A typical WeChat day (1/4)
Part 1 in a series on how WeChat shines a light on the future of Messaging Apps in the West
I drafted this series of articles based on my experience using WeChat in China and then coming back to Ireland to work on Leapchat. WeChat is so far ahead of its Western competitors in terms of commercial activity (ARPU > $7), so I thought I would try to explain how and why it is different, as well as look at what we might expect from the likes of Facebook Messenger, Twitter and WhatsApp in the West.
I spent 15 months in China before starting work here at Leapchat. I stepped off the plane in September and in doing so I felt like I had stepped into the past. During my time in China, I had become accustomed to a digital experience that is not yet available here and I was surprised just how far behind we are in the West. The best way to explain what I mean is by walking through a typical night out in China, which might have gone something like this:
-found an article about a restaurant on a social network
-read article and shared with a friend via instant message
-booked table online
-ordered taxi and paid for it online
-arrived at restaurant and shared location with friend
-paid for meal using payment processing app
-shared photos and description of the evening with friends on social network
What is not so typical in this part of the world is that all the above transactions were carried out within one app! The whole night out was planned with friends, arranged with restaurants and taxis, as well as paid for via WeChat; the insanely popular Chinese ‘All-in-one app’.
WeChat was launched by Chinese technology giant Tencent Holdings, the most valuable company in China, in 2011. What started out as a messaging app has become a multi-functional platform where users can access services from booking hotels and flights to paying for utilities as well as communicating with friends and businesses. The app had 818 million MAU in Sept 2016.
This is how it works.
1. Found article on social media
The social media platform where I initially discovered the restaurant is WeChat Moments- the content sharing function which allows you to share photos, videos, articles, websites etc with friends as well as ‘like’ and comment on friend’s posts. Of China’s 659 million active social media users, 600 million use WeChat. WeChat was the only social media platform I used to connect with Chinese friends during my stint in the Middle Kingdom.
In the West, our social media is fragmented into numerous different apps. In my own experience, I don’t feel satisfied that I have gained sufficient information on all of the day’s events until I have caught up on Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat!
2. Read articles and reviews.
I even read the article and made the booking without leaving the app.
Since my return home, I would be more likely to look for reviews on a website such as Yelp, Zomato or Trip Advisor before making a booking on the restaurant’s own website.
3. Chat
Here’s the WeChat chat interface, the core of the app. I used it to chat with my friends and make arrangements for the evening. I could equally have called, video called, sent a voice recording or real time ‘sight’ to her within the chat function.
Most of us ‘老外‘s (Chinese word for foreigners) are still using a combination of WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger or maybe even SMS to make such arrangements with friends and family.
4. Taxi
The taxi ride? Booked and paid for within the ‘order taxi’ section of WeChat wallet. I could equally have ordered a train or plane instead if we had chosen a more exotic meeting place!
This is one area where our messaging apps, Messenger in particular, have succeeded in making rapid progress by integrating with Uber and Lyft in the US. This allows users to hail a taxi from within the messaging app, but the user experience and business model are quite different.
5. Payments
I used WeChat wallet to pay for the meal. With a simple simple scan of the restaurant’s QR code using the built-in WeChat scanner, I entered my password and settled the bill without ever reaching into my purse! (the waitress could also have scanned my QR code/ bar-code instead if they had a phone or bar-code scanner)
Three years after the launch of WeChat payments, Messenger followed suit in 2016. Messenger bots can accept payments natively without sending users to an external website and the credit card info people already have stored in Facebook or Messenger can be used to instantly make purchases. Messenger CEO David Marcus says that the company is working with all the major players in the industry including Stripe, PayPal, Braintree, Visa, MasterCard and American Express.
6. Content sharing
And of course, in typical millennial fashion, I just had to share the experience with my friends on WeChat moments!
This ties back to the first point about the number of social media platforms we interact with. WeChat was the only option I would consider sharing on while in China because its the one that captures most people’s undivided attention! How about that for ‘maximum amplification’ as us marketeers like to call it!
Given that over 90% of Wechat’s users are in China, how is this relevant to us ‘Westerners’? WeChat provides a real world example of the platform potential of the messaging apps we are more familiar with such as Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp.
It is hard to imagine any one of the western based messaging apps ever being so dominant and intertwined in the lives of such a high proportion of the population because of competition, cultural and legislative differences. But at the same time, the likes of Messenger is quickly moving in that direction as demonstrated by it’s recent developments in integrating payments, a developer platform and many other business features.
This is the first post in a series of pieces on WeChat and how its business model and user experiences might succeed in the west, as well as where different tactics may be required. Keep an eye on our blog for the rest of the series.
p.s see that little ❤ button on the left? thank you❤
If you are interested to learn more about using Messenger for customer service and/or would like to see a demo of Leapchat, please contact us on info@leapchat.co, submit your email here or even better ping us on Messenger and we will get back to you.
