The Core Features of Facebook Messenger for Business

It’s easy to forget that Facebook is more than eighteen years old. Even though the platform launched all the way back in 2004—around the same time George Bush was beginning his second term as president, Friends was airing its final season, and there were only five Harry Potter books out—Facebook has remained relevant.

Partly, it’s because the company recognized the importance of messaging early: Facebook revamped “chat” and created a standalone Messenger app—for iOS, Android, and BlackBerry—all the way back in 2011. In 2015, they added business features to Messenger. Today, Messenger has 988 million monthly active users.

And Facebook has continued to innovate. Advertising has always been a core part of its business model and now, Messenger provides brands with a more organic, intuitive way of connecting with customers. But to fully benefit from Messenger’s business features, you need a customer engagement tool with a Facebook Messenger integration. A customer engagement platform will help you leverage the efficiency of automation while maintaining human connections with your customers on Facebook Messenger. That’s where Verint Messaging comes in.

Perhaps one of the most innovative Messenger for business features is that anyone can use it—you don’t even have to have a Facebook account. Thanks to the addition of Guest Mode, any user can message a brand, regardless of whether they’re logged in or even registered with Facebook. All they have to do is click “Continue as Guest” when they want to initiate a conversation with a business via the Messenger plug-in on the brand’s website. This is a huge step towards making the convenience of messaging support accessible to all customers.

Drive Conversational Customer Experiences

People have been using Messenger to connect with friends since 2011. Now, Facebook Messenger for business makes messaging a brand as easy as messaging a friend. Because messaging is asynchronous, customers can go about their day while they wait for a response (no long hold times!) and pick up conversation threads when it’s convenient for them.

Seamless Website Integration 

Adding messaging directly to your website is a cinch with the Facebook Messenger chat plug-in, making it easy to integrate messaging into your existing web experience. (There’s even a dedicated plug-in for WordPress sites). Not to mention that Facebook has plans to eventually merge Messenger with its other social properties, like WhatsApp and Instagram, which will make it even easier to connect with brands, no matter what service you use.

Proactive Notifications for Better CX

Facebook’s Message tags feature enables businesses to send personally relevant updates to customers outside of the standard 24-hour response window (this includes things like post-purchase updates, event reminders, and account updates). These proactive notifications keep customers in the loop, making for a better customer experience. If there’s a change in their flight status, a shipping update, or even just an upcoming appointment they need to remember, they’ll be the first to know.

Empower Sales and Marketing Too

In addition to its many CX features, Facebook has packed Messenger with a host of sales and marketing capabilities. The most notable is Facebook Shops, a mobile-first shopping experience that allows businesses to easily create an online store on Facebook—and then use it across the entire Facebook family of apps (a Messenger integration is coming soon). With the addition of Facebook Pay, customers in a number of countries can make payments directly in Messenger—and more regions are being added all the time. Finally, brands can create custom stories ads directly in Facebook Messenger, concentrating the entire buyer’s journey, from discovery to purchase, within the Messenger app.

Designed with Agents in Mind

Using Messenger through Verint Messaging provides customer engagement agents with a host of tools to automate routine tasks. Chief among these tools is an integration that gives agents access to purpose-driven bots that can collect personal information, process transactions, and more. Using these bots frees agents from unfulfilling grunt work and allows them to focus on the work only they can do, such as providing emotional support and solving complex problems.

Why use Facebook Messaging for business?

1. Your audience is almost unlimited

Using Facebook messaging for business gives you access to one of the world’s largest online audiences. Facebook has 2.9 billion monthly active users and Messenger has 988 million monthly active users. As a messaging app, it’s second in popularity only to WhatsApp (which Facebook also owns). Geographically speaking, Facebook Messenger is more dominant in the United States and Canada, and WhatsApp is more popular in EMEA, Latin America, and parts of Asia. However, a customer doesn’t even need to be a Facebook user to chat with a business over Messenger. Guest Mode in the Facebook Messenger plug-in allows anyone to message a business—no Facebook account required.

2. Improve customer satisfaction while increasing profits

Facebook messaging for business provides a simple, frictionless way for customers to contact your brand. This is great for customers, who can chat asynchronously and can pause and resume chats without having to dial back in every time. It’s also great for brands, who can leverage the power of automation without sacrificing human connections with their customers. By using Facebook Messenger through Verint Messaging, brands can set up automated messages—such as a welcome message or responses to frequently asked questions. Even better, support reps can activate bots to handle routine tasks within a conversation, like capturing an address or processing a payment, freeing them up to focus on the work only they can do.

3. Messaging is the new frontier for marketing

Facebook Messenger changes the game not just for CX, but also for marketing. Businesses can now use ads that click to Messenger to start conversations at scale, leveraging Facebook targeting to find relevant customers. These advertising capabilities, combined with the power to make purchases through Facebook Shops, have turned Messenger into an end-to-end funnel. From Messenger, marketers can drive traffic, increase sales, and nurture ongoing relationships on a 1:1 basis. We can’t overstate how significant this is: Messenger enables marketers to build, own, and control the entire customer experience—all in the same channel. The marketers who take advantage now will reap big rewards in the long run.