M+E Daily

Even before COVID-19, consumers in today’s digital media landscape sought out different ways to engage with their favorite brands. Now, the messaging trends that were slowly building up before the pandemic may be the permanent way of doing things going forward.

That’s according to Joe Jorczak, enterprise account executive and industry lead for Zendesk, speaking May 12 at the annual Hollywood Innovation and Transformation Summit (HITS) Spring event, during the presentation “Engaging Your Consumers & Users in a Crowded Communication Landscape.”

“We noticed a phenomenal spike at the beginning of COVID of people using messaging apps,” Jorczak said, pointing to a 100 percent-plus jump in WhatsApp usage, along with big usage bumps for everything from text messaging to email, with only phone usage (down seven percent) dropping. “Those were trends that were already happening, they just accelerated,” Jorczak said.

That’s carried over into customer service even more during the pandemic, he added, with several analysts noting that more consumers than ever before are conducting business and reaching out in ways besides the 1-800 call center.

“These trends that started out last year have solidified and taken hold,” Jorczak said.

“It’s incumbent on businesses to think of how to address this, because we’re seeing it from both the analyst community and the data. There’s expectations these preferences will become the new normal, the de-facto standard.”

Over the past year, Zendesk insights show that 64 percent of customers have tried a new way to get in touch with customer service, and using messaging, customers engage differently, by trying to find answer with self-service more often, and by interacting with AI or a chatbot.

Zendesk found that 26 percent of customers tried messaging for the first time in 2020, thanks to stay-at-home orders, with one in three people under 40 saying social messaging is among their most preferred support options now.

The company also found that high-performing teams are forty-two percent more likely to offer messaging.

To view the entire presentation, click here.

HITS Spring was presented by IBM Security with sponsorship by Genpact, Irdeto, Tata Consultancy Services, Convergent Risks, Equinix, MicroStrategy, Microsoft Azure, PacketFabric, Richey May Technology Solutions, Tamr, Whip Media, Eluvio, 5th Kind, LucidLink, Salesforce, Signiant, Zendesk, EIDR and the Trusted Partner Network.