With people spending so much time on their messaging apps each day, it didn’t take too long for businesses to follow and bring their services to these apps. Businesses can now choose to build their own chatbots in a messaging app that their customers use the most, delivering relevant and contextual experiences within a familiar conversational UI.
Messaging platforms like Facebook Messenger, Slack, Kick, Telegram, and others have been competing for dominance and the title of THE channel for B2C conversations. But one large player didn’t join the battle early on. It may seem like Apple is a bit late to the conversational UI movement, but they certainly knew what they were doing and waited for the perfect timing to launch Business Chat.
With Business Chat, Apple is turning iMessage into a business to consumer communication platform. And while it may look like yet another channel for businesses to chat with their customers, it's actually taking things a bit further.
So why is this launch one of the biggest developments in the conversational commerce
If a business wants to reach Apple users, there’s no better, more natural way to do that than through iMessage. Like any other platform, it can be used to automate and scale everything from support to marketing and sales conversations. But compared to competing solutions, Business Chat has distinct advantages.
If a business wants to reach Apple users, there’s no better, more natural way to do that than through iMessage. Like any other platform, it can be used to automate and scale everything from support to marketing and sales conversations. But compared to competing solutions, Business Chat has distinct advantages.
Benefits of deploying your chatbot on Business Chat
Business Chat enables conversations (chats) between businesses and their customers, but it also lets companies enrich those conversations with attachments, lists, appointment scheduling, and sales through integration with Apple Pay.
Once Apple’s new service is fully released (coming this fall in iOS 11), it will support more complex tasks, like selecting a seat in an aeroplane or ordering from a restaurant menu. Here’s an example of how a conversation with our event chatbot Sava will look like in Business Chat.
As you can see, we’re using the iMessage extensions to enable users to perform tasks such as voting or selecting the talks they want to learn more about.
As a business, you’ll benefit hugely from becoming “chat-friendly” and more discoverable to iPhone users.
Solving the “chatbot onboarding” problem
One of the biggest issues with chatbots, no matter where they live, is discoverability. For example, unless they perform a search on Messenger, how do people know that your company’s bot exists and how do they start a conversation? Even heavy users of messaging apps are not used to discovering bots via the search function.
But here’s how this is different with Business Chat. Apple users will go to Safari to search for businesses or services they’re interested in. They’ll use Apple Maps to get directions to a business physical address, and look for past messages and notes using their iPhone’s search feature. And Business Chat is integrated with each of these services, meaning that any search result can include a message icon that lets the user chat with a business directly from within those apps.
Plus, the Apple Pay integration will enable customers to make payments directly within iMessage.
This level of discoverability is something that businesses will need to take advantage of and offer some type of support or service via iMessages. Since the customer has to be the one to make the first move, Business Chat also promises a better user experience.
Enhanced User Privacy
iMessage, unlike Messenger, isn’t connected to a public user profile which provides users with more privacy when they contact a company. Only if their private information is needed as part of solving their problem or providing a service will they be prompted to share information, like phone number or email address, with a company.
In addition, when a business asks a customer via chat for their information, the keyboard makes intelligent word predictions that allow the customer to respond with a single tap.
Conclusion
Sure there are other platforms that do similar things as Business Chat, but Apple usually takes time to do it better than anyone else rather than to do it first. This is how they come up with products that Apple users see as a refined and more useful alternative to anything else available on the market. Be among the early users and take advantage of Business Chat to engage in a conversation or service interaction with your customers.
And don't forget that your bot should always show empathy and provide guidance.