REVIEWSElevate your customer journeys with Messaging from Salesforce. With Messaging, you can exchange messages with customers from your website, mobile app, Facebook page, WhatsApp account, or over text.
What you can do with Messaging in Salesforce
You can pick the channels that are best to communicate with your customers. Then you can communicate in various ways:
- In some messaging channels, your staff/service agent can proactive send outbound messages, and so start start the conversations with a customer.
- We can also configure processes for you so you can send automatic messages to customers
- Agent-initiated outbound messaging. This is available for SMS channels. (In beta for WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger).
Message Routing
When a customer contacts you, their response is routed directly to the Salesforce service cloud console for agents to continue the conversation. Salesforce’s sophisticated routing options let you assign incoming messages to queues, bots, or agents. Start simply with queue-based routing. And then refine from there. We can configure omni-channel flows based on your unique routing rules and then dynamically route messages to the most qualified, available agent.
The Evolution of Messaging
Service Cloud today has an add-on called Digital Engagement, which allows customer to purchase Messaging. Agents can respond to incoming messages from customers directly from the Service Console. In its 2022 edition, Messaging enables 5 types of messages: In-App and Web, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and SMS.
This article is an update of a prior one from 2016. It was focused on Salesforce for Messenger (born 2014), then relabelled as LiveMessage in 2019. Salesforce subsequently killed LiveMessage and it was reborn as Salesforce Messaging. In the 2022 edition of Messaging, it also includes the wildly popular channel, Whatsapp. (About Whatsapp: https://cloudanalysts.com/whatsapp-messages-in-salesforce-marketing-cloud/. In a future article, we’ll talk about SMS with Salesforce.).
In this article we stay focused on Facebook messaging.
Messaging.
The potential is huge!
In the US, 97% of people use mobile text messaging 1+ times/day. It’ll be comparable in the UK. Plus, on average, text messages have a 98% open rate vs. a 20% open rate for emails.
Source: Salesforce research.
These are superb numbers for online marketeers who deal with ‘unopens’ and service reps who deal with phone ‘no answers’ all the time.
With Messaging, your inside sales and service teams can make your customer journeys more continuous, respond faster and create personalised, effective sales conversations, and store all customer data directly in Salesforce.
So many features.
The 2019 and subsequent innovations added a slew of new features that were not there before. Here ‘s an overview.
In the chat window, you can peek ahead and see what a prospect is writing. You can see if the person contacting you is an existing lead or contact in your Salesforce org, and pre-populate chat questions for a speedy conversation and service delivery.
So yeah, you can embrace all customer journeys from marketing, sales, onboarding to existing customer service delivery. You can channel all customer data from Facebook Messenger right into Salesforce. To converse, convince and convert, leveraging the automations, email templates, campaigns and drip journeys you have set up within Salesforce already. Awesome.
Read on to learn how.
Introducing Salesforce Messaging
CloudAnalysts are early adopters when it comes to customer engagement technology. We set this up for clients when it was still called ‘LiveMessage’. And subsequently we configured it for ourselves at CloudAnalysts. So, if you want to try it out, can contact us at http://m.me/CloudAnalysts Come say hello and share how we can help you today. Click the image below or the link.)
In its earliest form, Salesforce for Messenger, it was introduced in 2014.
Tips for Business Success with Messaging
What you can do to improve your Sales & Service processes with Messaging:
- Put scripts here for your sales reps. Give reps access to Salesforce Knowledge FAQs as well, and wow, you are to boost performance!
- Give reps access to your Facebook chat as part of omnichannel service. Perhaps previously Facebook was handled by the digital marketing team. Now it can be integrated into your call centre overall response.
- Build this out and use service Einstein bots for data gathering and simple FAQs. This then allows your sales or service reps to focus on more complex customer questions and issues.
Why is Messaging important today?
The capabilities of Messaging have great sales, service and marketing potential, because of 3 things:
1) Immediacy. Eg. if a customer complains on your company’s Facebook Page, your customer service rep can route the conversation to Messenger to make a direct connection and solve the customer’s problem. This added immediacy and personalisation of reply can transform an at-risk customer into a loyal customer with great ongoing earning potential.
2) Great reach. Isn’t everybody already using Messenger? Well, almost. Messenger’s usage has nearly doubled from 2014 to now 900 million monthly active users. This is precisely why companies are so eager to embrace it as the new channel to extend customer engagement and create conversations.
“With Salesforce Messaging, companies will be able to easily connect their businesses to Messenger, creating deeper, more personalised and 1-to-1 customer journeys within the chat experience.”
Alex Dayon, president and chief product officer, Salesforce
Facebook Messenger with Messaging
This way they too can realise completely new 1-to-1 experiences and customer journeys across sales, service, marketing and apps.
Yes, its a new service channel. You can configure your Salesforce Service Cloud now to make Facebook Messenger part of your omni-channel service setup, and treat it as a serious new customer engagement channel.
‘Coz it is connected to the Salesforce CRM, each Messenger interaction can be specifically tailored based on the context of the entire customer relationship. Now we’re talking sophisticated marketing!
Integrate Messaging Creatively
A retailer can embed a Messenger plugin on the checkout workflow on its website so a customer can ask any final questions before making a purchase. Since this Messenger exchange is also connected to the customer’s previous sales, service and marketing account records, the company can take a more personal approach to exceeding customer expectations.
Just an idea of how LiveMessage could be stitched into a purchasing journey…
Companies will have an invaluable opportunity to use Messenger as a channel to build brand loyalty and deepen customer relationships by delivering seamless experiences across marketing, sales and service with Salesforce.
On a continuous journey to completely re-imagine CRM for the digital era, Salesforce Messaging is the latest example of how Salesforce is expanding the market, and helping companies ensure that their every interaction with a customer is an opportunity to create a memorable experience.
3. Reduce Your Phone Costs
We haven’t even touched upon this, but with LiveMessage you can seriously reduce call volume, operational costs, besides boosting customer satisfaction. According to Salesforce’s own research amongst its customers, “companies decrease their telecommunication costs by 15% with Service Cloud Messaging”, … such as with LiveMessage.
Doesn’t that sound good for your digital marketing, sales and customer service teams? What do you think? Chat with us about it at http://m.me/CloudAnalysts. Or contact us below to schedule a demo.
You can buy Salesforce Messaging functionality as an add-on (ask for ‘Digital Engagement’). We are happy to advise you on it and then configure it for you — and share our Best Practices while we’re at it.
Last Updated on June 30, 2023
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