Instagram Wants To Improve CX On Social With This New Technology

Social media sites now act as full-fledged eCommerce platforms. Although they may have started as a place to connect with friends, users now head to apps like Instagram and TikTok for inspiration and advice on their favorite products and purchases. 

As these individuals continue to adopt social eCommerce experiences, companies are attempting to mimic a more traditional customer experience on social. With a renewed emphasis on social shopping, Instagram and Facebook are now adding new features to enhance and streamline their eCommerce offerings.

In its latest addition, Instagram recently introduced a new API for its messenger service to optimize interactions and deliver a high-quality and improved customer experience on its platform. 

Customer Service on Instagram

Before implementing its new API, Instagram recognized that its messaging feature was quickly becoming a preferred outlet for brands attempting to interact with their customers online. Because individuals were utilizing the platform to make purchases and find product recommendations, they began initiating interactions and flagging concerns on the app. 

However, even as Instagram was evolving in its new role as a customer service channel, companies were still unable to connect their internal tools and platforms with its direct messaging service. According to The Wall Street Journal, this lack of integration left many companies out of the loop when it came to critical details like order history, if a customer contacted them on Instagram.

But now, with its new API, businesses can finally integrate messages they receive from customers on Instagram into the platforms they currently use to manage and analyze all of their customer interactions. With a greater line of vision into customer interactions on Instagram, companies can more seamlessly interact and offer a unified overall experience on the social platform.

With 90% of people on Instagram following at least one business, its parent company Facebook believes that engaging with brands on the platform is increasingly appealing to customers and critical to businesses. This new feature represents a step toward a more unified customer service approach on social. If companies are able to manage and track interactions more efficiently on social channels, they can begin to provide a more consistent experience across all fronts. Social customer service is becoming paramount to the eCommerce experience, and brands need to find new ways to improve their customer interactions to reduce effort and avoid unproductive conversations. 

Facebook began beta testing the Messenger API with a group of 30 developers and 700 brands, and outlines a few use cases for future successes. Messenger Product Manager Marion Boiteaux noted in the announcement post, “Sephora amplified its ability to be engaged and active, holding faster conversations, resolving queries more easily, and serving customers solely via Instagram. Since the API’s integration, 100% of Sephora’s customers who reach out on Instagram end up actually being served on Instagram and not addressed through a separate channel.”

This is key as customers begin using Instagram as a shopping platform. If brands are able to initiate and respond to customers more easily on the same platform, customers benefit from a more seamless, low-effort experience. As companies expand their channels and increase their service efforts on new channels like Instagram, they require greater access to these interactions to provide exceptional service. Therefore, integrations like these indicate further growth and success for customer service on social. 

Additionally, brands will be able to actively identify and analyze these interactions more efficiently. Although social has offered customers new outlets for support, brands have not always been able to evaluate their pain points or successes with the service. With greater access to interactions, brands can begin a deep dive into their customers’ satisfaction and sentiment on social. This gives companies the opportunity to truly optimize social support to meet customers more effectively on these new channels. Ultimately, the introduction of this API will hopefully inspire brands to gain a greater understanding of their customers’ usage of these platforms to enhance their end-to-end experience and encourage an even more seamless social shopping space.