OREANDA-NEWS. April 13, 2016. Facebook launched the Messenger Platform to empower companies to connect with customers in a whole new way.

The potential is enormous. More than 900 million people use Messenger every month. It is personal and immediate. With the launch of Messenger Platform, companies now have a powerful, new engagement channel that gives them a scalable way to communicate directly with customers.
Imagine the possibilities.

  • A traveler stuck on the runway is worried she’ll miss her connecting flight. She can communicate directly with the airline via Messenger, rebook her connection for a later time and relax knowing that she’ll get where she needs to go.

  • Or, an investor who has a pressing tax question can send a message and his financial advisor can quickly reply from a mobile device while in between meetings.

  • Or, a shopper has a poor experience at a department store and posts about it on the store’s main Facebook Page. The store’s customer service rep sees this and moves the conversation to Messenger to make a direct connection and gives the shopper a refund.

Despite the immense promise here, companies also need to consider the implications of engaging on new, emerging channels. How will their interactions scale? How will these new interactions feed into their larger customer engagement strategy? How will companies maintain a seamless customer experience as the lines between business and community begin to blur?

Customers engaging on Messenger expect (and deserve) a completely personal experience: instant answers, transparent progress, new personal connections. If they start a conversation or engagement in Messenger, customers will expect to see it reflected across every other channel (email, web, phone, etc) and spanning every department they talk to whether it be sales, service or marketing. How can companies deliver a seamless customer service experience across all of these channels?

That’s where Salesforce comes in. We are launching Salesforce for Messenger—the world’s #1 CRM seamlessly connected to Messenger. With Salesforce for Messenger, companies will be able to manage each customer interaction, throughout the customer lifecycle, from a single platform that affords a single, cohesive view of each customer across the entire business.

And, it’s all made possible by Salesforce Lightning, the next generation of our platform. We took a long-term approach to designing Salesforce Lightning so that it would scale and be innovation-proof. Why? So companies can adapt and seize new opportunities that weren’t even wild ideas just a few years ago. Each stone we lay down is one our customers or partners don’t have to create. And with Lightning, we can move faster, innovate faster, and adapt faster to this newly personalized, connected future.