Facebook Messenger Transforms Customer Experience

Facebook Messenger Transforms Customer Experience

Among all the social media channels used these days, Facebook has distinguished itself for some time now as an excellent platform for customer engagement. Brands typically embrace the channel for marketing purposes, customer feedback, and responding to service inquiries as part of an omnichannel strategy, taking it upon themselves to optimize the channel to meet their sales and service needs. However, Facebook is now taking the reins and highlighting its value for the customer journey with a platform designed specifically with businesses in mind: Businesses on Messenger.

As a tailored version of its popular Messenger platform, an independent application users may download separately from the Facebook application, Businesses on Messenger is intended to enhance the way brands communicate with customers while also facilitating the sales process. According to Facebook, there are over 700 million active users on Messenger per month, and 87% of Facebook users are on mobile. The Businesses on Messenger platform therefore targets a growing user base that already uses the app for daily communication and just may welcome the idea of an enhanced customer experience on the ever-popular social channel. Twitter similarly embraced the growing popularity of its platform for customer service last year by unveiling a suite of tools designed specifically for businesses.

Facebook’s Businesses on Messenger offers a variety of features optimized for customer service and sales. One such feature involves customer engagement through enriched, structured, and personalized content. For example, brands may use custom layouts to offer such features in their messages as quick and easy purchase, order confirmation, shipping updates, shipping information with attached images, maps for shipment tracking, and relevant links. These features keep customers up-to-date with clear and thorough information for a highly personalized customer experience. Acknowledging the importance of time in customer service, Facebook has also developed a badge that essentially rewards businesses that are quick to respond. If a company has responded to 90% of messages within five minutes in a seven-day period, Facebook bestows the brand with a “Very responsive to messages” badge to let customers know of their efficiency.

The platform further makes it possible to respond to public customer messages privately, ensuring that no message is overlooked and that the exchange remains personal. Brands also have the option of creating pre-saved responses that may be customized before sending as well as sending relevant push notifications in a timely manner. Lastly, Facebook is embracing the concept of virtual assistants to further engage customers in a personalized and highly customized manner. While still being tested and unavailable to the entire public, Facebook M is a digital assistant that resembles other virtual assistants like Siri in the sense that it uses artificial intelligence to deliver relevant responses to questions. The major difference, however, is that there is also a human team behind the digital assistant ready to tackle more difficult or ambiguous requests. Brands will eventually be able to embrace the challenge of balancing the efficiency of artificial intelligence with the necessary human touch customers crave in their brand engagement.

Already tested with partner brands Everlane and Zulily, Businesses on Messenger just may be the key for brands to increase and optimize customer engagement on Facebook. As customers go increasingly mobile and social, Businesses on Messenger demonstrates another forward-thinking move from the social media giants in redefining modern customer experience. Learn about Vocalcom contact center software solutions for excellent social customer service.

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