Introduction

Eid al Fitr or Aidilfitri in Malaysia is a Holiday of Breaking the Fast. Eid al-Fitr is celebrated by Muslims worldwide because it marks the end of the month-long dawn-to-sunset fasting of Ramadan Eid al-Fitr falls on the first day of Syawal  in the Islamic calendar; this does not always fall on the same Gregorian day, as the start of any lunar Hijri ("Islamic calendar") month varies based on when the new moon is sighted by local religious authorities. Aidilfitri celebrations are one of the biggest holidays in Malaysia. It is The celebration lasted for a month and the holidays lasted up to a week. The month before Syawal, Muslims were preparing to celebrate it. Businesses are booming during Ramadan. According to research, Ramadan is not only a sacred month for Muslims worldwide but also an incredibly lucrative time for businesses. As such, we see an increase in the number of brands that aim to associate themselves with Ramadan every year. The month provides brands with an opportunity to show their understanding of and respect for the religious and cultural significance of the holy month. In Malaysia, Yusuf Taiyoob has emerged as the top choice among F&B brands, followed by Jakel, Adabi, Nestle, and Nike.

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This blog will focus on a s ingle industry which is photography studios. We have seen a lot of surges in demands for photography services during Aidilfiltri. Let's delve deeper.

Studio and Portrait Photography Services

One of current trends nowadays during Aidilfitri is the younger generations would love to capture their moments with their parents and family. One of the ways would be by going to the the photo studios and take pictures together. Other than that, freelancers photographers takes advantage of this season promoting their services at discounted rates or offering irresistible packages towards their clients.

Client's Communications

Most of the businesses in photography studios are handled by small operation team. Might be less than 5 people working at one time. The communication between the photographers and clients are through WhatsApp, Telegram, Instagram, and Facebook Messenger. During this time, it is rarer to see the clients booking the services via phone calls. Chat apps offers clear communication and in a way it also offer a "receipt" for both parties.

With 2 billion users worldwide, WhatsApp has become the number 1 messaging app in the world surpassing Telegram, iMessage, and others. Most of the clients are using WhatsApp to interact with businesses. Let it be making reservations, asking for prices and services, making payments, and etcetera.

However, communicating via WhatsApp, like any other chat apps, we tend to miss out the texts sent by our clients or prospects. Or we just do not have any time to reply to the messages. Juggling between the photoshoots, client engagements, and paperwork it can lead to miscommunication between us and our clients/prospects.

Digital Workspace Assistant (DWA): Your Lifesaver ChatBot

We can eliminate the problems mentioned above by introducing chatbots into our workflow. A chatbot is a software application or web interface that is designed to mimic human conversation through text or voice interactions. With chatbot, the messages from the clients and/or prospects will be replied in real time. It also gives the clients to navigate through the services offered, making booking, and many more. This also help you to filter out the serious clients and attract qualified leads for your business.

Other than that, chatbot also stores all the conversations history and the clients' data such as their name and phone numbers. With such data, you can create broadcasting lists, sending personalized messages, gather feedbacks, and many more. Why does this thing matters? Well, as a business, retaining a customer can go a long way.

Case Study: Picswanday Production

Picswanday Production is a photography and videography services company based in Kuching Sarawak. Established in 2020, the company started doing their business online. By utilizing applications from META such as Facebook, Instagram, and Facebook, they have gained quite a success in the industry. Within 4 years, they have become one of the biggest names in photography and videography services provider in Sarawak. Their main market is located in Sarawak, the biggest state in Malaysia. Located 600km from Peninsular Malaysia, it stretches about 800km along the northwest coast of the island of Borneo.

When the company grew, so does their clients base. However, the whole operation of the company started with 2 men operation, and now it has become a one man operation. This one person handles everything within the company. From accounting, client's management, as well as cleaning the studios, only 1 person in charge.

The business challenges were juggling between all the tasks, managing the business, and answering to clients and prospects via WhatsApp. They realized that they can automate one of the tasks which is replying to client's queries by implementing the chatbot into their workflow.

They reached out to Digital Workspace Assistant (DWA) to get their hands on the chatbot for WhatsApp. Within a few days, DWA team set up the account for them and the rest is history. They have been using the chatbot for the last 2 months and they have realized that the customers' engagement increased by more than 50%. During Ramadan, they started to take bookings for Aidilfitri photoshoots. To their disbelief, they managed to get more than 400 hundreds interested prospects. Other than that, they managed to close the clients automatically without having to go through the messages one-by-one. This has increased their productivity tremendously by more than 200%. The chatbot managed from the initial contact, clients' Q&A, bookings, and even payment. Now this business can focus on providing the better services to their clients. This is made successful by implementation of chatbot into his workflow.

DWA helps them in a way that the chatbot answers to the client's queries at real time. DWA provided Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) into the system. Every time the clients reached out, they will be greeted by the chatbot. Clients are able to choose what type of services or questions that they might have directly to the chatbot. Not just that, when the clients are interested, they can directly make a booking for the services without any human interventions. The chatbot will be connected to the company's calendar providing transparency and flexibility for the clients to decide on the booking. Upon booking being made, the owner of the company will be notified. But it does not stop there. The chatbot is able to capture the payment from the clients as well. The chatbot will verify the whether the payment has been made or not. Moreover, it can also generate PDF files such as invoices, receipts, and etcetera. It is that powerful.

In conclusion, chatbot can save the businesses a lot of times in customer's engagements as well as automating some of the tasks in the workflow. With the implementation of a powerful chatbot into chat apps such as WhatsApp and Telegram, business owners especially Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs) can focus on managing their business at their fingertips.

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Digital Workspace Assistant

Digital Workspace Assistance (DWA) has been a solution for businesses to optimize their business processes. We have clients from all over the world with one focus, to optimize and simplify your business processes. Find out more to learn about business optimization, contact us HERE. You may set up a free consultation and demo.

This article is written by Amir Hisham. Feel free to follow and connect on LinkedIn. Contact us to know more about the product.