Weekly Drinks & Thinks

Every week, a majority of the DesignWorks digital team gets together on Friday morning to talk about news they found important or interesting that week, tips & tricks we think can be helpful to clients and prospects, a couple jokes, and enjoy a cup of whatever feels right for a Friday morning. We can linger on certain topics for a while, so "Drinks & Thinks" is a boiled down version for you to enjoy.

Weekly things to check on:

Digging a little deeper than an average pro-tip this week: Yea or Nay? - Auto-reply on Facebook Messenger.

Having a fast response time to messages on your Facebook not only gives credibility to your page, it also gives confidence and a great user experience to existing and potential customers. So, should you set up a bot to auto-reply when someone sends a message to your page? My answer is yes... and no.

Having a personal response with actual answers is the key to a good user experience on Facebook messenger. Having a bot that replies "Thank you for sending us a message - we'll get with you as soon as possible!" is a complete waste of the user's time. He or she already expects you to get back to them as quickly as possible (that's the point of Messenger) and a pre-emptive compliment rarely seems genuine (especially if it's an incoming complaint).

Instead of auto-botting everybody, here a couple tips that will take you a long way in Facebook Messenger:

- Actually respond to messages. Make it someone's, or a team's, responsibility. If you want to make Messenger as asset to your business, treat it as if a message is the same as someone walking in the front door. How does your response change? Would you be okay if a customer physically waited in your business for 2 days before you talked with them?

- Set up a schedule to only auto-reply when you are closed or you know you will not be replying to messages right away. A message that says "We are currently closed. We will be open again at 8am and will respond to your message as soon as we can at that point. Have a good evening!" sets the expectation for the customer as to when they'll get a response, why they aren't getting a response immediately, and keeps your Messenger user experience a good one.

- In a Drinks & Thinks 2 weeks ago, I referenced advances in Messenger bot technology. While a lot of these perks are not yet available to everybody, there's a good lesson to be learned. Are you getting a lot of messages about a certain topic/product? Then be proactive and put more information out about that topic/product on Facebook! It will help relieve the number of Messenger inquiries you get about it while simultaneously advertising it.

These are 3 very simple steps that, if implemented correctly, can turn Facebook Messenger from an old-school "contact me" form into a HUGE asset for your business.