At Facebook Inc’s (NASDAQ:FB) F8 developer’s conference this week the social media giant announced the new Messenger for Business.
The new development allows customers to reach out to companies via the Messenger app, currently used by 600 million people worldwide.
Offering customers chat support is nothing new and neither is communicating with them on social channels; combining the two is.
In addition, those who already use Messenger will know that in contrary to live chat options on retailer websites, you don’t have to stay logged in and wait for the other person to respond. You can leave a message and check the app again later to see if a reply has come in.
The new development doesn’t just include a chat function, but it also lets customers start a conversation with a business during the checkout flow on a business’ site and it allows them to receive updates from that business on things like order confirmations and shipping status updates.
In a statement, the company said that the goal of bringing businesses to Messenger is to "enhance how people and businesses communicate".
The first two companies to partner up with Facebook on Messenger for Business are retailers in the vertical market, Everlane and Zulily. The platform is supported by customer service software provider Zendesk.