How Facebook Messenger Could Transform Your B&B’s Customer Service

In the hospitality and travel industries, the customer service landscape is always evolving. New technology is introducing new guest expectations and for B&Bs to manage their revenue profitably, they need to quickly adopt these changes.

By implementing Facebook messenger for their business, hoteliers will transform their customer service by building loyalty, engagement and optimising the guest experience.

Here’s how Messenger surpasses expectations as a customer service channel…

Build Personal Relationships Between Your Guests And Your Brand

Facebook Messenger has historically been an informal chat platform, reserved for conversations with friends and family. By contacting customers through this channel you’ll be communicating on their terms and in their own dialogue.

You can then use this to informally listen to customers opinions, respond to questions, and gain more insight into your business.

A few ways Messenger works to build brand advocacy include:

• Enabling communication with customers directly from your B&B Facebook page
• Allowing hoteliers to answer concerns or complaints privately. This will mean removing conversations that could reflect badly on your business from the public domain.
• Continuously display when you are available to respond to messages and page comments.

Reach Customers Where They Are Already Browsing

Facebook messenger was the #2 smartphone app in 2016, and the #1 fastest growing app of 2015.

So generally speaking, the majority of your customers are using this app daily, and are much more likely to engage in conversation here than picking up the phone to call.

Visitors to your page won’t need to be a guest or hold a booking just to start up a conversation, allowing you to capture their attention before they lose interest or end up on another hoteliers site.

Hyatt, for example, introduced the Facebook integration on Messenger and increased their messages by nearly 20 times.

Improve The Customer Experience

Not only will you be able to communicate with customers from anywhere at anytime, you will also be able to let them know if you can’t be there with instant replies and away messages.

This helps you maintain your responsiveness and set expectations with your customers so they don’t feel ignored.

Additionally, Messenger allows you to tailor your messages. When a customer contacts you, you will have a past record that you can quickly review before responding.

KML airline, for example, started using messenger with the goal of refining personal communication to make the customer experience easier. And by adding a “Send Message” button to their business Facebook page, they received a 40% boost in customer messages.

Save Time

Utilising the saved replies feature is a great way to cut time writing out responses. These can be especially useful for frequently asked questions like opening hours, check-in times, email address or phone number.

You will also save time for the customer in many scenarios: such as, a guest running late for check-in and wanting to let you know quickly between transfers.