Shall We Shake, Or Scan: WeChat as Enterprise Growth Tool
by Matt Conger, Phil Kohn, co-founders of SeekPanda, based in China
There is no better sign of WeChat’s elevation than a recent scene we saw play out in Shanghai.
U.S. Ambassador to China Max Baucus was at a luncheon with senior Party officials from Shanghai. As if on cue, when the luncheon was ending, the senior-most Party member leaned over and said “Shall we shake or scan?”
For the un-initiated, shaking or scanning is how one transfers their WeChat identity to a friend, making communication happen.
It is an increasingly common scenario when doing business in China. The meeting has concluded and the two opposing sides must now exchange WeChat contact details. Who goes first? Do you both shake your phones or does one of you scan the other’s QR code? Do you block that person from seeing your moments? Do you wait for the other person to confirm the new request while you’re present together or do you assume she’ll do it later?
This frictionless — and culturally friendly — way of doing business with WeChat has introduced an entirely new dimension to business communication in China. We think it is here to stay.
In the U.S., email killed postal mail. In China, we predict WeChat is going to (mostly) kill email. And though this implies even more obsessive phone-checking, we believe that on balance, China’s leapfrogging of email to WeChat is a good thing.
In the U.S., email killed postal mail. In China, we predict WeChat is going to (mostly) kill email.
Business email between Chinese and foreign counterparts has been less efficient than email within the borders of any Western country. Corporate Chinese email providers like QQ still have not figured out that the fourth email in a chain should not have the subject title “RE: RE: RE: RE: Invoice from SeekPanda”. Furthermore, most business cards we’ve received from large Chinese companies don’t even feature a corporate email address: they are inevitably a @163.com or @qq.com address.
Oh, and if you were one of those forward-looking Chinese companies (or rep offices of a multi-national) to use Gmail to power your email, well, let’s just say you’ve seen better days.
If Chinese managers were slow to embrace email, why are they so fast to embrace WeChat for business communication? WeChat was so ubiquitous in personal communications that it was only a matter of time that some business matters started moving to the platform. More China-specific reasons are needed. After all, Facebook Messenger has certainly not displaced email in the U.S. as a means of talking shop.
We see three factors unique to China that sparked the growth in using WeChat specifically for business. First, introductions are much faster to accomplish. A prevalent Chinese attitude is to offer introductions warmly and openly. Simply create a group chat, leave a voice message, and you’ve just introduced two (or more) business contacts. Second, WeChat has a web and desktop client that allows you to chat while at your computer and, critically, drag-and-drop files. The absence of Dropbox and Box, and the lack of traction achieved by their Baidu and YouDao knockoffs, indicates that file sharing hasn’t had an easy solution until WeChat. Third, stickers. Stickers are awesome.
Any analysis of WeChat vs. email must also look at a similar battle playing out in Western countries: Slack vs. email. The New York Times called Slack the app that could kill email. We use it at SeekPanda every day. Yet as email faces a two-front war from WeChat and from Slack, it is clear WeChat is the more formidable force. Slack, which we love, is only for internal communications. WeChat is used both internally and externally.
The best days of WeChat are probably still ahead. As Alipay and WeChat Wallet creep their way into larger B2B transactions, and as government entities begin to allow civil matters like parking ticket payments, WeChat will only become more ingrained in business communications.
WeChat has a public API with documentation in English and Chinese. This allows app developers to leverage WeChat in many ways and we’re only beginning to see Western companies notice this.
Evernote’s Chinese app has a tight WeChat integration that it’s non-Chinese version can only envy for the benefits it brings to its users.
Some features have yet to be introduced. We’d love to see a polling feature, for example.
How WeChat is Used
The concept that WeChat is tapping into for business communication is called persistent chat. Unless you make an proactive effort, every chat room stays open and you can add (or remove) people into chats at any time. Most of us weaned on Gchat or IM did not have persistent chat. We had chat sessions. Persistent chat discourages the need for email. Why send an email to your team, which requires the entry of multiple email addresses, when you can just send a message on WeChat?
We can also explain WeChat’s prominence in business communications with a more cynical explanation: people check their phones more often than their email. If a supplier is late on a shipment and I send them an urgent message, the business morals of 2010 would say that the supplier has two days to send a response. In 2015, we know everyone checks their phone multiple times an hour. The morals of today may say the supplier has to respond by the end of the day. We love reading the excuses when a WeChat message finally gets a reply after more than 2 days. Of course, we dread composing those messages when we ourselves are overdue in responding!
Matt and Phil are the co-founders of SeekPanda, the premier solution for on-demand interpreters and translators in China. On WeChat, you can find them at mattconger and philkohn11.
