Sinch is a company specialized in messaging and communications in the cloud that offers solutions to interact with mobile users with offices around the world. It has CPaaS (Communications Platform as a Service) technology that brings companies and people closer together through mobile messaging (SMS, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, etc.), voice and video. We spoke with Sonia López Esquilas, Regional Sales Director Iberia of Sinchto talk about the company, its strategy, trends and goals for 2022.
Ecommerce News (EcN): Tell us what Sinch is and what it specializes in:
Sonia Lopez Esquilas (SL): Sinch is a world leader in cloud communications, offering solutions to engage with mobile users. Our CPaaS (Communications Platform as a Service) technology brings companies and people closer together through mobile messaging (SMS, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, etc.), voice and video.
Our scalable cloud communications platform can reach every mobile device on the planet, in seconds or less. That’s why Sinch is trusted by global businesses and organizations including Tinder, Toyota, Visa, Domino’s, Google and others to handle more than 190 billion B2C mobile engagements a year.
Sinch helps companies and organizations transform the customer experience, adding personalized communication at each step of the so-called “customer journey”, which helps increase efficiency, reduce costs and amplify commitment to the company.
EcN: SINCH is working on solutions increasingly oriented to the digital channel? What is your bet in this regard?
SL: To engage customers through digital channels, our best bet is our Conversation API, an API that allows businesses to easily engage with customers around the world using multiple messaging channels.
With pre-approved messaging templates for various messaging platforms, our customers use the Conversation API to communicate effectively across multiple platforms. Transcoding, for example, ensures that images and videos play perfectly on every channel. We can say that the Conversation API is essentially a Swiss army knife for omnichannel messaging.
EcN: What are the main demands of your customers?
SL: In general, our clients seek differentiation and customer loyalty. They see an exceptional customer experience as the key to differentiation. As such, they demand the optimal technology, support and expertise to deliver a more efficient and effective customer relationship.
Not all solutions or channels work for all customers. It’s about choosing the right channel, tone, and context to create personal conversations at scale.
EcN: How do you currently manage communications with companies?
SL: Today we engage with our customers through various different channels such as SMS, email, chat bot, Whats App, etc. We see increased demand from B2B customers to engage their audiences across multiple channels as the business buyer is also using multiple channels to engage with their vendors.
EcN: What role does omnichannel play for Sinch?
SL: Creating an amazing customer experience means being able to converse with customers through their preferred channel, be it email, voice, WhatsApp, Facebook, Viber, chatbots, etc, etc. Consumers are used to communicating with their friends and family through a variety of digital channels, and they expect to be able to engage with businesses in the same way.
Today, however, most communications between consumers and businesses occur through single channels. Omnichannel communication is a powerful trend that is rapidly gaining traction. Businesses see it and consumers demand it.
That’s why omnichannel customer engagement is at the core of everything we do. That’s why we created the Conversation API, to provide an easy gateway through which businesses can access omnichannel messaging.
EcN: How has everything related to COVID19 affected and changed the business?
SL: The pandemic has had quite a positive impact on our business, both in terms of demand for our services and technology, as well as creating significant opportunities to scale through acquisitions.
When the pandemic hit, the drive toward digital transformation quickly became key to survival, leaving companies with the need to intensify business processes to meet customer expectations in new ways.
Cloud Platform as a Service (CPaaS) solutions have been the perfect answer to enable businesses to rapidly engage with customers at scale, across a number of channels. Such was the demand for CPaaS solutions, that Gartner predicted that by 2023, 90% of global businesses will leverage CPaaS offerings to improve their digital competitiveness, up from just 20% in 2020.
As businesses continue to emerge from the impact of COVID-19, restructuring their IT infrastructure to take advantage of digital platforms will be a top priority, with customer experience one of the main drivers of these investments. With Sinch recognized as one of the world leaders in CPaaS, we are in a strong position to support this change.
EcN: What trends do you see in 2022 regarding communications and your industry in general?
SL: The big trend for 2022 and beyond will be the transition to conversational customer engagement, using two-way omnichannel communication to create powerful personalized customer conversations.
In fact, Sinch recently partnered with IDC to survey 350 global CX leaders and found that 79% of respondents had initiated or planned to implement conversational customer engagement.
EcN: What are the company’s goals for next year?
SL: As a publicly traded company, I am unable to share specifics of our strategic goals for 2022. However, one of our main focuses this year is trying to bring our extended Sinch family closer together. During 2021 alone, Sinch made three big acquisitions: Inteliquent, MessageMedia, and Pathwire.
Like most businesses, the pandemic put a halt to most non-essential business travel. Therefore, we hope that this year we can once again hold more company social events where we can meet and mingle with our new colleagues in person.