The Ultimate Guide to Viber for Business for Retail Brands

Retailers face a variety of challenges, including attracting new customers, maximising sales, and building loyalty. Finding a native environment for brand-user interactions across various touchpoints to solve all of these challenges can be tricky, yet messaging apps can be an effective solution. Nearly 95% of adults worldwide actively use chat apps, making them a great way for retail brands to interact directly with consumers.  

Rakuten Viber provides a cost-effective and efficient suite of tools for a variety of business goals. Viber for Business solutions work in synergy, offering an array of features to connect seamlessly with clients, regardless of their location or stage in the buying process. Retail brands can personalize customer communication by integrating the app's business solutions with CRM and CDP tools. Rakuten Viber's rich media capabilities provide a powerful opportunity to create visually appealing, interactive, and engaging content that drives brand awareness, engagement, and ultimately, purchases.

The Viber for Business Ecosystem: Boost Your Marketing, Sales and Customer Service

A global leader in messaging communication, Rakuten Viber has an active, payable audience. The app has successfully established a worldwide presence, spanning more than 190 countries. It makes Rakuten Viber a valuable platform for businesses around the world aiming to connect with their audiences.

Viber for Business suite of solutions is designed to help brands drive sales, enhance marketing, and improve customer support. 

Advertising solutions, which include Viber Ads, branded Viber Stickers, and branded Lenses, provide creative and effective ways to promote a brand to a wide user base.

Rich Business Messaging solutions, which are made up of Business Messages and Viber Chatbots, allow brands to strengthen their communication with customers. Viber Business Messages offer retailers a streamlined and efficient communication channel to become closer to their customers. Brands can drive purchases by delivering personalised promotional messages, send important notifications through transactional messages, and provide around-sales customer service through conversational messages. Viber Chatbots allow businesses to provide automated support, available 24/7 without the added costs of human resources. This gives human service agents time to focus on more complex customer care needs, ultimately enhancing customer experience.

All messages from brands land in the Business Inbox by default – a dedicated folder for brand-user interactions that keeps brand-consumer conversations separate from regular chats.

With the Business Account, retailers can also establish a brand presence on Rakuten Viber. This is a searchable account where customers can learn more about the brand and initiate a conversation. 

Viber for Business offers all the business solutions a brand needs at each stage of the marketing funnel to build awareness, spark interest, drive conversion, and nurture loyalty. Let's explore how Rakuten Viber for Business can solve retailers’ pain points and help them achieve their goals at each of these stages.

From Awareness to Loyalty: Optimizing the Marketing Funnel with Rakuten Viber for Business

Retailers can use Viber for Business solutions for various business needs. Here are some of the ideas on how brands can achieve their objectives with Viber along the marketing funnel.

Awareness

• Enhance brand visibility. Use a range of Viber Ad formats and placements that can be seamlessly integrated into chat or call screens, as well as other frequently visited areas.
• Catch customers’ attention. Design interactive AR Viber Lenses for your audience to use in the photos or videos. This is a great way for people to connect with your business in a non-common way.
• Generate new leads. Use a synergy of solutions on Rakuten Viber. For example, you can reach users with Viber Ads with a CTA button incentivizing them to share contact information and sign up for your marketing offers. Then, you can send targeted offers via Viber Business Messages. You can also use branded Stickers, Lenses, and Ads to bring prospective customers to your chatbot on Rakuten Viber.
• Drive product demand. Make the most of Viber Ads by utilizing the targeting options by age, gender, geographical location, and even personal interests. You can also create and launch personalized campaigns with contextually relevant creative content and offers.
• Inform existing clients about new offerings. Multimedia features of Viber Business Messages allow you to interact with your customers in a more visually pleasing way through photos, videos, and emojis, and better showcase your products.

Interest

• Stay top of mind. Reach a wide audience with compelling Viber Ads and show your competitive advantage or facilitate immersive product interactions with AR-powered Viber Lenses.
• Re-engage interested customers. Use Viber Ads to reignite their existing interest and encourage action. You can also use CRM and CDP insights to send Viber Business Messages with restock alerts to customers who are interested in the product. Don’t forget to share helpful content through Viber Business Messages, showcasing products through rich media.

Conversion 

• Boost conversions with flash offers. Use Viber Ads and Viber Business Messages to share limited-time offers with the relevant segments of the audience.
• Enhance holiday sales by communicating special deals. Send discount alerts or offer customers an extra perk with their purchased product to drive seasonal sales via Viber Business Messages or Viber Chatbot.
• Fight cart abandonment. Send reminders about items left in the cart and offer personalized discounts on abandoned items using Viber Business Messages and Viber Chatbots.
• Upsell and cross-sell. Use customers’ purchase history to recommend products & make personalized offers through Viber Business Messages. Use interactive carousels in Viber Сhatbot to suggest add-on products that go with the customer’s main purchase.

Loyalty

• Encourage repeat purchases. Remind buyers about their bonuses or discounts through Viber Business Messages or Viber Chatbots.
• Build long-term relationships. You can use Viber Chatbots to provide your customers with convenient access to the loyalty program details.
• Collect customer feedback. Automate customer feedback collection via Viber Chatbot to get product insights efficiently. Use Viber Business Messages to collect feedback and promptly address any issues in personal, 1-to-1 chats.
• Personalise your customers’ experience. Send personalized gifts and offers to earn customer loyalty and celebrate your relationship with each customer in a personalized holiday greeting using Viber Business Messages.

Viber for Business supports retailers from raising awareness to fostering customer loyalty while enhancing the buyer’s journey.

The Impact of Viber for Business on Customer Support and Experience

According to HubSpot research, 93% of consumers are likely to continue buying from companies that provide exceptional customer service. Viber for Business solutions can help retailers significantly enhance support and the customer experience. Brands can provide real-time customer support via conversational Viber Business Messages and instantly answer urgent questions from many customers at the same time by using a Viber Chatbot to automatically reply.  

It allows seamless interaction between the brand and its users, enabling quick and efficient problem-solving. By integrating CRM and CDP tools with Rakuten Viber's Rich Business Messaging, brands can access relevant information for each user's query. 

Retailers can save resources by automating responses to frequently asked questions using a Viber Chatbot. It will also help brands prevent customer loss during off-hours, as Viber Chatbots can deliver customer support 24/7.

Rakuten Viber makes it easy for brands to update customers on their orders and transactions. Retailers can provide rapid order status updates using Viber Business Messages or Viber Chatbot, giving customers easy access to necessary information. They can also empower customers to directly manage their orders, ensuring seamless delivery. Plus, with Viber Business Messages, brands can easily send important documents like receipts, warranties, and bills. Thus, customers will have all the information they need organised in one place. 

Rakuten Viber also allows for easy verifications through OTP messages, important reminders, and updates on purchase status. 

A Seamless Customer Journey: The Power of Viber for Business Solutions in Action

In the current digital landscape, the client's purchasing journey is no longer a straightforward path. Instead, it has evolved into a complex process where consumers interact across multiple channels, devices, and touchpoints before making a purchase. Businesses need to be present where their audiences are, and Rakuten Viber, with over a billion downloads on Android alone, provides just that platform.

To understand how users become loyal customers on the app, let's explore how your brand can influence a customer's journey with Viber for Business solutions. Imagine that a potential client comes across a Viber Ad and decides to opt in to marketing notifications from your brand. You can then send a personalized discount via Viber Business Message, enticing them to make a purchase. To keep the product top-of-mind, you can use Viber Ads for retargeting, reminding the person about the item they showed interest in. To further spark interest, you can send additional information about the product via another Viber Business Message.

Later, the client adds products to their cart and subscribes to your chatbot to have easy access to your offering. To encourage completion of the purchase, you can send a reminder about the items in the cart via a Viber Chatbot. Once a purchase is made, a confirmation and receipt are sent via Viber Business Message. 

After the purchase, you can continue the interaction by collecting post-purchase feedback using Viber Business Messages. This prolonged engagement helps to build a lasting relationship with the client, fostering loyalty and encouraging repeat purchases.

Success Stories of Viber for Business Clients

Coca-Cola, the world's largest beverage company, wanted to expand its mobile presence and engage with both existing and new consumers in Bulgaria. To achieve these goals, Coca-Cola strategically partnered with Rakuten Viber because of its connected and engaged audience in the country. Through the launch of Viber Stickers with a promo code mechanism and a chatbot experience on Rakuten Viber, Coca-Cola was able to reach a wider audience and drive conversions over a 3-months period. By cross-promoting this campaign across their social channels and supporting an "under-the-cap" sweepstake, Coca-Cola achieved impressive results, including almost 30,000 cap codes redeemed and a 30% conversion rate, 10 times higher than the industry average. 

The Primer Group of Companies, a prominent retailer in the Philippines known for distributing a variety of consumer goods, utilized personalized promotional Viber Business Messages to stimulate client interest and drive sales. In collaboration with Rakuten Viber's messaging partner, Infobip, Primer sent e-vouchers to the clients of its youth apparel and lifestyle store Bratpack. The result was a staggering 401% surge in sales and a code redemption conversion rate of 53%.

Another compelling example is Leroy Merlin, the largest home improvement retailer in Europe. They were looking for innovative ways to make interactions with the members of their new loyalty program more convenient. With the help of Rakuten Viber’s official messaging partner, M-STAT, Leroy Merlin adopted Viber Business Messages to communicate with their loyal customers. The outcome was a 300% faster customer service response and a 20% growth in basket size.

Harness the Power of Viber for Business for Retail Success

Rakuten Viber for Business is the ultimate retail solution that directly addresses the needs of today's customer-centric market. Its ability to support every stage of the marketing funnel, from raising awareness to fostering loyalty, makes it an indispensable tool for retailers. Thus, retail brands around the world already see great results using Viber for Business solutions. 

In short, if you're a retailer and not using these instruments yet, you're missing out on a potential game-changer for your business. Leverage Viber for Business and experience firsthand the difference it can make in your customer engagement. Your audience is already on Rakuten Viber; it's time for your business to be there, too.

Feel free to contact our team to learn more about Viber for Business capabilities for your retail brand.