Responding to the growing demand for fast, digital, self-help services, Millions of South African customers of an integrated communications company, Telkom can now make payments via WhatsApp as the company is partnering a chat commerce and business messaging platform, Clickatell, to leverage on its newly launched Chat 2 Pay feature.

With Chat 2 Pay, the payment process is exceptionally simple. Telkom customers can transact by simply making a menu selection to trigger a payment request. A link is then sent to the customer in a WhatsApp message. When they click on the link, they access a fully hosted checkout page.

The process goes on to customer entering payment details securely and submit, receiving a confirmation of the payment and receipt in a chat message as customers benefit from a convenient and personalized service to pay bills and VAS top-ups via Mastercard, Visa debit and credit cards.

Senior Vice President Enterprise Sales, Growth Markets of Telkom,Werner Lindemann, ​​Clickatell’s said that with post-paid and prepaid, customers can pay their phone and xDSL/fibre bills, buy airtime, data and SMS bundles as it is now deploying its customers the Chat 2 Pay pay-by-link capability on WhatsApp, providing them with the convenience of safe and effortless mobile payments.

Currently, Telkom’s chatbot offers customers mobile support by accessing their accounts and billing information. It also allows them to view sales deals, check for mobile or fibre upgrades, do cancellations, make directory inquiries and more.

User behaviour has shifted, and organizations are relying more and more on digital channels for revenue generation. But, asking customers to make payments through a different channel creates a break in the customer journey and challenges companies to convert sales.