Latest conversation trends among consumers in Asia Pacific

How brands today are using data on consumer-brand interactions to build customer centric business strategies

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Customer centric strategies

The way consumers interact with brands today has changed. Due to the pandemic, customer behavior, communication preferences, and the way they expect to be engaged by brands have evolved. These changes are happening at a faster rate than before, and it is crucial for brands in Asia Pacific to understand these changes in order to ensure their customer experience journey is optimized and effective.

A powerful customer experience strategy is one that is centered around customer data. The recent report by Talkwalker on Consumer Conversations in Asia Pacific 2021 looks at the latest trends in consumer-brand interactions, and how brands today are using this data and information to build a customer-centric 2021 strategy. Based on the findings and insights from the experts, this article covers some key takeaways for businesses to adapt to the new normal.

Download the latest report on Consumer Conversations in Asia Pacific 2021

Businesses in Asia Pacific need to humanize customer engagement

In a survey of PR, marketing, and consumer insights professionals, 83 percent of respondents in Asia Pacific indicated that the pandemic has changed their understanding of consumer conversations. While Covid-19 has pushed both businesses and consumers to embrace digital transformation, consumers have also been seeking more human interactions in their brand experiences. Hence, brands need to leverage real-time consumer insights in order to keep up and adapt the customer journey accordingly.

In this region, businesses leverage consumer insights and conversation channels for a few key reasons. To obtain customer feedback, for product research and innovation, as well as for brand promotion. However, only 12 percent of brands surveyed use conversation channels for all the reasons seen below - this highlights a huge potential and opportunity for brands to maximize the information at their disposal to drive a stronger and more personal customer experience strategy.

APAC survey results on what brands leverage conversation channels for

Speed to insights are critical to understand changing consumer demands

Also, 47 percent of respondents in Asia Pacific indicated that insights from consumer conversations are still limited to a single department in their organization. This shows that there is significant room for improvement when it comes to data democratization within organizations in the region.

Access to consumer conversational data is usually limited to the marketing department. It is important for these teams to have members who are adept in data and analytics, so that they are able to extract maximum value from the conversation channels and derive actionable insights from them. Businesses should also break down data silos and ensure that consumer intelligence is accessible by the different teams.

Drive conversational intelligence within organizations

Today, social media remains the top source of brand interactions, followed by review sites, blogs, and call centers.

APAC survey results regarding the top channels for customer interactions

In order to predict consumer trends and build an optimal customer experience journey, brands should move from social listening to overall conversational intelligence. This means analyzing consumer conversations on review sites, call centers, forums, and more, on a single platform, and then deriving conversational intelligence from the data.

The global pandemic and the economic uncertainties it brought about have made brands more conscious of their consumer, market, and brand intelligence. It is important for brands to have in place a system of analyzing customer conversations at scale, drive the relevant insights from them, and turn them into a robust customer experience strategy that can withstand the fast-changing business environment today.

For more insights on how exactly brands are leveraging conversational data to drive their 2021 strategy, download the latest Consumer Conversations in 2021 report by Talkwalker.