You’ve likely heard the term ‘conversational commerce.’ This refers to marketing, sales and customer service that happens over messaging channels. Those channels include SMS of course, but are increasingly dominated by social messaging apps such as Instagram, WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger.
What do those messaging networks have in common? They’re all owned by Facebook. And like all things Facebook, they’ve grown rapidly in their organic and social-graph-fueled user adoption. But they’ve also followed that up with strong revenue models in letting businesses join the discussion flow for customer interaction.
Facebook’s Channing Hancock Christensen eschews the ‘conversational commerce’ term — instead calling it “conversational business,” which better embodies its goals. As Business Marketing Manager for Messenger, this is her North Star, as she told us at the recent Localogy Place conference (video below).
Push vs. Pull
Facebook over the last decade has covered the most ground in messaging, considering brand marketing options in Messenger, as well as possibilities for WhatsApp and Instagram. Messaging is a key component — albeit to varying degrees — of these apps. The idea is to let businesses spark customer discussions.
But to be effective with conversational business, these tools need to be harnessed correctly, says Christensen. It needs to be offered as a customer utility versus a marketing channel. In some ways, it should be seen as a “pull” channel (customer-initiated) versus a push channel. Speak to customers, not at them…
When done right, this provides customers with a more direct channel to their favorite brands. That, in turn, cultivates loyalty and retention. And when that all comes together, everyone wins. But it fails when businesses get greedy and see it as a push marketing channel. Those who do it right avoid that temptation.
Meanwhile, conversational business got a Covid-era bump as there was a greater need to communicate with customers about dynamic business details (hours, pickup options, mask policies, etc.). Christensen believes this adoption will sustain as SMBs picked up new tools that they’re not necessarily going to put down.
Unified Approach
It’s worth noting that since we spoke to Christensen, Facebook took additional steps towards democratizing conversational business. Specifically, it recently opened up its Messenger API to all businesses. This gives SMBs a one-stop shop for managing customer interactions across all Facebook messaging channels.
This unified approach is fitting for SMBs because it reduces friction and time. By comparison, they previously had to send and respond to customer inquiries within Instagram if that’s where the message originated. Given Instagram’s continued rise as a transactional experience, this move should resonate.
The new Messenger API also integrates with a given business’s product and customer databases. This means customer communications on Instagram can not only happen in the same place as Messenger, but they can be armed with product images and customer information that flows from a CRM system.
Speaking of which, Christensen says her biggest current ambitions are to get Facebook’s messaging products integrated into more platforms. That includes everything from CRM to WordPress plugins to WooCommerce or Shopify integrations. This is what we can expect from Christensen and team in the coming months.
We’ll pause there and cue the video for more color from Christensen. See the interview in full below and stay tuned for periodic installments of the Place Rewind series with more insights and session coverage.
