Facebook Messenger—it’s not just a mobile app for chatting with your friends anymore. And Facebook wants to further expand the social network’s mobile chat-like service beyond instant message conversations between individuals or groups, David Marcus, vice president of messaging products, wrote in a blog post posted this morning.
800 million consumers use Messenger each month, Marcus wrote. “It’s a good number, but we believe we have so much more opportunity ahead of us, and these are still the early days of Messenger,” Marcus wrote.
In particular, Marcus wrote that Facebook aims to help consumers use Messenger to interact with businesses or services to buy items, order rides, buy airfare and chat with customer service representatives. The Messenger app is free to download and a consumer doesn’t need a Facebook account to use it.
“It is so much easier to do everything in one place that has the context of your last interactions, as well as your identity (no need to ever login), rather than downloading apps that you’ll never use again and jumping around from one app to another,” Marcus writes.
Marcus writes that Facebook’s early tests in 2015 with brands show consumers are increasingly using Messenger to interact with businesses. And Marcus said Facebook plans to take steps to make it easier for consumers to engage with businesses via the service. It also plans to make it easier for businesses and services to use Messenger to interact with consumers. Facebook last year enabled consumers to order an Uber and to send money to peers via Messenger.
In March, Facebook launched Businesses on Messenger, which enables Messenger users to interact with businesses via the app. For example, a shopper checking out on a retailer’s site might opt to receive shipping updates via Messenger, or later on use Messenger to chat with customer service about to ask about how to return an order.
Apparel retailers Everlane and flash-sale site zulily, which is owned by TV and online merchant QVC, were among the first businesses on Messenger. Facebook works with customer service software provider Zendesk to support live chat.
Facebook also owns mobile messaging app WhatsApp, which it purchased for nearly $22 billion in 2014. Both WhatsApp and Messenger are classified as OTT or Over the Top messaging services. OTT services let consumers avoid text message fees by enabling them to send messages over mobile broadband Internet. Early this year Facebook said 800 million consumers use WhatsApp each month.
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