Forbes Technology Council Nov 17, 2022 Iain Scholnick
The recent shift in the digital communications industry surrounding WhatsApp for Business, now targeting helping small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), which prop up 90% of the global economy, is indicative of a larger focus shift that should be paid close attention to.
Major communication service providers (telcos) and social media powerhouses such as Meta are partnering to expand the reach of their existing technologies and open up new channels to grow and service their SMB customer bases. Covid-19 showed everyone that digital presence is a must and that consumers prefer connecting with their favorite brands online.
SMBs working on expanding their digital presence have plenty of choices when engaging new customer engagement strategies. A recent example is a partnership between Vodafone and Wix that started in 2020, allowing SMBs to digitalize during the pandemic faster with the help of a telecommunications partner than they could on their own.
The Underlying Impact Of Meta’s Move Within The Telecom Space
Mark Zuckerberg was quoted saying “messaging has become the center for our digital lives” in a piece covering Meta’s launch of the WhatsApp Cloud API. WhatsApp has opened up to small businesses around the world to build out digital offerings more rapidly for the users sending well over 100 billion messages a day on the platform by leveraging communication service providers worldwide.
Meta and WhatsApp are now partners with the telecoms SMBs are traditionally very comfortable using. Small businesses operated out of people’s homes can open up a business account with their local telecom provider and support their business entirely through a self-service digital presence built out with website, scheduling, WhatsApp and messaging integration.
Consumers expect engagement with brands to be a similar experience to engaging with friends both in the tone of communication and channels by which they engage with the brand. Allowing small businesses to offer service on a platform as big as WhatsApp provides a new level of competitive leverage against incumbents in their industry.
The True Cost Of Digital Investment By An SMB
According to McKinsey, online penetration of e-commerce sales is still 30% higher than pre-Covid levels. While operationalizing a robust suite of online engagement tools used to be a nice-to-have for SMBs, it now opens the potential for loss of revenue if they don’t. Customers may have previously been willing to walk or drive to a different brick-and-mortar store to get a better price or higher quality service, but in the digital world, competition is now only a button press away.
The opportunity cost of not meeting customers where they are may be the single biggest stopgap between attracting new customers and growing beyond your current scale. About 63% of shoppers begin their purchase journey online, so not having a digital presence that excites can prevent your business from being considered by customers at all.
Where Digital Engagement At The Customer Edge Is Headed
Over the next 5 to 10 years, I anticipate telco companies will provide increasingly targeted offerings within the SMB space. As consumers continue to adapt shopping habits to the hybrid world, with 60 to 70% purchasing items in omnichannel ways both brick-and-mortar and digitally, operating without a digital offering may increasingly disadvantage SMBs looking to scale.
As businesses reevaluate budgets and spend during a time of economic downturn, technology providers that offer easy, personalized and curated experiences that increase customer reach and engagement with minimal effort on the part of the SMB will likely see tremendous interest.
What SMBs Should Consider To Boost Engagement Today
As global spending on digital transformation in business is estimated to reach $1.8 trillion in 2022, the breadth of solutions on the market makes preparation necessary. When seeking out vendors, be sure to ask questions and ensure they align with your needs. Products that aren’t the best fit can delay optimization, but digital advancement should not remain static. Here are a few questions to consider when vetting a vendor.
Questions To Ask Yourself
• What are our goals for digital strategy over the next 1, 5 and 10 years?
If this year’s goal isn’t close to the goal for a decade from now, ensure you can start your vendor partnership off with a well-valued small plan that targets your immediate goals with room to expand down the line.
• What functionalities do we need on the first day of service versus 5 years from now?
More important than partnership goals is the actual implementation. If you intend to develop a robust digital product suite, but your website host offers a limited range of integrations or API options, you may save money upfront but will ultimately cost more in terms of rebuilding your platform with a partner which can offer the functionality you need years from now.
Questions To Ask Vendors
• What is your plan for improvement of your products and services over the next 5 years?
SMBs in early development often don’t consider what a vendor’s service will look like down the road. While customers don’t have control over iterative platform updates, asking upfront about what a vendor anticipates their business model to look like 5 years from now can start the dialogue about product alignment in a natural fashion.
• What are the costs associated with potential upgrades in the future?
By starting small, some SMBs can get caught by not asking what the cost to upgrade their plan will be down the road. Some vendors have additional fees for integrating other SaaS tools that may not be visible in the initial contract. Outlining the total cost of services that align with your goals years from now paints a better picture of the total cost.
Preparing For The Next Steps In Digital Transformation
Digitalization for small businesses benefits from a measured approach. Setting expectations in the short and long term can pay off. SMBs that do their research on vendors by reading SMB-focused articles, reviews and vendor “getting started” processes commonly available on vendor websites will be set for any sales call.
