Facebook Acquires Kustomer to Improve the Customer Experience
As we all know, an important aspect of running a successful business is the relationship you hold with your customers. When loyal customers are well cared for, they have no reason to go elsewhere. Depending on the nature of the business, this could lead to a relationship that lasts many years. Facebook recognizes the importance of this and has now acquired Kustomer, an advanced CRM designed for businesses to help facilitate this level of service.
In 2020, with the global pandemic acting as a catalyst, many businesses have moved online. As expected, they are selling through marketplaces and websites, but also a significant number of businesses have started selling products on Facebook and other social media platforms. With the addition of Kustomer, there’s now potential for superior customer support and service through Facebook, something that has been problematic in the past.
In the past, allowing a phone to ring in a shop was seen as the epitome of bad customer service. By failing to pick up the phone, specifically on the first ring, a prospective customer could easily just hang up and dial the number of a competitor instead. Today, we may be in a digital world, but the importance of this caliber of communication remains the same. These days, customers are disappointed when they don’t receive a reply from a message or text promptly.
In the current market, it’s normal for customers to reach out through WhatsApp, Messenger, and similar apps, even when a company doesn’t sell through social media. According to Facebook, WhatsApp is especially popular with the app passing 175 million messages between customers and businesses daily.
This method of conversing is convenient for the customer, the business can formulate a strong response, and everybody wins (even those who fear having to call a business and speak to somebody directly!).
For those who have been watching, you may have seen the API updates from Facebook with regards to Messenger and WhatsApp. Ultimately, the social media platform is trying to improve onboarding and the integration of partner tools. Now that Facebook has welcomed Kustomer to their family, it could be game-changing for businesses using the platform
What’s Kustomer?
Every day, businesses receive multiple messages across several different platforms. Kustomer originally entered the market as a CRM platform to help bring all of these conversations under one roof. With everything accessible on one screen, marketing teams no longer needed to have multiple apps or tabs open simultaneously.
Additionally, certain tasks have been automated, creating more time for the marketing team to spend on prioritized tasks. If implemented according to plan, vendors on Facebook will soon offer customers a more advanced and effective customer support system. Whether the customer reaches out through a message, phone, email, or live chat, they receive a system that’s fast and helpful. Not only do customers get the answers they need, but the business also has a chance to impress and turn leads into actual customers.
Important Step Forward for Facebook
Although a big step in CRM, it doesn’t appear to be the last for Facebook. Within their announcement, the platform hinted at supporting all businesses that want to integrate their chosen CRM platform. Facebook believes that messaging is the future of communication between brand and consumer, and it’s attempting to build a healthy and efficient ecosystem to accommodate this.
A New Take on Integrating the Kustomer Brand
Historically, there has been a somewhat negative vibe when smaller brands get gobbled up by social media giants. However, in the case of Kustomer, it’s more like the culmination of two paths destined to meet. The article announcing the union was actually authored by the CEO and co-founder of Kustomer, Brad Birnbaum. Here, Birnbaum spoke about the launch of the service five years ago and the journey since. Written in the first person, it shows the nature of the business and the impressive feat of now partnering with one of the biggest companies in the world.
In truth, the success of the brand has been highly impressive since launching in 2015.
According to Kustomer, their solution allows businesses to automate 40% of all conversations, all while maintaining the same level of quality.
As mentioned earlier, one of the best features of Kustomer comes with having all communications centralized on one screen. With clever omnichannel routing, the customer service team can prioritize messages and work through them in a predefined order. No more toggling between tabs and getting overwhelmed by the volume and various types of messages. Thanks to their product Kustomer IQ, customers get through to agents more quickly, have quality interactions which hopefully drive more conversions and ultimately sales.
Automation
When it comes to customer service, we’re not surprised that some businesses are nervous about automation. Small businesses generally prefer to reply to all messages and provide the personal touch that ideally generates results. Suddenly, taking this process out of our hands is a daunting prospect. However, Kustomer believes in its ability to do this without losing quality.
Using artificial intelligence from Kustomer IQ, your brand is available 24/7 and simple questions are answered without taking your valuable time. Though you may want to respond to all messages manually, this just isn’t feasible as you scale and grow. If you have ambitions to become a multinational corporation, answering every inquiry with a live attendant may prove cost prohibitive.
If possible, the technology will respond to customers and answer their questions. If an agent is needed, the system will then pass the customer on. The reality is that many businesses find themselves answering the same questions over and over again; this is where Kustomer IQ can automate the process and saves both time and money.
Another benefit of Kustomer for businesses on Facebook is that it’s a multilingual service. With natural language processing, AI chatbots can handle a variety of languages — more languages than your team could probably handle without this help. What’s more, it formulates a response in the same language. When done correctly, you can make sales in a different country without even speaking the language therefore opening the door to global growth.
See Related: How Marketers are Using AI to Create and Manage Facebook Ads that Convert
Why Sell on Facebook?
The acquisition of Kustomer for Facebook is huge news for all sellers on the platform, but we know that some are still wary about the prospect of using social media for this purpose. With Facebook improving the customer service systems for businesses, we want to go through some other reasons why you might decide to sell on this platform.
For one, you don’t have to worry about high costs associated with creating your own website. When starting a website, you need to pay for the hosting as well as the domain. Furthermore, this is often followed by all sorts of security costs. On the other hand, most businesses can start selling on Facebook with not much invested other than time.
Additionally, many businesses are already active on the platform whether through posting or paid ads. Why not go one step further and start selling to customers too? Nowadays, Facebook has the features to send customers seamlessly through the buying journey. With the refined targeting options available on Facebook Ads, there’s a chance to find a viable target market and those perfect for your products.
When on the topic of Facebook, people will tell you that users don’t normally go on Facebook to spend money. However, a growing number of people are actually interested in buying products they see on the platform. Especially with the addition of Facebook’sShop feature, they can easily communicate with brands and make purchases too.
Of course, we would be remiss to ignore the sheer number of users currently active on Facebook. Due to the pandemic,users of all ages have flocked to the platform to reach out and stay connected to family and friends According to recent estimates, there are now 2.7 billion active monthly users. Even if not every member of your target market wants to shop through Facebook, a certain percentage of this huge number may.
Providing Customer Support on Facebook
Even if you don’t sell on Facebook, the fact that your target market is probably active on the platform makes it a perfect place to provide customer support. When buying products online, customers like to know that the brand is available just in case something goes wrong. Since the vast majority of customers have a Facebook account, it makes sense to provide this additional option should they have any questions or concerns.
For businesses, you now have even more motivation to provide customer support on Facebook and with the integration of Kustomer you’ll have the tools necessary to do it both efficiently and cost effectively. Once your team is up-to-speed with the system, this should encourage a happier, more satisfied, customer base both now and in the future.
As far as Facebook goes, Kustomer was an impressive acquisition and the promise of others on the near horizon is nothing short of exciting. With regard to PII, although details of this deal weren’t released with the announcement, we do know that Kustomer will initially retain the responsibility of data and data privacy. Over time, Kustomer data will move across to the Facebook infrastructure.
See Related: How to Manage Facebook Ads Using AI
