How to Leverage Facebook Messenger for Effective Customer Support

Remember the last time you needed to contact customer service? If you’re like most people today, you probably reached for your phone – not to make a call, but to send a message.

The way customers want to connect with businesses has fundamentally shifted – particularly post-COVID-19. A *WARC & Meta whitepaper* reveals that 80% of online adults find messaging to be the most efficient way to communicate with businesses, with 71% of them more likely to purchase from companies they can message directly.

What does this trend tell us? That customers are not just looking for answers. They want support that fits naturally into their daily digital routines, through apps and platforms they’re already familiar with. This shift in behaviour in prompting more and more businesses to leverage services like Facebook Messenger to meet customer expectations. If you’re curious about how they’re doing this and how you can effectively implement Facebook Messenger support for your business, read on.

Table of Contents

• What is Messenger Customer Service?
• Benefits of Using Messenger for Customer Service
• 6 Best Practices for Effective Messenger Customer Service
• Is Messaging the Future of Customer Service?
• Start using Hiver today

What is Messenger Customer Service?

Messenger customer service involves using platforms like Facebook Messenger to engage customers, handle inquiries, and provide support. With over 1 billion active users, Facebook Messenger has become a powerhouse in business communication.

This shouldn’t be surprising – it’s a platform where customers already spend an average of 19.6 hours per month messaging friends and family, and increasingly, businesses. Meta has invested heavily in business-first features like rich media sharing, automated responses, and seamless integration with Facebook business pages and shops, turning Messenger into a robust customer support tool.

Let’s look at how successful businesses are leveraging these capabilities.

Use cases for Facebook messenger in customer service

1. Eticket’s smart automation

This festival & concert-ticketing company in Latin America turned to Messenger to manage a surge in customer inquiries:

• Implemented Messenger Chat plugin on their website
• Integrated a Guest User Mode to remove sign-up frictions for chat
• What they achieved:
• 87% of customers chose Messenger for support
• 60% of queries didn’t need a human agent
• 22% of customers continued chatting on Messenger after the first automated response
• Key win:** Maintained quality support during peak periods without increasing staff volume

2. Kiehl’s personal touch

The skincare brand, Kiehl, blended automation with human service using Messenger:

• Set up instant responses for basic queries & transferred complex consultations to beauty advisors
• Added clear “after-hours” messaging
• In just two months, here are the results they saw:
• 30% more qualified leads
• 20% conversion rate from consultations
• Key win: Beauty consult registrations were completed in just two days!

3. Happy Socks’ holiday success

The Swedish sock retailer used a playful “gift-finder” Messenger bot to help customers find the perfect Valentine’s Day gift.

• Messenger provided personalised recommendations across 300+ sock styles
• Provided instant responses to common holiday shipping and sizing questions
• The results were impressive:
  • 3.3x ROI compared to other channels
  • 20% revenue uplift during the holiday period
• Key win: Successfully managed customer support across 25+ countries!

Benefits of Using Messenger for Customer Service

Meeting customers where they are

Facebook Messenger’s greatest advantage is familiarity. It’s already on most people’s phones and so, there’s no need to download a separate app. It’s also a very intuitive way of communicating with customers – whether you’re providing them the status of an order or information about a product.

Building trust through private conversations

The private messaging feature on platforms like Messenger is ideal for handling sensitive customer issues. For instance: A customer notices an unfamiliar charge on their account. Instead of posting a comment on your Facebook page, they send a private message. Within minutes, a support agent reviews their account, explains the charge was due to a subscription renewal, and offers to process a refund right away. The customer walks away not just satisfied, but with increased trust in your brand. At the same time, you’ve turned a potential complaint into a satisfied customer.

Cost-effective communication

One of the most appealing aspects of using Messenger for customer service is its cost-effectiveness. It lets you guide customers to self-service options or online resources before they need to speak with a live agent. Instead of staffing a 24/7 call center, companies can now deploy automated responses for common queries on order tracking or return policies. This lets human agents focus on more complicated customer issues.

Moreover, Messenger doesn’t require additional infrastructure; you can easily integrate it with tools your teams already use. For instance, you can integrate Messenger with a customer support platform like Hiver using custom connectors. This makes it easy for your support team to manage customer queries that arrive via Messenger, right from their familiar Gmail inbox.

6 Best Practices for Effective Messenger Customer Service

1. Respond promptly

Speed matters in messaging. 61% of consumers say quick responses times would boost their trust in a brand. Insights from Reddit discussions highlight how exceptional customer service can improve trust and customer loyalty. Here’s an example of a Redditor sharing their positive experience with the online gaming platform, Steam:

Let’s consider how you might meet these expectations:

• Set up automated acknowledgments for all incoming messages.
• Use chat templates to automate responses for frequently-asked questions
• Route customer messages based on urgency
• Create response time SLAs (e.g., 2 minutes for initial response, 10 minutes for resolution)

For instance, consider an office supplies distributor handling retail clients through Messenger. General product inquiries receive automated responses with catalogs and pricing, queued for the sales team to follow up during business hours. However, when a customer sends an urgent message about a pending printer cartridge order needed for next-day operations, it’s automatically routed to the fulfillment team for immediate attention, ensuring quick confirmation of stock and delivery options.

2. Use a friendly and professional tone

A great customer interaction should strike the right balance between being friendly and professional. Nobody wants to deal with an agent who’s curt or robotic; 32% of consumers want support agents to be both more responsive and empathetic.

Consider a customer messaging a clothing retailer about a damaged item they received. Instead of a stiff response like, “We’ll look into it,” a friendly yet professional reply would be: “We’re so sorry about this, <Name>! Let’s make it right. Could you please share your order details so we can arrange a replacement or refund for you?”

Here’s how you can maintain this balance:

• Use the customer’s name to personalize interactions.
• Keep responses concise but warm
• Mirror the customer’s tone while maintaining professionalism
• Include clear next steps in every response

3. Integrate with existing tools

Integrating Facebook Messenger and your existing CRM or help desk can make your support operations a whole lot easier. For instance, you can use Hiver’s Messenger integration to manage queries that come via Messenger from the same place as customer emails, chats, and phone calls.

Let’s say a customer messages you about an order on Messenger but had previously emailed about the same. Your support agents can now see all these conversations in one place in their Hiver inbox. This makes it easy to provide a clear, consistent response without asking the customer to repeat themselves.

You can integrate Facebook Messenger into Hiver in two simple steps:

?Step 1: Select a trigger from Hiver This could be any of the actions customers or agents typically take. Here are some examples of commonly used triggers on Hiver:

Step 2: Setup an action from Facebook Messenger

An action is what takes place after the automation is triggered. For example, with Facebook Messenger, the action could be “Send Message From Page.”

This action automates a direct response from your business page to a customer’s inquiry. For example, if a customer messages, “Can I return the item I purchased?” the action can trigger a pre-written response like:

“Hi [Customer Name], you can return your item within 30 days of purchase. Please follow this link for our return policy and instructions: [Insert Link].”

And with that, you’ll have automated your Facebook messenger workflow! Hiver’s Custom API integration also allows you to integrate and manage apps tailored to your specific needs.

4. Train your team for real-time engagement

Real-time engagement on Messenger require specific skills and preparation. Every interaction must meet the customer’s expectations.

Here’s how you can help your team:

1️⃣ Role-playing exercises: Simulate real-life Messenger interactions to help team members practice responding to common scenarios, including handling difficult customers and resolving technical issues. Once the session is over, ask other agents to judge the quality of customer support delivered and discuss areas for improvement.

2️⃣ Use a comprehensive knowledge base: Equip support staff with quick access to FAQs, product details, and troubleshooting guides so they can provide accurate answers without delays. Hiver’s Knowledge Base helps teams create, organize, and instantly access support documentation right from Gmail. Agents can quickly search and insert relevant articles into their Messenger responses. Consider how an office furniture retailer might use their Knowledge Base during Messenger conversations. A customer asking about an ergonomic chair’s weight capacity gets an instant, accurate response as the agent quickly pulls relevant specs from their Knowledge Base – all without leaving the chat. The agent can also proactively share maintenance tips, preventing future support requests.

5. Use automation wisely

The key to successful Messenger support lies in balancing automation with human touch.

According to the Hiver State of Customer Support Report, 52% of customers expect their queries to be resolved within 24 hours. Yet, Hiver’s AI vs. Human Report reveals that 52% of customers still prefer to speak solely with human representatives.

This creates an interesting challenge: how do you maintain both speed and personalization?

The answer lies in strategic automation.

Picture a commercial kitchen equipment supplier using automation to instantly answer questions about product specifications and availability. When a restaurant owner inquires about customizing their kitchen layout, the conversation automatically transitions to a specialist who can provide tailored solutions.

Here are some ideas to help implement automation:

6. Monitor and optimize performance

Tracking key metrics like response times, resolution rates, and customer satisfaction scores (CSAT) can help businesses identify areas of improvement. With the right tools, you can easily spot what’s working and what needs attention.

Here are some ways to monitor this effectively:

1️⃣ Leverage analytics tools: Facebook Messenger’s built-in tools provide valuable insights, including:

• Message volume: Number of inquiries received over time.
• Response times: How quickly your team replies to messages.
• Response rates: Percentage of messages responded to within a given timeframe.

Integrating Facebook Messenger with platforms like Hiver allows you to get richer analytics without your customer support data living in multiple dashboards. This helps offer actionable insights for improving customer support. For instance, you can create custom reports to track metrics such as CSAT scores or resolution times for specific message categories. You could evaluate individual team member performance through first response times and average message handling times. Hiver’s tagging feature allows you to segment and analyze conversations based on categories like “Returns,” “Payments,” or “Shipping.”

2️⃣ Set benchmarks: Establish clear targets for response times (e.g., responding within 2 minutes), first-contact resolution rates, and CSAT scores (e.g., maintaining an 85% or higher satisfaction rate). Messenger’s response badge system (e.g., “Very Responsive to Messages”) can help motivate your team to achieve these benchmarks.

3️⃣ Regularly review data: Schedule weekly or monthly performance reviews to pinpoint trends and address recurring issues.

Is Messaging the Future of Customer Service?

Messaging has undoubtedly changed the way businesses interact with their customers. But is it set to dominate customer service strategies entirely? Let’s look at what the data tells us.

HubSpot’s 2024 State of Service Trends Report indicates that, while messaging platforms are seeing strong adoption, 59% of companies still prioritize a human-first strategy. The report also reveals that 31% of organizations combine messaging with other channels like phone, email, and in-person support.

This reflects a broader trend: customers want options when it comes to channels, not just messaging. In fact, the most successful customer service strategies take an integrated approach. Platforms like Facebook Messenger work best when they’re part of a larger ecosystem where:

• Chatbots handle routine inquiries
• Human agents tackle complex issues
• Customers can seamlessly switch between channels based on their needs and preferences.

This isn’t about replacing traditional support methods – it’s about enhancing them.

The future points to an omni-channel approach where messaging is a crucial part of a larger, more sophisticated customer service strategy. And the winners will be companies that are focusing on creating seamless experiences across preferred consumer channels, with messaging serving as an important, but not exclusive, touchpoint in the customer journey.

*WARC & Meta whitepaper*