Facebook Messenger Wants to Be Your New Customer Service
The phrase “Your call is important to us, please hold” may soon become a thing of the past, if Facebook has its way.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook)
Today at its F8 developers’ conference, Facebook unveiled Messenger for Business, a way for retailers to communicate directly with customers via its Messenger app, which is currently installed on more than 600 million devices.
Messenger for Business is essentially a replacement for the live-chat options many retail sites already offer, with two key differences: Because you’re already logged in to Facebook Messenger, the retailer knows exactly who you are, with access to your credit card, transactions history, and other personal information. So once you make your initial purchase, you can conduct future transactions via Messenger.
The other is that unlike with live-chat services, you don’t have to conduct the conversation in real time or wait around for the customer support person to dig up an answer. You can ask a question and go about your normal day. The next time you log in to Messenger, the answer will hopefully be waiting for you.
(Facebook)
Facebook is starting with two online retailers — Everlane and Zulily — but plans to announce more large e-commerce partners over the next month. Customers will access the service via a link on the retailer’s site; clicking the link will launch a conversation on Messenger if you have it installed. There is no need to log in to the retailer’s site using Facebook Connect.
Customers can view receipts from their purchases inside Messenger and change the order if they suffer from buyer’s remorse, says David Marcus, vice president of messaging products for Facebook. They can also track their order in near real time, change the delivery date, or order more products just like it by clicking a big thumbs-up button.
(Facebook)
Live-chat support specialists Zendesk will be handling the actual conversations at launch; in the future, however, this process could be automated by bots, says Facebook product manager Rob Daniel. Facebook will not be collecting a percentage of any transactions conducted via Messenger or using the data within messages to drive advertising, he adds.
Though Facebook is launching Messenger for Business with retailers, it could expand to any business that relies heavily on communicating directly with its customers — like hotels, airlines, and financial services.
“We wanted businesses to be first-class citizens [on Facebook], just like people,” says Marcus.
As it always does, Facebook will be rolling out Messenger for Business in stages over the next few weeks. When will it be available to you? Only God and Zuckerberg know for sure.
