Why Do it?
Live chat is very pretty much common practice these days on many websites. As website owners get more and more focused on website conversion goals and user feedback, so too has risen the popularity of live chat.
In more recent times however you may have also seen the Facebook messenger icon pop up in where you would expect the live chat to be. So why go for this option over the numerous live chat offerings out there. Let's take a look.
1) Cost
Messenger is free and while there are many free trials out there, the better live chat offerings tend to attract a fee beyond their basic trail or limited freemium tier.
2) Leverage Messenger Bots and Facebook Pages
Whether you're Customer Service agent is unavailable or not you can get messenger bots to do some of the heavy lifting for you. You may have specific keyword triggers that can offer links to products or knowledge base articles to give the customer immediate satisfaction. It's worth noting that these features are becoming common in other chat software too.
Where messenger is a little different is that you can interact as your facebook page, so your branding carries through.
3) Build an Audience
Of course the Facebook advertising platform is what's driving this free offering and Facebook expect you will want to spend a bit of advertising dollars, Im sure.
When you think about it though why wouldn't you. These are people who are highly engaged with your brand and would have had a very positive experience. It makes sense to help nudge them along your funnel a little more...
4)User is logged in.
"Before we get started may I have your name and email address please"
urggghh!
With Facebook messenger that interaction is a thing of the past since the icon is only served to people logged into facey. This means facebook messenger is fantastic for lead generation. But... as we are about to find out, this comes with a drawback too.
But first a Reality Check...
I'm guessing you're already thinking about this one. Here is the caveat.
Since Facebook requires users to be logged in, it may not be suitable for everyone.
Are users in your target audience likely to have Facebook blocked at work for example? It's worth thinking carefully if you're marketing in B2B channels. For my site, I expect most users will be logged into facebook as its a crucial way to stay in contact with customers. But before you rule out the idea too quickly, consider the shear scale of people on the platform. 53% of users are checking several times a day.
My best advice is to try it out and to AB test it if you website has the traffic for it.
How to go about it
According to the Facebook developers resource you need to install both the code snippet and the SDK on your website. If you're not confident editing your template you may be tempted to try out a Google Tag Manager implementation but that tends to create errors due to tag manager aversion to Div tags in the code.
Luckily for WordPress people facebook have supplied a plugin that inserts the code and helps you connect to the page you want. Its available in the respoisitory and take seconds to set up.
