On-Demand Marketplaces are synonymous to spontaneity and responsiveness. Here users are accustomed to transactions taking place at the push of a button, hence their engagement level is always on a tumultuous slope. A slight nudge and they most certainly would go down that slope, only to be lapped up by one of your competitors.

Consider your own case for instance. What happens when you turn on your taxi app and see a 10 mins ETA? You turn to its competitor. This is why On-Demand Marketplaces need to reduce the friction between users and suppliers. The key to this is to keep the user engaged by means of an ongoing conversation throughout the purchase journey.

Having powered In-app Communication across hundreds of On-Demand & Marketplaces applications, we realized that leveraging the transformative power of Messaging Technology is a key to success here. In-app communication drives Marketplaces to Attract Users, Build Trust and Deliver Exceptional Service, ensuring spontaneity at all steps.

We have powered Messaging across many On-Demand and Marketplaces applications, and have hence witnessed numerous Use Cases that they have benefited from immensely. In this blog post, we will highlight the Top 8 Use Cases and the benefits thereof for each.

Customer Support:

The two most important priorities for a consumer, while seeking support are getting through to an agent quickly and the speed with which the issue is resolved. For both these reasons, In-app Chat is the preferred mode for your customers since Chat as a communication channel is less time-consuming and more convenient. A recent survey conducted by analyst firm Ovum clearly demonstrates that 44% of consumers consider Messaging as a less time-consuming alternative to others for Customer Support.

Order Tracking:

The digital natives today thrive on everything real-time. Timely updates on order status hence keep the user engaged to your application. Keeping the user in the loop also plays a major role in improving the User Experience, as the user being aware of the status never feels neglected at any point. The same survey mentioned above, suggests that 48% of consumers are interested in Messaging for Order Tracking.

Collecting Feedback:

Customer Feedbacks are a great way to measure how you are faring. It also goes a long way into uncovering areas of concern, into understanding customer sentiments and ultimately chalking out the product roadmap. In-app Chat Survey widgets to collect Service Feedbacks or the Net Promoter Score makes it convenient for customers to put up quick responses, thereby increasing survey response rates.

Buyer – Seller Chat:

This is more relevant for Online Marketplaces which offers Listing and Directory Services. A seller makes a listing here expecting more leads and faster conversion rates. A typical buyer is more likely to chat with the seller before making a purchase decision. The number of chats initiated hence acts as a counter for the number of leads generated. Typically if an inquiry is answered within 5 minutes, the probability of conversion is 100 times higher. Therefore Chat being a quicker and non-intrusive alternative to phone calls and emails, gives a higher probability of conversion. A win-win for all 3 stakeholders. The seller gets more Leads with faster conversion rates, a Buyer gets the convenience of real-time messaging making the purchase process seamless and the directory service provider gains more engagement due to operational efficiency.

Bot based Concierge:

Conversational Commerce has taken the world by storm. Today there is a bot for almost everything that you can think of. Buyers on your application can quite naturally prefer to ask a bot to make a personalized recommendation over manually browsing through hundreds of product catalogs. By deep-linking the Checkout Page with the CTA in each product card, the overall purchase process becomes faster and convenient. It’s personal shopping as easy as texting.

Modifying/Cancelling Order:

Imagine, you have placed an order for a Pizza but forgot to add your favorite fries. The moment you realize, you make a call to the support agent to make the modifications, but alas you are put on wait. By the time you reach the agent, your order is already out for delivery and making modifications is not possible anymore. Not a good experience right?

A simple guided user flow by means of In-app Chat and Messaging can make the overall process of making modifications to an existing order much more efficient and seamless. We have witnessed use cases where both Bot agents and Human agents have handled order modification requests and also cases where a combination of the two is used.

Broadcast In-app Offers:

In-app Message Broadcasts, unlike SMS broadcasts, makes use of the opportune moment, when the customer is actively engaged with the app to announce giveaways and offers. Hence the CTR of In-app broadcasts is higher than SMS broadcasts.

Social Commerce:

Data is the new oil, and companies across all domains are leveraging data to make better business decisions. Now, imagine the plethora of data you are losing when users of your application talk about products available on your platform on say WhatsApp. Wouldn’t it be great if all that conversation could take place within your application? A typical example: A group of colleagues chatting amongst themselves to decide what to order for lunch. With all the data about specific user interests that you can collect from these conversations, making customized offers would become easy. Also, it is a proven fact that conversations build engagement. The more people talk, the more likely are they to purchase.