Derek: Hello, everyone.
Derek with tatango.com.
I am here at Mobile World Congress 2019 in Barcelona.
We are here at the Innovation City or Center?
Dave: Innovation City.
Derek: Okay, Innovation City at Google, there's a bunch of demos.
I want to pull the guys from Commify aside and talk about how their product is really
kind of adapting with RCS and why they see RCS being so valuable.
So I'm gonna pass off the mic to Dave here.
Dave: Thanks, Derek.
What we found is while brands are really interested in RCS, it can be difficult for them to take
that first step into enhancing their messaging experience.
They're really used to doing SMS but the concept of developing a chatbot and going all the
way to a rich detailed messaging experience, that's a bit scary for them.
And while we don't have 100% coverage for RCS, it's maybe just an investment too far.
So what we've tried to do is work with our customers on more of a gradual evolution of
their messaging experience.
The way we're doing that is we're helping our customers take the SMS that they send
today and just enhance that into a rich card version of that same journey, that same notification.
And what we found is that by doing that we don't have to reinvent the wheel, we don't
have to invent a new use case but we can enhance that experience for the end consumer and as
a result, they engage a lot more with the message that they receive.
We can put that then back in front of the brand and show them the uplifting customer
engagement and then that gets them ready to really think about what they want to do next.
So our approach there, what we've done is we've built software that we call our messaging
studio, and really that's a rich card designer product.
So it allows you to take the texts that you would've sent and embed that within a rich
card and allows you to create graphics and buttons around that to enhance the experience.
I'm gonna hand over to Mike, our product manager and he's gonna talk you through a little bit
more about how that works.
Mike: Thanks, Dave.
Thanks, Derek.
So, yeah, so as David said, is taking an SMS, taking the text that people would have traditionally
sent but enhancing that, adding imagery, adding buttons, making it really engaging and really
easy for a consumer to be able to engage with brands, to be able to respond and reply.
So what we did was we initially created our studio products and it's a visual designer.
So brands can take their existing imagery, their brand logos, a lot of the assets that
they'll use, they'll just grab from their existing website even.
And we're finding that this enables marketing teams to be able to create engaging landing
pages and rich cards without having to go through their normal design and technical
teams to create all of these things.
So using studio, first of all, you go in, you add in the images, add in blocks of text,
you can create variables, so if you want to personalize the message, you can do that.
And you also then can add in buttons, so if you want to create links to websites, perhaps
at add a telephone button to be able to call straight into customer service or the sales
team.
And again, all of these things are real easy for anyone, any brand to do just by looking
at their existing assets and websites to copy information across.
Dave: Mike, what about for those users who don't have the right Android device or aren't
on the right mobile network, right?
How do we cater for the brand and getting the same richness of experience to those consumers?
Mike: Absolutely, great question.
So, this is a key thing for us is being able to have an SMS fallback which links off to
a landing page which produces or gives the consumer exactly the same experience as if
they would have using RCS.
So for our brands, it means they get 100% coverage right from the get-go.
And it means they can start using these things today, they can create their rich cards, create
the assets in RCS.
And as RCS adoption increases they just start switching channels.
More of their customers move over which gives them a better return on their investment because
RCS is one less click all the time.
What they're also then able to do is use those rich cards they've created in studio and those
landing pages and we can use them as the starting point to create more engaging journeys.
So moving to messaging as a platform type experiences where we can then do things like
changing appointments, booking future appointments, chatting with customer service and all of
those other great things which RCS and the future messaging channels or are offering.
Derek: That's super interesting.
I love what's happening here that no longer are we talking about when will RCS come, we're
are now talking about, okay, RCS is coming, or it is even here right now.
Now it's about how do we make it easy to sell?
You know, I love it.
Like years past it's always been when will it come, you know, but now it's okay, it's
coming, it's here, how do we sell it?
I think you guys have some interesting stuff and I love the fallback idea with then the
link that then goes to the content.
So because I think one of the problems with RCS is it's gonna be hard to create SMS, MMS
and RCS, and all the fallbacks.
So it's nice that you guys have kind of taken it from RCS, and when you create the RCS,
it automatically creates the fallback, making it easy on the consumer and obviously the
brand as well.
So that's very cool.
Well, we're here at Mobile World Congress, 2019 here in the GSMA Innovation City.
And these are my guys from Commify.
Check them out at commify.com, right?
Man: Right.
Derek: Perfect.
It sounds good.
Thanks, everyone.