The ground zero of business messaging is a simple one-way notification. 

It gets the job done, but these days, it’s pretty impersonal. 

For routine queries, companies are increasingly using in-app chats or texts to connect customers and employees to efficiently solve issues and create a better customer experience. Leading companies have figured out that the next evolution of great customer experience is through messaging. 

But, integrating different messaging channels and maintaining the infrastructure to support cross-channel conversations presents a multifaceted technical challenge for businesses—including orchestration, participant management, and message archives. 

Read what conversational messaging means for business.

During SIGNAL 2019, we discussed the notion of 'conversations' and how the concept could change the way we do business. We heard from three incredible presenters at different companies, all of which are building conversational experiences at scale to suit their unique business needs. 

Here’s an abridged discussion between Twilio’s Christine Roberts, …

Businesses want better ways to communicate relevant, personalized, and timely information to customers. Account notifications are one way to do it, but doing it well can be a spider’s web of timing, various notification types, preferred channels, and a lot more—all while trying to scale. 

Channel choice can make or break customer engagement. Consumer preferences are changing, and more than two-thirds of consumers prefer to communicate with businesses via messaging. Consider this: four-out-of-five emails go unopened. In fact, SMS has five times the open rate compared to email. 

SMS alerts are the single best way to keep customers in the loop about important changes to their accounts. And notifications via SMS and push notifications have been shown to be more effective. By ensuring customers are notified in real-time (regardless of channel), and are receiving these notifications via their preferred channels, companies can reinforce customer loyalty and increase customer satisfaction. …