Boosting engagement over the holiday season with RCS

Holiday season might as well be called the busy season for retail businesses! Like many brands, Picard, a French food company specializing in the manufacture and retail distribution of frozen products, decided to leverage the potential of RCS (Rich Communication Services) messages as part of its customer activation strategy during this time. Picard wanted to compare the performance of RCS messaging with that of Rich SMS for one of its most important campaigns of the year: the Christmas holiday campaign!

Challenge: Placing Picard products at the heart of Christmas preparations for French households thanks to a unique experience

Picard fulfills 25% of its annual sales during the year-end holidays. Beyond the economic importance of the period, the holiday season is also a perfect opportunity to win new consumers and turn them into loyal ones by offering innovative products and a unique experience.

There are many things to think about as the holidays approach: gifts, decorating the tree, and of course, the big holiday meal! Picard therefore decided to support its customers by providing more services and inspiration during this special but busy time — and innovative communication was a major part of the plan.

The goal was to consolidate Picard’s position as France’s favorite brand” (OC&C, 2022) while increasing sales over this crucial period.

Solution: Creating an interactive, engaging conversational experience with RCS and Rich SMS

Picard called on Sinch to create an immersive and personalized experience for its customers, allowing them to prepare for the holidays with peace of mind.

As such, Sinch and Picard built a conversational experience that supports customers in the creation of their holiday menu, accounting for things like diet, budget, and a desire (or lack thereof) to cook. 

RCS messaging was an obvious choice for Picard. This channel allows verified sender IDs to send branded messages to any customer with an RCS-enabled device — that means more security and trust. Unlike traditional SMS campaigns, RCS also provides insights into delivery and open rates, allowing for better campaign monitoring.  

Because RCS is only available for Android devices, Picard also used Rich SMS to deliver an enhanced experience to customers with non-compatible devices, directing them to a landing page with a conversational chatbot experience. 

Figure 1: RCS experience 

Figure 2: Rich SMS and chatbot experience

Results: Increased engagement over RCS — and hassle-free holiday meal prepping

The RCS holiday campaign saw a click-through rate 3x higher than that of Rich SMS. RCS enabled Picard to introduce their campaign in a compelling way by leveraging rich content directly in the messaging channel, which encouraged users to take the next step and create their personalized holiday menu quickly and seamlessly.

Customer engagement was 42% higher with the RCS campaign even though the target population was two times smaller than that targeted with Rich SMS. The RCS format also generated over 10% more website redirections than Rich SMS.

“RCS is an innovative messaging channel that has allowed us to communicate with our customers in a very playful and interactive way. The conversational nature of RCS allows us to bring more value to customers by using rich content (e.g., photos, videos, GIFs, and interactive buttons) directly within the messaging channel. RCS is a very interesting format for our Personal Shopper feature. It helps us understand our customers’ preferences and offer them products or dishes that meet their desires. This channel makes it easy for our customers to understand our value proposition and has great marketing activation potential for brands.

In terms of data analytics, RCS allows us to carry out more detailed assessments, particularly thanks to trackable open rates and conversion rates, which are not available on classic SMS campaigns,” explains Charlotte LEBRUN, CRM manager at Picard.