SnapTravel now available to 1.5B users on WhatsApp
SnapTravel allows customers to find and book the perfect hotel room over conversational experiences such as SMS, Facebook Messenger, and Alexa. Today, we are excited to announce that SnapTravel is now available over WhatsApp!
There are 1.5 Billion monthly users on WhatsApp who send 65 Billion messages a day. These messages are primarily sent to other users. The opportunity for businesses to directly interact with their users is enormous, and WhatsApp is setting itself up to address that need. Large brands with a global customer base — like banks, airlines, e-commerce retailers — around the world have been eagerly awaiting the enterprise solution ever since WhatsApp announced their small business solution last January. SnapTravel has been selected as one of a small number of global brands that will be launching today!
This integration is a big milestone for us at SnapTravel as we look to be present where our customers already spend most of their time. We do not have a standalone app, but rather we are built into the most popular messaging apps. Over 1 Billion people use WhatsApp every single day as their primary messaging app, and being on this platform provides customers with the ability to easily message us the same way they would message a friend.
Twilio
We have already been using Twilio’s Messaging API to engage our users on SMS, so using that same API for WhatsApp was a no-brainer! Using Twilio also allows us to use SMS as a fallback when the user cannot be reached on WhatsApp by leveraging their Intelligent Routing capabilities. Best of all, Twilio has eliminated the operational overhead required to get up and running with WhatsApp making it the fast and easy to start communicating with customers via WhatsApp.
“The most successful companies understand that to deliver a great customer experience, you have to meet your customers on the channels they prefer. SnapTravel does that by allowing people to find and book hotel rooms on a variety of messaging channels,” said Devarshi Shah, head of rich messaging at Twilio. “We are excited to see how launching on WhatsApp will drive SnapTravel’s international expansion.”
Global expansion
In the past year we’ve had users interact with us from over 200 countries. As we continue to expand our global reach, understanding where our users come from and which platforms they use becomes very important. As you can see from the map above, Facebook Messenger continues to be the dominant messaging app in 64 countries most notably North America and Australia. However, in other places around the world WhatsApp is the most popular messaging app. Not just is it the #1 messaging app in 104 countries, WhatsApp has the highest smartphone penetration rate (up to 90+% sometimes) in the countries it is a leader in compared to other messaging apps.
We believe that SnapTravel should be available to anyone and everyone who would like a delightful conversational commerce experience. Expanding our service onto the WhatsApp platform allows us to continue our global expansion and give customers the freedom they deserve to reach us using the messaging app they want to use.
Who is SnapTravel?
SnapTravel is the leader in conversational commerce. By creating a delightful experience over conversational interfaces (SMS, Messenger, WhatsApp, Alexa) we drive millions of dollars in hotel bookings every month for millions of users around the world. Advanced natural language processing allows customers to interact with an intelligent bot the same way they would chat with a friend, enabling them to find and book the perfect hotel for their stay. The service is also backed by human agents who are available 24/7. SnapTravel raised $9.2M USD from leading VC’s and is one of the fastest growing e-commerce startups in the world.
