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Apple’s Business Chat Matches Search Functions With Customer Service Tools

The more practical and useful business makes device searches for customers who then visit your site, the more likely your business engages them for purchases, add-ons, and building loyalty to your brand. Harben Marketing notes Apple recently launched Business Chat at its developer conference, positioning this messaging function to pair with searches initiated by potential customers for a broad range of sales and marketing ramifications.

 

Developed for both online and brick-and-mortar enterprises, Apple designed Business Chat initially only for human interactions. A user chooses from a range of portals to search and then Chat guides the searcher into and through a business’s cache of information. Access offered through Safari, Maps, Spotlight, and Siri connects customers to your products and services on iPads, iPhones, and Apple Watches, as well as Apple desk and laptops. In the future third parties and independent developers may incorporate bots into the Business Chat experience as well.

 

Questions answered and issues resolved through Business Chat inform and streamline the customer experience, leading to confidence in a user’s decision to complete transactions. Conversations remain live until the user terminates the search, encouraging business to send notifications and attachments that enhance the Chat experience while boosting additional sales. Sharing your business’s apps users have not yet installed is another search opportunity available during an open Business Chat session. We are intrigued to see how this nuanced messaging function improves the encounters from the viewpoints of both user and business.

 

Users can use Apple Pay and scheduling utilities like Time Picker within the Business Chat environment. List Picker is also built in, allowing your company to provide lists of products, services, and choices within each category. A successful search for one type of product or service through Chat naturally leads to additional or ancillary products or services, convenient for the user and profitable for your business. Currently, a customer service platform (CSP) is necessary to distribute Business Chat, with Salesforce, LivePerson, and Genesys poised to effectuate Chat immediately. It is expected that additional platforms will follow.

 

Although a respectful dialogue is the goal, Business Chat firmly puts the user in charge of messaging. Businesses that want to push the envelope with unsolicited information may find themselves blocked by now-lost customers. The focus is on comprehensive customer service and intentional context for the user, based upon how the messaging initiated by the user.

 

Viewed primarily as an enhanced inbound sales channel, we are eager to see if Business Chat delivers on its vision of improved customer service and seamlessly connected commerce. Harben Marketing intends to monitor Business Chat’s progress through the developer phase. Expect updates and please share any experience your business has with this powerful customer connection tool.

Harvey Turner

An experienced Digital Marketing Evangelist with a demonstrated history of working in the marketing and advertising industry. Skilled in Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Advertising, Entrepreneurship, Customer Service, and Strategic Planning. Harvey educates industry professionals on the ever-changing challenges of SEM and SEO marketing.