(Image: Facebook)
In an era where social media reigns leader in customer communication, businesses are flocking to integrate its capabilities into their messaging strategies in order to generate wider reach and garner greater success.
Facebook Messenger more specifically is a powerhouse in its own. With 1.3 billion users worldwide, it’s been rapidly adopted by a number of industry verticals as a priority channel for engaging customers.
It’s then no surprise that just last month Facebook announced the launch of a business focused Customer Chat Plugin that allows customers to communicate on a businesses website of choice using Facebook Messenger. With a clickable icon at the bottom of any businesses site – it streamlines the ability to start and maintain conversations over time.
With its already global recognition, this new plugin it’s bound to have monumental effects on business to customer engagement.
In today’s article; we’re uncovering the pro’s and con’s of the Chat plugin and how integrating into your business can affect customer engagement. Let’s begin.
The Pro’s of Facebook Messenger Customer Chat
It Supports A Wide Variety of Features
With the Facebook Messenger plugin, you can communicate with your customers from your website and also have the ability to send media, take payment, send quick replies and so much more.
With the Facebook Messenger Chat Plugin, you’re granted access to the same features available on the traditional messenger portal. This means more options to engage and close your sale. One of the most coveted features, for instance: the payment feature, allows the customer to make a purchase in-moment, reducing the time to convert and process. Adweek recently stated, “Messenger has a beta Payments feature with a single-click payment option, which also has new improvements making it seamless, simple and powerful”.
You Won’t Need a Separate Channel From Facebook
For businesses that regularly engage their customer base on Facebook, choosing the Facebook Chat Plugin is an obvious bonus. With the plugin, you don’t have to navigate through two separate channels but instead, have access to conversations on Facebook’s native site and your own website, in one inbox.
What’s more, when a customer connects with a business via their website, it simultaneously shows up in their personal Facebook Messenger inbox on the native site. This creates an easy and effective way for the customer to pick up the conversation at a later date – or for the business to get a hold of the customer again.
It’s Customizable
For many businesses, the look and feel of a chat pop-up is integral to enhance the brand’s overall image. With the Facebook Customer Chat Plugin, you can customize multiple aspects of the chat, including the color of the chat icon, the color of conversation bubbles, the response time and the whitelisted domains for the plugin.
This ensures a seamless experience for the customer, one that reiterates the brand’s image and values effectively.
(Image: Facebook)
Promotes Conversation Beyond Your Website
As mentioned earlier, having the chat plugin means that if the customer connects with you on your website, you now have access to connect with them later – even when they are no longer on your website. With the chat plugin connecting directly to their Facebook Messenger account, customers and businesses can have ongoing conversations after the initial website engagement, helping you to follow up with them long after their initial contact and build a conversation relationship.
As an example, a recent Adweek article shared a study by Headliner Labs’ that revealed Facebook’s customer chats power. In it, it revealed that “conversations persist for an average of six hours and 28 minutes, but as long as 3.5 days; and they involve an average of 14.3 messages exchanged between the user and company”. This means that having Facebook Messenger Chat services on your website opens the door for more enriching and longer-lasting conversations with customers which helps to build loyalty and promote sales.
It’s Already Highly Accessible
Facebook Messenger is already one of the highest used social media messaging platforms. With its aforementioned 1.3 billion users, it’s a comfortable and convenient option for customers to use and connect with. If they’re already using it regularly, why not make it an option for them on your website?
The Con’s of Facebook Messenger Customer Chat
It Lacks Reporting Tools
One of the major downsides of the Facebook chat plugin is the ability to access insights. For many businesses having analytics is just as important as having the option to chat with customers – so not having advanced reporting tools like other Chat solutions could be a make or break decision. Having knowledge of response times, sentiment, and more is integral to improving business functions. With it still being a new tool available to businesses, this is surely a part of the plugin that they will continue to build upon.
In addition, although it is a disadvantage, Facebook Customer Chat can easily be paired with a reporting tool. If you already have an existing Customer Engagement Management solution like Loop, it’s easy to receive timely insights and customer sentiment analysis in-moment.
They’re Still Testing It Out
Unlike other chat apps that have been around for years and have sorted out their bugs, Facebook Messenger was released less than a month ago, so it’s still in the works and bugs are to be expected. Although nothing has been reported yet, it’s important to keep in mind the common issues that can take place with new enhancements – like troubleshooting or having their messenger app go down.
How It Will Effect Your Experience With Loop®.
With Facebook Messenger’s Customer Chat Plugin emerging at a rapid pace, we’re aware you might have questions about the effect it will have on your Loop solution. Thankfully, with our sophisticated integration with Facebook Messenger, all messages, regardless if they’re from Facebook’s native site or on your businesses website, will be directed to your unified Loop Inbox™ under one unified Facebook Messenger channel. Having your messages effortlessly flow into your Loop Inbox ensures you aren’t toggling through various platforms and you can answer all messages effortlessly.
Further, you can access all of the trending topics reporting, routing, escalations, and sentiment analysis tools within Loop, giving you a much richer experience with using the new Facebook Messenger Customer Chat Plugin.
For more on our Facebook Messenger integration, you can access our Knowledge Base here or contact your Customer Engagement Management Specialist.
