20201019 ML Brief
Facebook reaches 50 million business pages and releases new messaging tools [@SmartInsights Alert]
New tools make it easier for businesses to manage their incoming messages
Importance: ★★★★ For Businesses using Facebook for customer service
Recommended link: Facebook’s official announcement
It’s been a good year for Facebook with the number of business pages jumping by more than 10 million since April 2015, and is now at 50 million.
Facebook pages have had the ability to send and receive messages for a few years now, which is a handy feature for businesses as it can allow them to answer customer queries and help them book services.
New features for Business messaging
Facebook announced they would be launching new tools for businesses to manage their incoming messages on their blog yesterday.
“People can contact businesses anytime and from any device, so we’re offering new tools for Pages to better manage their customer interactions” – Facebook’s products manager for pages.
Giving customers the power to contact the business at any time can present an issue, particularly for small businesses without dedicated customer service teams. The new features include being able to set an ‘away’ message, or setting up automated replies which point customers towards useful resources.
Businesses can now also inform their customers how quickly they respond to messages, be it instantly, within hours or within a day. This helps manage expectations of customers and helps the team in charge of overseeing responses to prioritise their time.
Inboxes given a revamp
The business pages inbox used to be as simple as the inbox used by people sending personal messages to one another on Facebook. However this simple design can not handle business needs, so Facebook have revamped business page inboxes.
The new inbox gives the business a overview of information on the customer contacting them, such as past interaction, current city and current orders placed. Notes can be added to this, so if you have multiple staff managing your business page they can easily exchange information on particular customers.
Pages can better manage comments
Comments on the statuses or photos that a brand posts, can often involve customers asking questions, complimenting the bland or expressing a problem. These will usually need responding to, and in the case of sensitive issues will sometimes need dealing with privately.
If you have multiple staff members dealing with comments on a Facebook page it can be tricky splitting the workload. Facebook have now made this a lot easier, as this business page update also lets pages flag comments, mark them as done or message the poster of the comment privately. These signposts will only appear to admins of the page, so won’t affect what your audience sees.
Facebook said that the new changes are starting to roll out globally on the 8th of December, and the changes will be available to all business pages within the coming months.
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