There are many channels for customers to interact with businesses. But there is an interaction channel where customers will have outstanding experiences, which is: The Master Channel. With The Master Channel, businesses can focus on building a main interaction channel based on a suitable technology platform. Other interaction channels will direct customers to The Master Channel to be able to provide the best experience at the most reasonable cost.
The Master Channel – The main interaction channel
The Master Channel is a concept initiated by the Pango team and PhD. Dinh Mong Kha, defined as the main interaction channel to help businesses connect with customers. Businesses investing in The Master Channel means focusing resources on a main channel to create better experiences for customers at a lower cost.
According to a report by HubSpot, 90% of customers want to be served immediately when contacting a business. If they have to wait too long, they may turn to look for the competitors’ products/services. A study by LivePerson also shows that 79% of customers want to chat with a business immediately when they have a question or problem that needs resolving.
Therefore, building a main interaction channel like The Master Channel to provide customers a place to help them solve their needs quickly and directly is necessary. The Master Channel will help businesses retain customers better by communicating regularly and proactively. Maintaining resources for one channel also helps businesses save costs compared to multiple channels (Omni Channel).
Elements of The Master Channel for Businesses
If the business only provides Element 1 – “Channel” and Element 2 – “Experience”, without Element 3 – “Warm” (engaging and personalized interaction messages), then customers will also feel bored and easily forget The Master Channel.
If only investing in Element 1 – “Channel” and Element 3 – “Warm” without Element 2 – “Experience” (a system to handle customer requests), customer experience will be easily interrupted. For example, after receiving a promotion, without a system, customers may not be able to move forward seamlessly to the purchase step, and may drop off (skip) at crucial conversion steps.
Similarly, without Element 4 – “Educate,” customers may forget how to access this interaction channel when they have a need.
Therefore, it is necessary to build all four elements to ensure the successful implementation of The Master Channel.
Super App – the perfect ‘Channel’ to build The Master Channel
A Super App meets all the criteria of a comprehensive “Channel” when building The Master Channel. The features and benefits that a Super App brings are countless. In the 2020s, these apps were the most modern and popular interaction channels, present in almost every human activity.
A Super App is an ecosystem that provides a variety of features and services, from shopping, booking a car, booking a room to studying, entertainment and travel. A Super App helps users not to install too many different apps to solve their daily needs in life, saving time, and bringing convenience and speed. A Super App is also the origin of some typical technology terms such as: “App in App” or “All in One”.
Beyond features that meet most of the users’ important needs, in terms of being the foundation for building The Master Channel, Super App has two important components:
Official Account (OA)
OA is the business’s official account on a Super App, also known as a Business Page, helping businesses interact with customers, helping users follow and update news about products, services, promotions or events easily from the brand they are interested in. OA is Element 1 – Channel, which includes many advantages compared to other interaction channels such as SMS, email…
Compared to SMS messages, which are limited by character count and regulations, Super App helps businesses create diverse content templates, with vivid colors, images, and can be customized. In particular, types of messages such as notifications, customer care, etc., can include CTA links and brand logos to help users easily identify and capture information.
OA on a Super App is integrated directly into the popular mobile app. Users can access and interact with the business without leaving the app. Moreover, the customer experience on OA is more focused than other platforms thanks to the integration of many convenient features from Mini App, creating a seamless buying journey and interacting with the business.
A factor that makes OA considered as a useful tool is its ability to create two-way interactions with more colorful, coherent messages…
In case customers have not “Follow OA”, businesses can still send ZNS (Zalo Notification Service) messages to customers’ phone numbers using Zalo or other forms of sending messages (SMS, email) to create a sense of closeness and make them interested in OA in worthy persuasion.
Mini App
Mini Apps are small applications running directly on the Super App platform. Mini Apps do not require users to download and install like standalone applications. Users can access and use directly from a Super App on their phone. Mini Apps are the perfect material for Element 2, building user experiences:
- Shopping, selecting goods, and reviewing services on Mini App.
- Viewing accumulated points, using promotions.
- …and countless other features
When businesses build Element 2 with Mini App, users can interact directly with businesses when they have specific needs.
Businesses can create an ecosystem of Mini Apps to serve different needs of customers, for example, the famous hotpot restaurant HaiDiLao in China has created a Mini App for table reservations, one for ordering and delivery, and one for point accumulation… All are placed in HaiDiLao’s main Mini App, helping to optimize the customer experience. Apart from HaiDiLao’s typical example, businesses can also implement many other interesting ideas through Mini Apps to attract users and increase interaction with them.
OA combined with Mini App (Element 1 – Channel combined with Element 2 – Experience)
OA combined with Mini App helps businesses create seamless and consistent experiences for users. For example, users can experience the business’ Mini App by scanning the QR code and playing the game in-store, then clicking follow your OA to receive a voucher when winning the game. When users choose to follow OA, businesses can start interacting on this newly established “Channel”.
OA combined with warming interaction (Element 1 – Channel combined with Factor 3 – Warm)
Once the interaction channel has been established through OA, the next step for the business is to maintain a reasonable connection with customers. If ‘”warm” too much or ”warm” with incorrect messages, customers will feel annoyed and quickly “unfollow OA”. The previous cost that the business spent to motivate customers to choose to follow will immediately become wasted. In fact, with the author’s implementation experience, many businesses have faced this situation. Businesses invest a lot of money to convince users to follow OA, but due to “warm” indiscriminately, customers felt uncomfortable and left the channel, even worse, they could lose goodwill towards the brand and long-term effects on the brand image.
On the contrary, if the interaction is too little, customers will forget this interaction channel and once again, the budget spent will be wasted.
So, what is ‘warming’ enough? A CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system or higher, CDP (Customer Data Platform) will be the answer.
To “warm” at the right time, with the right amount, and with the right message, businesses must deeply understand their customers, gather enough information about transactions, behaviors, and shopping habits…
To make CRM or CDP systems work well, they need to be combined with the marketing team’s understanding of the business’s customer base.
Familiarity: The premise for Element 4 – Educate
Most users access the Super App every day to chat with friends, make orders or payment. When choosing a Super App as The Master Channel, businesses do not need to spend effort advertising and persuading users to download or use this interaction channel regularly because they already have reasons to access it daily. This helps increase the opportunity for business-to-customer interaction and reduce costs.
Moreover, with the advantage of owning a large number of users, Super Apps help businesses reach and interact with potential customers easily and quickly in many ways such as: Users can search for the business’s OA or Mini App name on the search bar, scan QR codes on product packaging, flyers, advertising banners, or click on ad links on the New Feed, shares from friends, Zalo ZNS Template messages from businesses…
It’s like the difference when you open a restaurant in the street and in a Shopping Center. On the street, attracting customers to stop by is not easy. Successful advertising will probably take a long time to get results. However, when your restaurant is in a Shopping Center, where there are already many customers from various services such as dining, entertainment, shopping, etc., you won’t have to worry too much about how to get customers anymore. Instead, what you need to do is attract and retain customers with exceptional product quality, service and experience quality.
In conclusion, the revolution in how businesses interact with customers is happening in this digital age. Choosing between Omni Channel and The Master Channel not only requires an understanding of business needs, but also aligning with the long-term vision to build better relationships with customers and benefit both parties.
Not only data exploitation strategies, but also detailed marketing campaign implementations for businesses based on data orientation and much new knowledge around The Master Channel will be presented in detail in The Main Interaction Channel – The Master Channel, Volume 1.
Six chapters of the book will guide readers through the impressive development journey of interaction methods between businesses and customers.
From the most primitive forms to multi-dimensional interactions in the smartphone era, the book will present successful stories along with leading global brands in boosting revenue by enhancing customer experience, explaining the success of The Master Channel concept when applied at two leading Vietnamese companies, Nutifood and CellphoneS.
The book is now available at Fahasa, Phuong Nam, Hai An, Ca Chep bookstores, and online at 24h bookshops and e-commerce platforms like Tiki, Shopee, and TikTok Shop. You can also quickly order the book here: https://i.o2o.vn/H767
