What Happened
KLM has become the first airline to integrate with Facebook’s messaging app in order to reach customers where they already are. The Netherlands-based airline has announced a partnership with Facebook that will allow KLM customers to receive flight confirmations and digital boarding cards, check for flight status updates, and ask questions directly in the Facebook Messenger app. The integration kicks off today and will roll out globally “in the coming days and weeks.”
What Brands Need To Do
Messaging apps are dominating time spent on mobile devices as more and more mobile users start using them as their primary communication platforms. eMarketer forecasts that the number of messaging app users worldwide will reach 2 billion by 2018 which will be 80% of smartphone users. KLM has seen a 40% increase in customer feedback since it activated the Messenger button on their Facebook Page last year to allow customers to contact KLM via private messaging. It is clear that customers like this way of communicating with brands, the same way they communicate with everyone else. Therefore, brands need to follow their customers and consider integrating their customer communications into popular messaging apps.
To learn more about how brands can navigate the unique challenges that messaging apps presents, check out the Conversational Interfaces section in our Outlook 2016.
Source: VentureBeat