•Infobip sees huge opportunities for SMEs, others
With Rich Communication Services (RCS), telecommunications operators have the opportunity to expand their reach and largely, reduce the huge threats posed by the operations of Over the Top (OTT) players such as WhatsApp, Telegram, and Viber, among others to their businesses.

As of 2020, report had it that OTTs c cut off about N370 billion from the revenue of telecommunications operators in the country.

Indeed, Infobip, a player in omnichannel engagement, at a media interaction in Lagos, noted that RCS offers new help for telecoms operators to recover part of their revenue being lost to the operations of OTT.

Besides, Inforbip said this is not limited to telecoms operators, noting that RCS application can also aid economic recovery for small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs).

With RCS being an upgraded short message service (SMS) that accommodates image and video alongside the text, mobile network operators (MNOs) can now compete with the OTTs and regain some revenue they have lost due to the reduction in the use of SMS.

Simply put, RCS is a mobile messaging protocol that can deliver more interactive mobile text messaging experience than traditional plain-text SMS messages.

Speaking in Lagos at a media interaction, the Senior Operator Partnership Manager, West Africa, at Infobip, Martin Effiong, said while the OTT messaging apps have become the norm in person-to-person (P2P) communication, RCS’s rich media capabilities could provide a foothold for MNOs not only in business communication space but also in the P2P market where OTT players currently dominate.

Emphasizing that the RCS provides a solution for MNOs to compete with OTT players and claw back some of the revenue they have been missing out on in both the P2P and the lucrative Application-To-Person (A2P) messaging space, Effiong described RCS as a rich media capable communication protocol that is an evolution of SMS as a native messaging channel, provided by Google in collaboration with MNOs.

“With RCS, mobile operators are able to provide their subscribers, as well as enterprises, with a messaging system that has the capability of sharing and receiving content such as images or videos without the need to download a separate messaging app.

“With many enterprise-focused features such as chatbots or carousels (content slideshows), brands are able to provide a convenient customer engagement channel for various use cases, ranging from tech support to purchases, as part of the conversational commerce paradigm,” he said.

On why businesses are shifting to RCS, the Regional Manager at Infobip Nigeria, Olatayo Ladipo-Ajai, said while SMS has played a critical role in business communication, the new realities around customer behavior and expectations mean that traditional SMS messaging – which provides one-way engagement – has certain limitations such as gateways, DND (Do Not Disturb) and firewalls that often prevent promotional messages from reaching the target end customer, which may result to relatively low SMS open and read rates.

“Conversational messaging, in the form of Rich Communication Services (RCS), can address many of these challenges, enabling businesses and brands to communicate more effectively while reaching out, attracting, and converting potential customers. RCS is an evolution of SMS, which integrates features from various chat apps into one platform.

“RCS allows for conversational engagement with customers who can be interacted with as a group or directly on a one-on-one basis, similar to apps such as WhatsApp. A clear benefit for businesses is that RCS provides deeper metrics on whether a message has been delivered, opened, and clicked, delivering better analytics for businesses to gauge how successful a promotional campaign has been,” he said.

Also speaking, Isaac Akanni, on “Boosting profitability and enhancing deeper customer engagement with conversational banking”, said that RCS is integral to conversational banking which can be seen as an upgraded version of SMS, complete with the rich features of a chat app.

“It also offers a wide range of features that can improve Customer experience (CX), including interactive functionality that enables customers to make bill payments or balance enquiries, while providing privacy and security through end-to-end encryption.

“The main value of incorporating an RCS channel is that it yields better customer engagement, increases trust and builds long-term customer relationships.

“By sending RCS messages, banks can ensure that customers gain higher visibility of their brand, while also presenting new offers and campaigns in a more effective way, such as information about loans, changing interest rates or new credit cards.

“Banks can also use RCS to send notifications or useful reminders about card activations or payment instructions.

“While RCS is new to the local market, the opportunities it presents are huge and use cases will grow exponentially as the channel gains traction.

“Conversational banking should ultimately provide a seamless flow of conversation to ensure positive CX and manage a host of complex transactions that will lead to a deeply rooted engagement that translates into a long-term relationship between a bank and its customers.”