If you’ve ever received a promotional code or discount in your direct messages, booked a haircut appointment through Facebook Messenger or asked a product question in WhatsApp, that’s conversational commerce at work. Across platforms, messaging allows digital marketers to deepen customer relationships by offering more personalized recommendations like a digital personal shopper.
It’s important to note that conversational commerce isn’t solely self employed data about net-new sales. Offering strong customer service is an equally important benefit, and pays dividends given that it’s the top quality consumers associate with best-in-class brands on social.
No matter where a customer falls in the sales funnel, social marketers need to have a strategy in place to manage inbound messages and provide efficient, effective support. If squaring this advice with your team’s current bandwidth feels like a tough pill to swallow, don’t worry. Providing top quality customer service doesn’t mean 24/7 agent availability.
Brands like Corelle use customer service chatbots to triage DMs on platforms like Facebook and X (formerly known as Twitter). If you’re hesitant about delegating customer requests to a robot, don’t worry. Chatbot quality and best practices have made major strides over the past few years. Now, they offer both agents and customers more control over their support experiences.
A screenshot of Corelle's Facebook Messenger chat bot. In the screenshot, the user sent an initial "Get started" prompt. The bot responds with, "Hi there! Thank you for reaching out, you are messaging with our chatbot. If you ever want to restart, please type "menu". What can we help you with today? Please select one of the options below so you can be directed to the correct team:"
If you look at Corelle’s Facebook Messenger chatbot, you’ll see that the option to request human help is always available. However, if a customer is crunched for time and can solve their issue through self-service tools, they’re empowered to do so.