Facebook Pages have become one of the best means of communication between businesses and customers. Since their advent, Pages have gathered more than 50 million active businesses. We saw Pages receive an update earlier this year and today, the social giant has announced a few more important additions to this service.
The latest update is mainly aimed towards business Pages on Facebook. Earlier this year, we saw Facebook add a response time indicator for Pages which showed an average amount of time a Page admin takes to respond to a message. This enabled users to know whether or not their queries or feedbacks are heard. We saw other similar features added to Pages and Facebook is at it again.
“People can contact businesses anytime and from any device, so we’re offering new tools for Pages to better manage their customer interactions,” said Facebook Product Manager for Pages Michael Sharon in a statement. “Now it’s easier than ever for Pages to address both the public comments and private messages that people send them, in order to build and maintain strong relationships and grow their business.”
This month, Page admins will be able to set the average time it takes for them to reply to messages. Admins can choose to show that they respond either “within minutes,” “within an hour,” “within hours” or “within a day.” Although, the average time is calculated by Facebook automatically, Pages can now set the publicly shown average time and set consumer expectations accordingly. Apparently, this new feature aims to provide Page admins with “more control and flexibility over using their Page as a communication channel.”
The average response time will also show in Messenger now.
Another addition is the new ‘Away’ status. Pages can now set an ‘Away’ status when they are unavailable or cannot respond to messages. This will be publicly shown and will enable consumers to know whether or not their messages will be responded to immediately. Setting your status as ‘Away’ will also prevent the average response time to turn sour.
Pages will now also be able to set Away Messages and Instant Replies.
“Page admins can now also set Away Messages and Instant Replies. Away Messages are replies to messages sent automatically when a Page is set to away and can be used to inform people about when to expect a response or where to find other information. Instant Replies are messages sent automatically to people who message the Page for the first time. Businesses can use Instant Replies to automatically respond to incoming messages immediately, whether they say hello, thank the person for reaching out or offer them information that may help them before the business gets in touch,” the blog post announcing the features reads.
Even the Pages inbox has seen a revamp today. Now, when someone messages a Page on Facebook, Page admins will be able to see past interactions the person has had with the Page, as well as information the person shares publicly on their profile, like their current city. Admins will also be able to add notes about the person like current orders, past customer service preferences or any other relevant information. Tags can also be added to make it easier to search for a message in the future.
The ‘Activity’ tab has also gotten a new feature. This new service will help Pages to keep track of comments on their Page and respond to them seamlessly. It is available on both mobile and desktop and shows all customer comments in a single place. Apparently, more than 2.5 million comments have been left on Pages until now, so this feature is going to be quite handy for admins.
Admins can flag interactions for follow up, reply privately or mark them as done, helping them keep better track of comments in need of responses and eliminating the risk of skipping over a customer comment.
These features are all starting to roll out today and will be available globally in the coming months.
