P2A Messaging in RCS - The Role of Chatbot Directories

The whitepaper provides a detailed understanding of P2A messaging in RCS, how RCS directories work, the current landscape of directory offerings in the market, and provides recommendations on how directories could evolve to accelerate the adoption of P2A messaging. Orange, Vodafone, Synchronoss, and IMI Mobile, as well as several other leading experts, have shared their valuable insights for the whitepaper.

Brands across the globe are seeing the value and creating RCS chatbots for myriads of use cases, such as customer care, sales and commerce, providing information notifications, OTPs, and surveys. However, the challenge remains how do consumers find out about the available chatbots, and how do they initiate conversations with the brands using the chatbots. This whitepaper highlights how directories are filling up the chatbot discovery gap between consumers and brands.

The whitepaper explains how P2A messaging and directories work in RCS, and how brands benefit by using directories. Various triggers to help users initiate a P2A interaction - such as clicking on a link, a “Connect Me” button, scanning QR codes, sending an SMS, dialing USSD codes, or dialing into an IVR are discussed. Three different search mechanisms are presented - (a) searching from a web portal; (b) using a directory chatbot (chatbot of chatbots); and (c) search using a client directory built into some apps such as the Samsung Messages app. Support for these search mechanisms across various RCS platforms and messaging apps is explained.

The whitepaper then presents details of the directories offered by Dotgo, Orange, Synchronoss, and Vodafone, and finally sets out the recommendations on how chatbot directories can evolve to growth of P2A messaging.