 Good afternoon, everyone. Today, we are here to talk about the game that has just changed with Instagram messaging automation opening up for business. The art of possible is now beyond stories, posts, and DMs to a complete customer experience lifecycle that can be executed on Instagram Messenger. Instagram messaging now offers a personal connection at every phase of the customer journey from discovery, engagement, commerce, and support. And it now helps managing high volumes of customer messages, making it easier and helping to turn conversations into business outcomes. Integrating with CRM inventory and other channels for a holistic engagement view, triage inquiries based on user and inquiry type, and route accordingly to automate workflows for common inquiries, increasing efficiency for agents to handle inquiries on Instagram without redirecting to another channel with customer care on a private reply. And in order to discuss about how the market and the industry is looking at this change, we are here today with an elite set of panel. And it's my privilege now to introduce the panel to all of you. So we have Ekta Agarwal here from Meta, Instagram. She leads the strategic product partnership for Instagram. And it's a driving force behind Instagram messaging adoption in India. We also have Shreya, Shreya Sachdev, head of marketing at Huma India. Hi, everyone. We have Prageti Rana, SVP strategy, experience transformation at Isubar India. Hello, guys. Hi. We have Samyukta Ganesh Ayer, VP and head of marketing at Kaia Limited. Hi, everyone. I think there's some problem with my video, but I should be visible soon. All right. Hope to see you soon, Mr. Vikta. Yeah. We have Shradul Beshtia, CMO of Modi Naturals. Hi. Thanks, Neel, for the introduction. Hi, everyone. Welcome, Shradul. And we have Kartik Nagarajan, chief content officer at WaveMaker. Hi, Neel. Hi, everyone. So welcome to all the panelists. And without wasting any more time, I'll get into the set of queries, points, questions that we all have and would want your thoughts on it. Primarily to talk about the importance of Instagram messaging. Now, my first question, since we already have somebody from Instagram on this panel, so I will route my first question to Ekta and maybe then take this question to the other panelists. So Ekta, how do you think brands and target groups on Instagram, for them, how the priority has changed over the last few years and why? Thank you so much, Neel, for directing the first question to me. I'm happy to take this up. I know when Instagram was initially founded in 2010, it was majorly a picture-sharing platform. But since then, it has been revolutionized and has seen a lot of emerging trends. And apart from that, a lot of consumer brands are now born on Instagram. So that's the major change which we have seen over time. With the stats keeping in mind, 90% of the people on IG follow a brand and they feel that two-third of them feel that they can interact with the business on IG and that's the first platform they use it for interacting. That's amazing to hear. In this pandemic, I am sure the things have changed. The businesses have shut down. We have seen call centers closed. People are shifting to the work-from-home environment. Now people are turning tuned to messaging to get in touch with the businesses. But now the businesses have also changed. They are fast-tracking and going digital just to connect with these people over messaging. And I think this momentum is continued even now where both big, small businesses are using messaging as a key to connect with their customers across their journey. A very, very simple example which I could see in our daily life is when being a mother of a one-year-old child, I was majorly most of my queries, browsing is nowadays for searching and making the life easier for me. While doing so, I came across a brand where people or the mothers were talking about how it has changed in their life or how it has made their lives very easy. Just because I was trying to message them and interact with them on time when I actually needed them, I am now a loyal customer of theirs. So that's how Instagram messaging is changing their lives. And I know like it's from browsing to scrolling. Now it has more become to talking and purchasing on Instagram. So yeah, that's it. Thanks, thanks, Ektah. So yes, there we have a story of brands making an impact on Instagram and it's going beyond just engagement, going all the way from care to commerce. So I'll take this question to Shreya from a brand's lens, how have you seen this evolution on Instagram happening? Sure. So I think Ektah covered it when she said Instagram as a platform has gone through a myriad of changes. And I think for us as a brand, it pretty much exists in every part of the consumer funnel. So given that most people are on Instagram today and spend quite a few hours there, I think awareness and reaching out to new audiences that are not captive audiences becomes a huge priority for us. So Instagram's targeted consumer advertising helps us to reach out to people who have not shopped with us before probably do not follow and engage with us regularly. So I think first and foremost from an awareness and widening the top of the funnel, I think Instagram plays a really important role. Of course, with the way the platform has changed, we've also seen that Instagram has now become sort of a product discoverability platform. So with your Instagram shop, you can put your latest products. And as a brand, of course, we cater to various kinds of audiences. So you have the running and the training audience, you have the yoga audience, you have the lifestyle audience, you have the sports fan, right? And we need to ensure product visibility and availability for all of them. So I think product discoverability is also where we use Instagram in a very strong way. And I think finally, post purchase as well, engaging with the same consumer that has shopped with us before becomes extremely critical, right? And then again, you would leverage a platform like Instagram to continue to engage with them. That can be through interesting content, the various features that Instagram has as a platform right now, whether it's alive or reals, or the various media features, but also in terms of people who will constantly drop a comment saying, customer query, hey, where can I get this product? What's the status of my refund? What's the status of my order? So I think pretty much every part of the consumer funnel is where we would leverage a platform like Instagram today. Very interesting points there. Thanks for sharing that, Shreya. So nothing upon with the consumer at every part of the consumer life cycle. We've seen a lot of impact happening in the health and beauty segment with the Instagram messaging opening up. And I would like to take this question to Samyukta and now that we are able to see you. So the question is now to you in terms of the importance of Instagram messaging, how has it changed the priority? I mean, how have you seen the priority change from a brand's lens? Yeah, so I think I would like to mirror a lot of things that Ekta and Shreya were also talking about. For us, particularly Instagram has been a blessing in disguise because the kind of business that we are in, I don't think there's any other business that kind of straddles so many worlds at the same time. So we have 100 plus Dermats and then we have all of our skin clinics and then we have these entire range of FMCG products, the product line that we kind of cater to. So we have actually been able to use Instagram very effectively in each of its features to the fullest to say, how do we kind of leverage, where can we use our Dermats to speak about certain content? Where can we use customer testimonials to seed in how customers feel when they come into the clinic and experience a kayak journey? Or where can we leverage the entire play that happens with influencer experientials? Or then where can we actually seed in all of our product content? So I think Instagram has been gorgeous in the way it has kind of helped us at every stage of this entire brand building journey that we are a part of. And it plays a very huge role even in our entire CRM gamut as well as our performance marketing gamut. So actually like what Shreya was saying, it touches every touch point of the customer's life like pre-during post. Literally, it's like end to end funnel is happening on Instagram. And the content we are creating here is what is then getting disseminated across our offline, D2C, e-commerce, everything is kind of this becomes like a hub and spoke model for us. So it's super critical and it's really working well for us. Thank you, Samyukta. Thanks for sharing those insights. Taking this question to Prageti and Karthik to speak from an agency, from dimension of an agency, but I'll add, I'll top it up a little more and talk about the Instagram messaging use cases. We are seeing every day, we see many people shopping and seeking support in addition to engaging. And we just heard that from Shreya and Samyukta kind of summarizing that and sharing their experiences that it's gone beyond engagement. What do you think, and Prageti, I would start with taking the question to you, what do you think is the best way to support them at scale when using Instagram messaging as a channel? Thank you. Thank you so much for the question. I think I was just to start off, I completely agree with what the team has been saying to now. I think Instagram, the evolution of Instagram in India and the way it's impacted consumer behavior at such, it's been brilliant. We as a collective had never thought that we would be posting picture of the dinner that we're gonna take, that we're eating and that people are gonna react to it and that's actually gonna make us a mini-celebrity of sorts that who would have thought of that? But I think Instagram as a medium has really moved from being a medium to express yourself. Like this is what I am, this is what I do, this is my lifestyle, so that medium of aspiration and it's kind of climbed that ladder of relatability and now it's at the right place where you can even shop on Instagram and now, I think somebody was mentioning that customer care complaints, which was something that we would always think of as a, I mean, sorry to say this, but when you had good compliments to give, you would go to Instagram and you would say, wow, I want to buy that and I want to buy this pair of shoes, I love it, I completely resonate with the brand and when you had some nasty, brutal things to say, you would go to Twitter, but that bridge I feel like is collapsing right now, because the audience set of Instagram is growing and therefore the audience there want to do everything on Instagram, get inspired by, and if I'm not happy with something, I want to come and find a solution there. So I think that whole journey is getting completed. And so coming to the question that you asked, I think it's brilliant in the way that the automation and the, it's going to, of the Instagram messenger platform, the opportunities it's going to give to us. So not only, I mean, I'm just going back to, I think one of the points that Shreya was making that, and Samyukta was making that, it's going to impact every stage of the funnel, from the exploration stage where I can go to the, now I can click on a story and I can be directed to explore the whole range. So for example, if I were to be, one of the brands that we work on is M&S, if I were to, and they have a winter collection and they launch a red sweater, which I see on my Instagram story and I go and click on it, now M&S can send me a message saying that, hey, this is a discount coupon for your next purchase or it can also, which is a more instant gratification kind of a thing that they can do, or they can also do a long-term thing where they can tell me that, hey, this sweater looks best with this pair of boots or this pair of pants and I can buy the whole look, right? And that solves the pain point for me, right? Because I, a lot of people who are buying into, who are buying a product, they also want to buy a full look, right? When it comes to fashion. So it solves that problem for me, right? Or if I were to talk about a different category, say like, if we do a lot of movie marketing, so for example, if there is something like a matrix resurrection that is going to release, right? And if you want to do like promo of matrix resurrection, you take the social feed and you convert that into matrix. For example, if all the posts look the same and they have one different messaging, right? And the trick is that you have to go to the right post, which is the right pill, right? And if you click, if you comment on that particular post, only then will you get a discount coupon, right? So the fact that through your comment, your comments and the journey there can be custom, can be automated and the discount coupon is only available to the person who clicks or comments the right thing. It doesn't have to be done manually anymore, right? So that is really, really cool, right? It can really open up avenues. And of course I'm not going into the regular things that you can do, that you can explore the product portfolio. You can set up the whole support system, right? Like for the longest time, I think the problem that we have, not a problem, it's a lot of labor that we had put in that every time a customer or an audience on our social media is giving us a compliment, one person has to go and reply to it, right? Or you want to heart it, right? But now you can just automate that, right? Or if there is a complaint and you can bucket it and you can sort that problem. So those are, of course, the first level things that you can do with this, but there is so much more, right? So there is so much more about a campaign that you can do, right? For example, just say for example, if there is something like, you know, like we work on a sexual wellness brand, right? And score. And a lot of women in India, I think the stat is somewhere close to 70%. 70% of women in India actually don't experience orgasm, right? And score for one has a lot of pleasure products that they offer, right? So, and again, sex and intimacy is a very private conversation that I'm not going to have on a social media or have anywhere else. I want to very one-to-one chat on it, right? So I can, again, this is again an opportunity that we can use that handle and create, have those one-to-use the messenger and have those one-to-one conversations with the audience about what they need the most, right? And when they need the most. So a lot of, you know, I think it can be completely plugged into different stages of the funnel, whether it's exploration, whether it is concentration, whether it is reading more about the product for categories like say such as Bosch, right? Where you want to read and absorb more before you come to a conclusion or, and then lastly, when you want to just buy the product or, you know, you want to complain about something. So I think it just plugs in everywhere in the funnel. So yeah, it's a powerful thing that Instagram has come up with. Thanks, Pragati, for sharing that insight, sir. Karthik, takeaways from that conversation, instant gratification, it's a channel for giving compliments. And I recall one earlier conversation with Pragati where we were actually discussing how Instagram gradually is becoming the new Twitter for 18 to 35. People over 35 go to Twitter to complain and people are 18 to 35 is probably coming on Instagram to complain. Your experience, Karthik, in terms of how have you seen the best way to support at scale using Instagram as a messaging channel? Right. You know, I've got to tell you, you have such brilliant minds on this panel. I'm going to absolutely hate you for making me go last after all the great points have been made. But I'm going to keep it short, right? I think so that we can move forward. I love the point that Shreya made, which is, today Instagram is a fantastic tool for product discoverability. And I would have created many different attributes for Instagram three years back. This would not have been one of them. So that's a great takeaway for me. I'm just going generally by how user behavior or my own user behavior is changed on the platform. Today, I spend only four X more time on messaging on Instagram than I probably did two years back. So automatically, I think this is going to sort of translate into a brand and a user sort of an experience as well. Right. And Praveethi made some wonderful use cases. So I'm not going to add to that. But I think, you know, we're probably going to a stage, I'll just end by saying that we're probably going to go to a phase where multiple research has showed us that people are more comfortable on Instagram through the messaging part of it, right? Than any other mode of communication. And probably we are entering an era of, you know, conversation as content, right? And that's probably what we need to move towards. Thanks. Thanks, Karthik, for the insights. Shathu, in terms of the use cases that you have seen evolve on Instagram Messenger, Instagram messaging. What are your thoughts in the way and how do you see evolving or how is adoption going to be in the shorter running the longer and how are you seeing that adoption happening? OK. So thanks. Thanks for I've just been hearing a lot of points and probably, you know, learning from me. You were probably one of the traditional marketing guys who just moved on to a lot of. So now, you know, after a long time, finally moved on to more than half of my spends going on to digital. So see, this is something that has we've seen going in from the moving from the traditional side. A lot of consumer complaints coming in from food brands. So first of all, my first friend, Mother Dairy, we used to have a lot of food queries coming in, and especially during the pandemic when people wanted to have more know more about where could they source their products from? Moving from there towards the other part of them. So, you know, the biggest boon, I would say, with Instagram Messenger coming in is the seamless integration across campaigns. So typically, every time we do a campaign led by influencers, we see about 60, 70 percent hike in the kind of queries that are coming in about the brand, about, in fact, going towards the other side, not just the pre-purchase, but towards the post-purchase journey where, you know, a lot of, we could aid people in handling a lot of different kinds of use cases. Like, how do you create more recipes, interesting ones to sort of cozy up with the family and spending time with loved ones during the festive season? And so, you know, when people, so discoverability, yes, then probably I would say about, as leading this study, about 80 percent of our people are now discovering new brands to insta, and in fact, even on that, stories is the biggest need medium through where messaging has been started. So more than half of that coming in, you know, and insta messages starting off from stories. So it definitely takes a lot of load off my CRM teams about, you know, and it gives us much more better buckets to sort of target with our consumers and handle and take them on the post-purchase journey further and ensure that they could probably, you know, look at the other. So when, especially in our food categories, when we are getting into new products and CDs, you know, a lot of cross-selling happens this way. So we can probably link it, link up, you know, an olive oil with a pasta, which we recently launched. So that helps in more discoverability. Thanks. Thanks, Shadil. Thank you. Thank you for sharing those points. So we spoke a lot about the use cases. Let's now talk about the Instagram messaging priorities and the focus verticals that we are seeing maximum impact. And I'll take this question back to you. I mean, talking about the various use cases on Instagram messaging, how do you think it can add value to an organization or to a particular vertical industry domain? And which industry or vertical have you seen or you feel is going to benefit most from the Instagram messaging? Thank you so much, Neen, for reacting to this question. And again, like all the panelists mentioned, we have seen irrespective of the verticals across the customer journey, various use cases where Instagram messaging has been playing a great role. Telling or saying a very, very cliche term, which is conversational commerce, that's what it is enabling. Imagine a scenario where one-on-one conversation with the store employee can be replicated in an online setting. And that's something which is true for every industry, to be honest. But we have already seen some of the marquee players across different verticals, like D2C and e-commerce, telco and tech, edge tech. So these are some of the verticals where we have seen all the marquee players have already integrated and seen some of the use cases being implemented. But we have seen a huge traction in the Fincer vertical where majority of the public and the private banks have already seen a great impact while generating the leads. I think that's because what Pragya mentioned, consultative selling is one of the major use cases which can be leveraged by the banks and fintechs. Again, because of consultative selling, all the verticals which have products which have the key token value very high, they need a consultative selling because I will not buy a furniture, not before asking so many queries. But I can buy a shampoo or conditioner before having those queries. So I think that's something where we have seen a lot of brands are already leveraging it. But one of my personal favourites, again, going back to being a mom, is the service vertical. While I was searching for a photographer who can do a one-year old photo shoot, this is something where messaging again played a great, great role because I need so many details. I have so many questions before I hire a service or get a service. So I think like service sector can definitely leverage a lot from Instagram messaging. Thanks, Iksha, for the points you shared. Taking this question now to Karthik. Karthik, you spoke about how the evolution has happened in terms of the adoption that you've seen with the brands. So taking this question to you, which of the brands you think is going to prioritise this and you have seen an option or you're experiencing the scale happening with these brands. And of course, I'll take this question to you, Pragati, because you already had some examples that you shared. So Karthik, I'll start with you if you can share your experiences. Yeah, generally, when it comes to social conversation, I think we've seen a lot happening in the beauty and the personal care space. This is not traditionally one of those high buzz sort of categories, but a combination of many things that have been discussed till now. Like a lot of creators playing in the space, a lot of influences, content being created and all of that has led to a lot of conversation in any case happening across platforms. And, you know, I can, you know, I was listening to Samyipra's point on how this is amazing for a brand like client. And I think they're uniquely placed, right? You can have conversations, you can engage, fix appointments, clarify doubts. Multiple things can be done on a platform like this, which makes it very unique. So I think personal care and beauty probably is going to be there right at the top. But I also feel, you know, at some level, as we move more towards this being the primary medium of communication. And when I say primary, I mean, like probably focus brands focusing less on the short form content they create and focusing more on a human plus machine sort of a conversation with clients to manage scale. I think you will probably see a lot of traction in a lot of consultative sales, right? Like, you know, brands which need that sort of consulting. Now, I can think of a lot of technology brands from that perspective. And I think that's that's another area where I feel this will be huge. And also a lot of food brands, I mean, I'm just dialing this back to, you know, probably eight, nine years back, right? When food brands were not necessarily accessible, you know, to many of you, if you were to have a conversation on different aspects of the product, right? So these are some of the categories that I'm very excited about. Yeah, yeah, I will. Sorry, sorry, Neil, you were saying. No, please, please go ahead, Prigati. I actually I jumped in because I completely agree with what Karthik is saying. I think my like top at the top of my mind is also food because if anything goes wrong in the chocolate you're having or in the ice cream you're having, you're going to create like a ruckus and you're going to let the world know, right? So I think managing sentiment there, managing complaints there is very, very important to the and it directly leads to like it directly starts having an impact on the brand, right? Because all the wrong things starts start getting written about you. So I think food industry is very precarious that ways. I think that's this will really come handy for them. Then again, like how Karthik and Ekta were saying, I think in industries which are more problem solution, like even Kaya Clinic, like Samyukta, like how Samyukta was saying, if I have a problem and if that problem becomes better or worse with the solution, then I will want to talk about it. And plus, they're also built a lot on authenticity and trust because I'm kind of coming to you with a problem. So I want it solved if I'm losing hair and if I'm coming to you for a solution, then I want that solution, right? I want to trust you for that or say like a lot of hospital chains or, you know, wellness brands like Prapto and Fine. I think that for them also, this becomes very important. Then also, I believe that even, you know, brands that are actually in a way, I'm going to be covering all the brands because, you know, in a way like if you look at fashion brands, if you look at beauty brands, if you look at cosmetic industry, right? They're the problem that they're solving is of closing the transaction, right? Or if I have a problem, then, you know, it's the conversation is more about delivery and replacement and what color should I choose. So I think the conversation becomes different, but the relevance still remains, right? Or going back to what we were discussing earlier, that even in industry where you take, you want to have multiple conversations, like Ita was also saying that consultative, right? Like something like a consumer durable, you're not going to buy it at the drop of a hat. You're going to think about it, you're going to mull over it and then you're going to take a decision, right? So there's a role that this platform can play is to re-engage, re-educate, compare, you know, all of those things, right? But in an industry where you need constant assurance, say like a health insurance industry, right? You want to know if you're buying the right product, if it's covered everything there, essentially you're replacing that human being, that agent that you meet. So I think it does have a very wide spectrum of things that it can tap into, but I think the purpose will be different and how you use it will be different. And like I already mentioned that something like a movie marketing client can use it, but then it'll be more engagement-led because you want to capture the attention of the audience and then gratify him within the same native platform. So yeah, I think it's immensely helpful, but the purpose will differ. Thanks, thanks, Prakati. Samyukta, I'll take this question to you, of course, because everybody kind of spoke about what you had touched upon earlier and the impact that has been felt in the health and beauty domain. So I wanted to hear from you in terms of how are you seeing the adoption happening with Kaya as a brand adopting this and driving it and the benefits that you're seeing from it? Yeah, absolutely. So thanks, Neel and thanks, Kartik, thanks, Prakati. So I think, yeah, absolutely. Because for Kaya, again, we are in a position where, and I don't think it's just Kaya, it's also other brands as well, because one is you want to understand what you're offering. You may have a problem or you may just want to get something as simple as a party peel done or a vampire facial done. These are just trending terms. You may not really understand it, but you definitely want to get on the bandwagon, right? There are a lot of questions plaguing your mind and then there's only so much the call center is able to then kind of help explain. Like you run a performance marketing campaign, then it automatically goes to your website from there it goes to the call center, the call center agent will give you X amount of information and then say, okay, now you come into the clinic, meet the doctor and the doctor will then recommend basis your skin type, et cetera, you will get a personalized treatment made for you. I suddenly see that with something like a DM automation of sorts kind of coming in. You kind of cut through a lot of refraft because it kind of eases the journey. It becomes like an omni channel thing where and if it's going to like learn, if there's going to be so much of machine learning and you can humanize this entire experience because right now it's more like, okay, call us on this number, we'll get back to you or write to us on this email ID and we'll get back to you. I don't think the Instagram audience is actually waiting for people to get back to them. Like somebody was telling me they were doing some wedding Lenga shopping for their fiancee and he said, I wrote to, I went to Amazon, found the vendor, went to Instagram, DM the vendor because I wanted to buy it for her. And then they got back to me two days later, which is not a bad tat if you ask me, but they had already lost out on the client because he had already moved on, found somebody else who got back to him like pretty fast as compared to much larger vendor than say a boutique vendor sitting somewhere in Lucknow. So I think that's what is happening. I think all the brands are spending so much of time, effort to kind of get new customer and new audiences in, but the minute you snooze on a platform like Instagram, you actually end up losing. So I do see this working out very beautifully for all brands because you're, and all you want to be done is you want to be heard. It's a very human need to just be heard. And that I think Prakati used the word assurance. You know, you want somebody to handhold you and say, hey, you know, you're in the right hands and we'll guide you every step of the way. But if you're going to take two hours, 24 hours, just to get back to tell you are high again, I think that's where a lot of leakages and losses happening. I see something like this beautifully kind of ensuring that the right audiences stick around with the right brand. I think that brand stickiness is something I see really moving up with this kind of automation coming in. Thanks. So my takeaway there is when you snooze on a channel like Instagram, you end up losing. And Shreya with Puma has, I mean, as far as I can remember, I've never snoozed on a channel like Instagram. So and your engagement is, I mean, is rapidly growing on this channel. So share, please share some of the best practices that you have seen or the other benefits that you've seen coming out of Instagram as a channel. Sure. So while everyone was talking, I was actually thinking back to something we did at the beginning of this year. And of course, the platform at that point was Facebook Messenger, not Instagram, but I think the learnings are very much applicable here as well. I think we had a very unique challenge where we were launching this extremely high-end running shoe in India, right? And it had various variants. You had one for like elite, serious marathon runners. You had something for an amateur runner who just wanted comfort. You had a specific shoe for women because their feet are structured differently. You had something for stability, so people overpronate, underpronate, right? And this was the time when we were just going into the second lockdown, right? Usually running as a category is something that everybody thinks you need to go to the store and try the shoe before you buy, right? And here we were in the peak of a lockdown and we had to sell this new extremely high-end shoe and communicate about it for the first time, right? So at that point, we reached out to the Facebook team and we came up with this really interesting solution where we basically had this messenger bot with Virat Kuli as the face of the bot and he basically asked consumers a series of simple questions and helped them find the right shoe for them, right? Based on gender running preferences, what issues they face, where they run, how often they run, things like that, right? Very simple, very basic bot-based questions and obviously immediate answers, right? And it ended with, you know, based on the shoe that you were finally allotted, the link to shop the shoe right there or based on your pin code, the nearest store that you could go and shop from, right? And of course the results to me were very interesting because we were in a rage where we were talking about attention spans of 14 seconds and people not wanting to engage further in that but we saw a really huge completion rate, right? And this would have been close to a one-minute survey, right? So there were a lot of people who actually completed the survey and for me I think in terms of messenger and automation, this ticked off two very important check boxes, right? And I'm not even going to the customer complaint and customer query bucket because that's a given. For me, I think the two big ones that it checked off in a really major way, one was personalization, right? I mean, we've seen the entire circle of, you know, small businesses and then large businesses and we're coming back again to talking about how small businesses are growing a lot on Instagram and part of that is the personalization factor, right? And I think for me, this was a big tick box in terms of personalization, somebody is helping you find your accurate shoe and we're doing it virtually, right? And I think the second thing that it ticked off which was very big for me is the number of clicks, right? I mean, we all know this that the more number of times you redirect a consumer from platform to platform or page to page, that's how high your drop off was, right? But within the simple chat, you'd solve everything from this, you know, like awareness to product discoverability to ability to shop, right? In a one minute chat. So I think for me, you know, while customer queries and complaints are given, I think messaging and automated messaging ticks off, especially when you link in the product discoverability and the shop ability angle, right? Ticks off these two very big checkpoints which is personalization and being able to complete an entire end to end transaction with minimal number of clicks and redirects, right? So I think for me, this was a big learning and it's definitely something that we would want to experiment with further, right? On the messaging and automated base because I think it gave me the confidence that we could engage with consumers in a longer meaningful way rather than those 14 second, 15 second or, you know, times that we take now as a given in which we need to consume or like convert the consumer, right? So I think for me, this was a big tick box in terms of how to use this platform and how to use this feature going forward. Thanks, Shreya. Thanks for sharing those learning, very, very interesting points there. Taking the question to Shraddhal in terms of your experience, I mean, you mentioned that your digital spends have just gone up. Your experience of using Instagram and where does Instagram messaging fit in your priority of order where you're seeing that option happening and your expectation from it? I just remembered, in fact, while listening to all of you, there was an instance some months back where somebody, a parent wanted to know so their kid was suffering from cerebral palsy and we got a query on one of our pages about she directs somewhere from another communities. It wasn't scientifically proven yet, but something that olive oil is good for kids with suffering from palsy. So yeah, so, you know, she wanted to know more on it. We did not have a scientific claim, a hard claim on that fact, but then we got it tested and we sort of leached out to some of our R and D executives and the team. And you know, this, we obviously gave up some sort of counseling to the lady. The one thing which probably take away from that was the level of customization that consumers are now reaching out for. And as businesses and categories evolve, especially food and ready to cook, ready to eat, you know, everybody they're looking for more and more ways to create and recreate their own recipes, grandmother's recipes, some new, you know, sort of things thrown into the mix. So we learn from them. We can probably, you know, I mean, take it to the next level of customization for each and every one of them. So I would say probably if in case, let's say, you know, if somebody wants to have those kind of conversations, it's pretty, I mean, we don't have to depend upon, you know, customer hiding the army of customer service representatives for that. So that really helps in cutting down, cutting down first costs one, response times, yes. And then sort of because so, you know, quarter of our sales is now coming in from, so the first, and in fact, Insta is the biggest, I mean, shift to us for us in terms of marketing spendings now. So it's only relevant for us that automation of Insta messaging is, you know, the next level for us and now CX journey. Thanks. Thanks, Shadil. Taking the conversation now from automating Instagram messaging to bringing automation on Instagram messaging. And Shreya, I'll take this question first to you because you've already been practicing automation, automating the conversation flow on Instagram. So taking the question first to you, do you think we should make the bots on Instagram messaging intelligent or just transaction and which of them do you think is a future failure recipe? I think I'll break this into two parts. The first is where we are now, right? I think where we are now, I think the first step really is to conquer is transactional. I think even if I look at my own customer service queries that come in and the ones that are call center sort of, you know, feels on a daily basis, I think 90% of them are very, very basic. Where is my order? When is my return getting picked up? When am I getting my refund, right? And I think literally the first stepping stone or the first block to really get right is transactional, right? So I think we have a way to ensure that these three or four basic questions are answered. I think for now, 90% of most brands in terms of customer queries should be sorted, right? And I have seen situations where if you, if you know that there are a lot of debates and questions on the intelligence of these bots and whether they can mimic intelligent conversations with human beings, at least for now, right? My recommendation would be A, keep it transactional and B, have a backup of a human being also because in case the bot is not able to answer certain specific questions, you should have a backup and completely relying 100% on intelligent bots might be a recipe for disaster. But like I said, you know, this is the now. I would like to believe that I'm extremely optimistic about the tech that we would develop in the near future, right? And hopefully we would get to a point where you may not need human interaction at all. And, you know, hopefully you would be able to interact with intelligent bots and, you know, solve simple to more complicated questions that way. For the moment though, at least the versions of tech that I have seen, I think it's safer to take it one step at a time and start with a transactional bot have the access to a human being if needed, right? You would still 90% of your queries, like I said, would be solved with a transactional bot, right? I think most of us have experienced that off the percentage of queries that come in to call centers every day, most of them can very much be replaced with a simple bot, right? So for now, I think my record would be until we develop tech that is so intelligent that we can completely do away with the human element. We stick to a transactional plus a human at the end if needed for your last mile, very complicated queries. Going forward, like I said, I'm extremely hopeful. I'm always an optimist when it comes to how technology has developed. So my hope is that in the future, we would develop intelligent bots that can answer any kind of question that the consumer poses. Thanks, thanks, Shreya. Taking this question to Praveethi, Praveethi, you have been working with multiple brands from multiple verticals. Where have you seen or you have felt the need for the automation to be, whether the bot should be more intelligent or it should be more transactional? And even if you've seen anything where different verticals need to adopt differently or different brands have adopted it differently, if you can share those experiences with us. Yes, so talking about the bot, so I completely agree with Shreya. I actually had a different answer, but I think I will change my answer because what she said is extremely pragmatic. So right now, so we have used bot in different ways, right? Of course, the first, I mean, the very basic way of using it is in completing the transaction, but we have also used it in the past, and this is bot in general, and I'm not talking about just Instagram Messenger, a bot here, but we have used automation earlier as part of campaigns, right? Like a few years back, we had, for a movie we were promoting, we did a promotional activity where actually the user becomes a part of, so basically the bot is a terrorist and the user is the one who's interrogating the terrorist, right? So it was a great engagement activity that we did and it created a lot of PR, but it was, I mean, the purpose of that, the engagement activity was to create conversation, right? So it did that, but on and now coming back, I think right now I will completely agree with Shreya that the purpose of a bot is to actually create convenience in the pain points that consumers are feeling right now, right? Like, can I get a better version of this product? Yes, the bot can suggest to you. Can I create a better look? Yes, the bot can suggest to you. Can I get a consultation? So all of those things are very real, very now that the need states that the bot can tap into, but going in the future, I think if we were to think about 10 years from now, right? How experience is developing or evolving, right? We are entering the world of metaverse, right? And there, I think the bot will become a very important part of a marketing strategy. And I'll tell you why. At one point, when most of our communication was through television, right? We used to think of brand personalities in terms of, what kind of personality will be, right? We will think of, I mean, we'll create a brand world but now with the coming of social, that has changed, right? Now the social personality, because your brand has to talk on social every day needs to have a perspective on most things every day. You need to create a more flexible personality, more fluid personality. While it's living up to the brand essence that we stand for, the tonality has to be a little broader and little fluid, right? Now when bot becomes the industry hygiene, right? Or it becomes a more important part of our lives. We'll have to give it a personality. It will start behaving like more like brand, right? It will go beyond a transaction and that is a safe assumption to make because something that you, because that is how brand will then start differentiating itself, right? So some days the bot will help you in a problem that you're facing. Some days it'll just be there to chat with you, right? On some random, I think the movement will be that people will want to, like how we use social right now to every day connect with our audience. I think that role will start getting played by bot but in a more personalized, in a more one-to-one way, right? Where I'm respecting my privacy but I'm also becoming your friend, right? So I think intelligence, empathy, all of those things will start, you know, percolating into that bot but of course, till we achieve that technology and till we achieve that level of fitness, it is a journey. We will, bots will be more transactional in nature. Yes. But I think going forward, brands will also start giving more attention to bots creating the journeys, creating personalities, creating, using them to shape brand perception. I think all of that is a natural journey for a bot. Yeah. Thanks, Pragati for sharing that. We are a little over time. So we'll just take one question from the audience that we have here and Kartik, I'll take it to you first, that we'll make it up to you. So in your opinion, rate them in order of priority. Automation first, experience first, social first. Right, yeah. By the way, before I answer that question, I have to say thanks to Samyutta, I googled what vampire facial is and I'm totally mine. It's completely fascinating. Okay, cool. So I don't know if it is necessarily a zero sum game, right? But to me, if I can take the liberty of, not answering from these three options, but generally, probably even going back to your previous question, right? It is, I think all three can coexist. And in my opinion, I don't necessarily share the optimism that Shreya does for a human-less sort of engagement. That'll be very scary. And I'm not even sure if that's one of the goalposts we're going to, right? I think most certainly we need a transaction. The transaction is probably going to be what the bare minimum, the execution excellence sort of lies in. But at the same time, I think the intelligence part of it needs to be developed over a period of time, right? You're going to have these space bomb moments whenever you're dealing with NLP like once in a hundred times for sure. But that shouldn't deter us from sort of moving towards that. I don't think I've answered your question, have I? No, you have, you have. And thanks for sharing that. And I'll now take the same question to Samyutta in terms of how would you rate them in your order of priority? Automation first, experience first, social first? Yeah. So, okay, to begin with Kartik, you're most welcome to Kaya anytime for the Vampire Facial. So, yeah. So, Neel, I'll answer your question. I think experience first. I'll echo what Shreya and Pradevi had to say that it has to be transactional first because it would be scary like Kartik said if it became humanless because I think the kind of industries we are working on and I think Ekta was talking a lot about consultative commerce. It does require a lot of experience, a lot of learning and then a huge amount of human touch and empathy in order to be able to actually explain and hand hold the customer through this entire journey. Having said that, I think it can save a lot of human hours and the kind of manual intervention that is needed right now. I think Prakati spoke about something as small as just hearting a comment. But as a brand, you end up panicking because you're like, okay, 10 people have said something nice about me, but then I wake up the next morning and nobody has gone and even liked it because that's humanly impossible, right? Like for any agency or any client to keep up at that pace in which consumers are interacting on the platform, it's literally virtually impossible to do that. I think something like a bot would be able to really save all of us a lot of time and effort that right now we are unable to do. So as an industry, we are unable to handle. So I think that's one big part. For a brand like Kaia, even something as simple as book an appointment or taking somebody to your website to book a web consult. They have an AI assessment tool. So guiding somebody to just go there, get their skin assessed and then that will then automatically recommend what kind of products and services that you can pick up. So ensuring that you don't lose the customer and you actually guide them properly and this will require, it is still very transactional in nature. Even something as small as say you're running a contest and people do get very angsty when you don't respond to them immediately when they don't get their gratification, et cetera. I think in the food industry, et cetera, it gets even worse like Raghavati was talking about. It does get a lot worse then people are very quick to respond, quick to put up a lot of nasty comments. I think that whole Twitter vacation that's happening on Instagram is very real. It's happening to all of us. We're all dealing with it. I think a bot will really help curb a lot of, because there's so much of goodwill and equity that you build as a brand. And it just requires one, two of these negative comments to kind of zap the entire business. I think a bot will genuinely help in a lot of little ways that a lot of little things that bother us on a daily basis as organizations, as brands. I think a bot will definitely help streamline those things immediately. And then of course, so to answer your question, experience first, then it should get into automation and finally we will get into the social first. Thank you. Thanks for that learning, Samyukta. Shadil, now that you're kind of planning and putting more spend behind digital, Instagram messaging and automation Instagram, I mean, how do you rate them in terms of priority in order of priority? Automation first, experience first, social first. And interestingly, I'll next take this question to Ekta in terms of your thoughts. And that way hear it from how does Instagram look at it or what is Instagram's vision in terms of automation first, experience first or social first? So Shadil, over to you. Yeah, so I think I would probably take one step at a time and say yes, automation first. However, compared to other platforms, Insta is a much more human kind of profile. So it's like, if you were to compare it to a messenger or a regular RCA platform, I would say it's more experience and I would put in a bit more of this, lot of our listening tools help us enable us to look for the white spaces within the categories that we operate in. So it just sort of enables us to listen to our consumers better and probably the first step is to eliminate all the, the usual suspects, the product complaints, availability problems, discoverability issues. And then yes, maybe in that sense, I would want to experiment with it because Insta allows you to go a little more, I mean, probably go out on a speed and say, consumers will probably forgive you for that, one in a hundred kind of error that comes in from a brand. So that's, I think that's there for me. Thank you. Thanks Shadil. Ekta, taking the same question to you. Well, I think I'll take care, take it out and choose none of these, but users first. So I think if anybody has a use case, it can be different for different verticals and based on what are they trying to achieve? For example, we have seen, like we have seen, again, I'm taking some of the example, but health and beauty, if you are going there, I think it's more personalized experience. So it's going to be experience first. But if I'm a bank and I'm generating leads, I don't care really about the experience and the social. I'll go for automation first. And similarly, if I am going about an engagement, I'll go with social first. So I think like depending upon what is the end goal, I think users first should be the lens and that's where we can prioritize all these three things and definitely make it both as everyone agreed, transactional plus intelligent, but definitely not agentless. I think like that will be scary. Thanks, Ektah, for sharing that. We have gone much beyond our allotted time, but that was expected from the PowerPack panel that we had today. So thanks, thank you everyone for sharing your learning. It was an extremely rich and learning full session for all of us. I hope our audience have experienced the same. And thanks everyone for being a part of this panel today. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you, Neil. Thank you for learning for us.