In 2000, South African company Clickatell was the first in the world to succeed in sending messages from the internet to cellphones. Clickatell is now helping companies to start"chatting" to their customers via WhatsApp. Key to WhatsApp’s success in conquering 1.5 billion smartphone users is its easy sign-up process – it doesn’t require the usual lengthy email authentication others use. Instead a simple four-number code is simply SMSed to your cellphone, and you’re in.
So when WhatsApp was started by two former Yahoo employees a decade ago, it turned to the South African experts in SMS technology to help it set up its “friction-less” onboarding. Recently it enabled a new MTN service that allows clients to buy airtime and data via WhatsApp, and it is also helped Absa to launch its “chat-banking” via WhatsApp – a world first that enables the bank’s customers to do remote banking as well as get a credit report.This is called “conversational commerce”, and Clickatell CEO Pieter de Villiers believes in five years’ time you will interact with to your favourite brands in the same way you are currently chatting with your friends.
“Nobody enjoys the call-centre experience,” says De Villiers. “When you finally get through to an operator, you first you have to authenticate yourself, then spell your name… It’s frustrating.”“You don’t need human intellect to address these simple queries, which is also not fulfilling work for employees in call centres.”
"We can confirm we are already working with some of the world’s leading brands in these areas," says De Villiers.
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