The Messenger as a Tool of Communication with Customers

The work is devoted to the messenger as a communication tool between company and customers. The relevance of the current work comes from a several Internet rapidly growing trends. The volume of the mobile Internet audience for 2017 grew by 12.5%, the proportion of users who access the Internet only via mobile devices is 15%. The total user volume of the four largest messengers exceeded he total user volume of the four largest social networks. In this regard, the business has a management task: how to use the messenger during interacting with customers. The previous studies are aimed to examine the interaction of users with each other, not companies with customers. The aspect of the messenger as a communication tool for business with consumers has not been considered in the scientific community until now. In the work, the messenger is explored as a communication tool by the example of the Delivery Club company. The task of the work is to formulate recommendations that will help to identify the need for messenger and how to implement it in communications with customers. Data were collected using questionnaires. The sample included respondents who had food delivery experience. As a result, the most preferable scenario for Delivery Club customers is to use messenger as a channel for receiving informational messages from the company.On the other hand, less preferable scenario is implementing it as a tool for order status notification. Users still prefer to receive SMS as notification. However, replacing SMS with the instant messenger without changing the content can be used by companies as a way to optimize marketing costs, but not to increase the value. Moreover, the current and preferred channels are the same for the majority of respondents, which can be explained by the poor technology penetration on the analyzed market. The study can be used as a framework for future research on other markets.