Facebook has updated Messenger with more business chat features. The social networking giant said Messenger 2.3 will bring deeper engagement between businesses and customers via improved customization features for customer service chats.
Facebook’s last update to Messenger in November included a customer chat plugin that let businesses integrate Messenger into their own website. At the time, Facebook said the plugin was one of the mostly highly-requested business features for Messenger.
With the latest update, the plugin will now let businesses customize greeting text and the color of the Messenger icon on a website.
The Messenger plugin is also adding notifications, a persistent menu and a setup tool that aims to help businesses get a customized customer chat experience up and running on their website.
Facebook is also adding a new quick reply feature that auto-populates a person’s email or phone number that is associated with their Facebook profile when a business asks for additional contact info.
Meanwhile, version 2.3 of Messenger includes several other updates, including:
- New metrics in Messaging Insights API for both new and open messaging conversations.
- New message tags including COMMUNITY_ALERT and CONFIRMED_EVENT_REMINDER tags, and more use cases for the ISSUE_RESOLUTION tag.
- New NON_PROMOTIONAL_SUBSCRIPTION tag that developers can use to tag their non-promotional messages for a Page that’s been reviewed and approved with subscription messaging.
- Checkbox Plugin customization, Page Inbox support for request thread control and Broadcast API coming out of Beta.
“We’re excited to announce the launch of Messenger Platform 2.3, which provides new tools to make customer interactions more seamless,” Facebook wrote in a Messenger blog post. “As businesses continue to unlock the power of the Messenger Platform, we’re working hard to offer features that both make Messenger more impactful for businesses and also make it easier for people to connect with them in a way that is intuitive and enjoyable.”