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Bigi Lui

Messenger Customer Chat - Facebook's newest product for online businesses 🗣️

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In response to mounting pressure from @Snap on the charts and @Twitter’s unprecedented move of increasing the character limit, Facebook has pivoted into the enterprise. Developing story.

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Eoghan McCabe
Top Product
Heeeeey. CEO of Intercom here. Thanks to @rrhoover and others who were kind to reference us alongside this. All I’ll say for now is, it’s insane to see how big this space has become, and how fast it’s moving. The next few years are going to be fun and interesting!
Alex Shvalev
@rrhoover @eoghanmccabe I totally agree with you! 😀
Casey Richardson
@eoghanmccabe Sounds like someone might’ve gotten acquired. 🤔
Eoghan McCabe
Top Product
@casey_richardson Certainly not us, if that's who you're talking about.
Tamir Eden
@rrhoover @eoghanmccabe as the entry level for building online businesses drops - the chat space is growing, insane and fun no doubt. May the best products and experiences win ;)
Alex Shvalev
@casey_richardson If you're talking about Chaport – we wouldn't mind if Facebook wants to acquire us as we just launched our Live Chat a couple of weeks ago on PH: https://www.producthunt.com/post... 😀
Alex Tomlinson
holy frijoles... this is a pretty big move. Facebook is going to run out of people to copy at this rate.
Alex Tomlinson
@kevinbryantlou that’s funny because you founded a food company... let’s hope they don’t come for your lunch next. Or mine. Zuckerberg better stay the hell away from my lunch
Brian Baulch
@alextomlinson Facecoin next then they will expand offline with Facemart then McFace
Jeff Osborn
Facebook is to copying as Amazon is to innovation
Priyank Patel
@jeff_osborn copying it and making it better is how we have made this world a better place from past. That is how we got unix -> linux, blackberry -> iphone, netscape -> chrome etc. but iphone -> amazone fire? that's a step back :). So I am ok as long as we are moving forward by copying.
Jeff Osborn
@patelpriyank It's a totally credible way to go about your business. I agree about copying. But the copying has to have a new twist on top of it. Facebook isn't adding any innovation to the mix. Just straight copying. There's nothing wrong with what they're doing morally, but it will harm them in the long run. Amazon will eat them in the long game. I honestly believe that (just not enough to tattoo it on my body or anything haha).
Priyank Patel
@jeff_osborn I have lot of respect for these tech companies. May be biased being a techy. But I hope none of them eat none of them and they all exists long time giving all of us a great benefits and better life. I also admire those leaders. I like this world more and more as we are moving away from MBAs running those big companies and also we are seeing more sensible founders like Jeff, Mark, Elon, square's, stripe's founders etc. I hope they all survive in parallel and help me grow as well :)
Jeff Osborn
@patelpriyank I appreciate you and agree to an extent. Competition can be good for innovation and the consumer! I'm not sure if Jeff feels the same way. Looking at how he runs Amazon, it seems like he def wants to eat EVERYONE. Outsider perspective, but that's my observation.
Selcukatli
@patelpriyank @jeff_osborn Hi Jeff - I absolutely agree with you. However I think Messenger has a lot of new things they bring to the table (besides the product design). With messenger's implementation; the users don't need to leave their phone number or email to continue the communication at a later point. That is a huge benefit to the customer and the business - that can't be replicated easily outside of Facebook's walls.
Romain Lapeyre
Hello hello! I'm the founder of Gorgias.io, we've been working closely with Facebook Messenger to provide the back-end for merchants who use customer chat, for instance for Bodeaz, the company in the GIF above. Some thoughts on this product so far: - It has no significant impact on the support volume - For an e-commerce website that uses Facebook ads, most users are already logged in on Facebook, like 95% - The big upside here is that with typical live chat, if the customer leaves the site, there's a low chance they'll see your response (there's friction to leave your email address, etc.). This makes followups much easier. - A big challenge is to reconcile the Facebook user with back-office profiles, we've been working on doing that for Shopify. This way, Shopify orders pop up next to conversations for agents, which helps a lot
Stuart Arsenault
@romain_lapeyre Thanks for sharing these insights, Romain! Awesome that your team was a part of the rollout 😀
Ryan Hoover
Seems like a big swing at Intercom (which we use and love) and more broadly the customer service space. Brilliant move.
Srikrishnan Ganesan
@rrhoover I believe FB will play well with customer service players. They only want to own the widget - smaller b2c companies may use this. And big ones that use bots. Doubt if b2b will - which Is where intercom is mostly used
Mike Ritchie
@rrhoover @srikrishnang This. As a b2b SaaS company, I wouldn't even consider switching. I wouldn't mind my customers (or potential customers) seeing my Facebook profile, but who's to say they want me seeing their profile?
Matt Mclelland
Fascinating to see where they take this. All of the integrations could be huge for ecommerce. I'll probably stick with Intercom for our SAAS business but might try this on some of our Shopify stores.
Stuart Arsenault
@matt_mclelland1 on Shopify check out what @romain_lapeyre is building. His app is the backend for the example in this post :)
Romain Lapeyre
Thanks for mentioning us @stuartarsenault, @matt_mclelland1, if you'd like to see what the backend looks like, hit me up!
Masoud Ardestani
Sooner or later they are going to create a CRM tool! Calling it now :)
Dave Vasquez
@masoudardestani they already have) just open your fan page, and check the list of your followers, you will be surprised with all the data you can get from there)
nathan beckord
@masoudardestani oh boy, do you think they will come out with a CRM for raising capital? :) guess I better watch my rear view mirror...
Romain Lapeyre

We're the back-end provider of the beta companies that are testing customer chat. As such, we're comparing the difference between Shopify merchants that you use it vs those that don't.

Will keep sharing insights here over time on the difference between a typically live chat and Messenger Customer Chat.

Pros:

Creates a communication line with customers AFTER they leave your website, can be combined with Shopify

Cons:

Visitors need a Messenger account. You can't display custom messaging based on the url (yet)

Philippe Roireau
We are the website in the demo BODEAZ.COM props to Gorgias for their great support. Messenger Team has also been great to work with
Patrick Coddou
Super interesting (in a good way) to hear you guys are behind the back-end of this. Really excited to see how this evolves. Been eying Gorgias for a while and this may be the forcing function to make the switch.
Felix Eichler
Interesting! Would be interesting to see how their "backend" looks like where those messages are answered.
Romain Lapeyre
@felixeichler Hey there, I'm the founder of Gorgias.io, the backend tool that powers Bodeaz's (the example above) customer chat. Happy to tell you more :)
Daeshawn Ballard
Will certainly try this on a Shopify store. Looks like it will add a decent level of trust. I wonder how it will play out on the mobile version.
Romain Lapeyre
@imdaeshawn Most of the stores featured here are actually shopify stores, so it's a pretty good fit. A good hack for Shopify: pass the Shopify customer.id to the Facebook widget, this way you can reconcile Fb users and Shopify customers. happy to tell you more in DMs
ahounou khaled
I think they have just realized the potential to "follow" the user after starting a conversation on the merchant website. That is the part that Intercom should catch on. For sales it's a leap forward. You now have the possibility to litterally whispper to your prospect ears untill he comes back to your website and close the deal. Not to mention the leverage of the billion of user already there.
Bridges to Italy

I really enjoy using Messanger, but I think having to be an FB user is a limitation in terms of business use. I wouldn't want my customers and potential customers, to be unable to reach me if they don't have FB.

Pros:

From a business point of view, it allows you to better identify your customers through their FB profiles

Cons:

It is unclear if a customer who doesn't have FB can still communicate with the business. If not, that is a problem.

Bruno Lemos
Is there a way to integrate with mobile apps too?
Romain Lapeyre
@brunolemos it works on mobile, but I don't think there's an SDK for now
Kevin Natanzon
I wonder if users interacting with the widget are automatically considered as subscribers to the bot. If that's the case this is game changing for email marketing. It's no secret that open rate on messages sent from FB bots is more than 5X vs email. UX will shift to bot engagement vs email subscription, until FB charge you to reach all your subscribers 😂
Drew Meyers
@kevinnatanzon it'll only stay 5x email until spammers/marketers ruin it. then consumers will go back to their ways of not opening anything in messenger either due to not wanting to deal with marketing messages.
Lua
The UI looks almost identical.
Brandon McConnell
@brazilianexpat The UI looks identical to Messenger, but it's noticeably different from Intercom.
Parker Woodward
I'll be curious to see if they monetize this or if it will be free...big changes in the UI thought which IMHO is critical for increased chatbot adoption
Romain Lapeyre
@parkerwoodward I think it's going to be free. It's part of the Facebook strategy to transition ecommerce from email to messenger. They monetize with ads afterwards.
Jordan Jackson
wow this is a bold move
Jordan Jackson
hmmm .. and just off the top they can offer quite highly targeted look alike people who engage using this script...
Kyle Stephens
Facebook has tried on a number of occasions to break into the business space. I don't see this being the breakthrough, however.
Adrian Taropa
It was only logical that Facebook would take this platform and offer it as a service on websites. This seemingly small implementation has a lot of implications. Being able to run chats on messenger means that on one side you have users that get to keep their conversations with them, even after they leave your site and have them on their messenger. Then on the user end, you can connect whatever you want, from zendesk to custom made chat bots and Hootsuite with advanced routing. I can see a few smiling square chat bubbles turn upside down because of it. :D Can't wait for this to be available!
Tommy Jacobs Vedvik
I don't get the hating. This is just a natural step for Facebook Messenger. There are already many plugins for this (For WP at least). There are also Facebook bot creation apps like https://chatfuel.com/ out there that will make this even more awesome.