A whopping 5.2 billion messaging interactions were recorded during this year’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday, data from Infobip has shown. This is an indication of the dominance of conversational experiences, mostly messaging, for customer communications.
While Black Friday saw 2.7billion conversations, Cyber Monday recorded 2.5billion compared to 2.4billion and 2.1billion last year.
According to the data, this is a 210 percent increase in mobile app messaging interactions on Black Friday and a 223 percent increase on Cyber Monday compared to a typical November day. Meanwhile, multimedia messaging (MMS) interactions increased by 178percent on Black Friday and 167percent on Cyber Monday compared to a typical day.
A further breakdown shows SMS recorded a 92 percent increase on Black Friday and a 76 percent increase on Cyber Monday.
While Chat Apps recorded 21 percent on Black Friday and 10 percent on Cyber Monday.
Commenting, Ivan Ostojić, Chief Business Officer at Infobip, said: “Black Friday and Cyber Monday offer retailers and e-commerce brands a significant opportunity to gain sales. While these days remain as popular as ever, consumers are changing how they want to interact with businesses. So, to stand out and drive sales, retailers and e-commerce companies must adopt a conversational strategy and offer interactive and two-way communications with their customers through their preferred channels.
“Supported by a market-leading global cloud communications platform, conversational chat apps and generative AI, we were able to help our clients create seamless experiences for their customers and boost engagement and sales this Black Friday and Cyber Monday.”
Showing the increasing popularity of rich communications during the discount days, RCS interactions jumped two-fold on Black Friday and five-fold on Cyber Monday this year compared to the same days last year. Overall, Black Friday interactions were up 98% compared to an average day in November – against 48 percent last year. Cyber Monday interactions increased by 77 percent compared to an average day in the same month – where Infobip recorded 44 percent last year.