementations have also been duplicated in other regions, allowing brands to quickly and effectively use the channel to better serve their customers and offer upselling capabilities across their operations,” he says.

Three of Clickatell’s South African clients, namely Pick n Pay, WeBuyCars and FlySafair, have used chat with great success.

Lindemann highlights that the biggest growth in chat commerce over the last year emerged from the financial services industry, with significant interest from insurance companies.

Further, Clickatell notes that, amid a surge in ecommerce, there has been “phenomenal” growth in chat commerce within the retail sector, which has also been driven by the need to deflect volume from their call centres.

“We do not see chat replacing call centres; however, we see chat having a role to play in optimising the consumer experience through call centre deflection and automation,” he adds.

“It will also drive costs down because call centre costs are escalating rapidly as consumers demand instant gratification, especially for the big consumer brands.”

South African brands have been quick to try to act on the trends, although they have shown mixed results.

“We have seen a number of South African enterprises dabbling with the concept of chatbots without properly thinking through the end-to-end consumer journey.”

Lindemann says that chat can be a powerful part of a firm’s transformational journey; however, there is a need to first understand how technology can transform a firm’s business and how customers can be serviced in the space they already are in.

Leaders also need to consider how they want to engage with their customers, including in the real world, on the Web and on chat, as well as better understand customer data and, through this, understand what it is the customers really want.

“With these considerations reviewed, you will be in an ideal place to design a chat implementation that will deliver meaningful results,” he concludes.