– Ni hui shuo zongwen ma (Can you speak Chinese) ?
– No, I can’t
– Can you speak English ?
– Wo bu hui shuo yingyu (No, I can’t) .
This conversation may happen every day and every second anywhere outside China. For every market, the consumer group you cannot ignore is Chinese. And you might be struggling on questions of “How should I provide a better consumer experience for the Chinese?” or “Do I need to hire Chinese staff to service them?”. It not easy to answer these questions as the Chinese segment of your business is still new and would you not yet cover the costs of hiring Chinese speaking staff. If you have this concern, we recommend considering WeChat, the multi-functional social communication APP which every Chinese cannot live without.
WHAT CAN WECHAT DO?
What do you know about WeChat? Is it only a communication tool in your perception? If so, it is good to have a quick update. Let us see a day Allie’s life with WeChat to tell you what WeChat can do.
In the morning, Allie wakes up, she grabs her mobile and sees the notification from WeChat about her boss’ message that she needs to reply to which was sent after working hours last night. She then checks her friends’ WeChat Moments, reads key news pushed by WeChat and other social media accounts, finds the topic she is interested in, forwards and shares her personal thoughts in her WeChat Moments. She enjoys her breakfast while reading a book in WeChat and then books and pays for taxi directly from WeChat to get to the office.
In the taxi, she checks her QQ mail to see any information or promotion info from different brands, then gives her boyfriend a call on WeChat to discuss where to eat tonight. It is Friday today, she searches Dianping through WeChat and selects the place she wants to go, follows the official account of the restaurant, and makes a reservation via WeChat. A night with at the movies will be great, she then buys movie tickets for both of as well.
When she gets into the office, she suddenly remembers that she has not paid the electricity bill. She opens WeChat, finds the public service section, pays all expenses for her home. It is the first week of the month and she gets a reminder that her salary has been paid. She then buys a finance product from WeChat which can offer over 3% interest with no minimum time limits.
What a life! And what WeChat can do is not limited to this. Whatever service you can imagine, you can all find it on WeChat.
HOW CAN FOREIGN BRANDS OR STORES LEVERAGE ON WECHAT TO ENHANCE CONSUMER EXPERIENCE?
You may think it will be very complicated with a lot IT development for WeChat to provide better service, but it is not.
WeChat has menu and response functions to provide full information on brands to consumers in Chinese. It can serve as a mini website with plenty of information where you do not need an IT team for programming or maintenance. It also acts as a service center where you can reply questions from followers (with a translation service) or create responses with automatic replies base on the service code the consumer sends to WeChat.
WeChat has an open API gate which can connect to your PoS and booking system to achieve direct sales and booking services through the platform.
WeChat also has a system message and CRM system bases on consumer shopping behaviour and database connection with your CRM system. WeChat can push related messages, promotional coupons to your customers who meet certain conditions. Consumers can check their shopping history, receive the purchase receipt, get promotional coupons, and use the coupons all in the WeChat platform.
Sounds amazing? Get in touch with us now to explore more opportunities!
