Have you noticed the new CRM profiles for Facebook Pages? The platform update is a clear message that Facebook believes in the importance of social customer care

More proof that Facebook is telling you to take care of your customers

Have you noticed the new CRM profiles for Facebook pages? Only select pages have the new features (for now), but the message is clear, Facebook wants you to create better experiences for your customers.

As a marketer, I love dissecting Facebook platform updates and user experience research. Does Facebook have a user experience questionnaire? I’m taking it. Does Facebook want to know what I think about the content in my News Feed? I’ll tell them. Did they publish an FYI to their newsroom (like they did on December 4th about viral videos)? I’m reading it. But the most exciting part, especially as a social customer care advocate, is when Facebook gives a clear push towards better customer service.

That’s what they’re doing with integrated CRM profiles for Facebook pages. They’re telling businesses to take better care of the community they’ve created. Why plant a garden if you’re not going to nurture it and enjoy the fruits it bears? The platform updates point towards an increasingly important factor in the Facebook experience: personalization.

Facebook knows a lot about us. I’m not sure what it is about me, maybe it’s my inner marketer, but that doesn’t really bother me. I like when companies are able to understand my needs and solve my problems better because they get who I am as a customer. There are many ways to understand your customers better, data and technology being the most powerful and scalable ones.

So, what has Mr. Zuckerberg gone and done to improve social customer care?

CRM profiles make “customers” more human

Have you noticed the new CRM profiles for Facebook Pages? The platform update is a clear message that Facebook believes in the importance of social customer care

Tearing a page from Brand Embassy’s book, Facebook now shows integrated CRM profiles to help Facebook admins know more about the human behind the profile. It’s not just Susanna, it’s Susanna the dog mom who loves the great outdoors and hails from Italy where the local time is 11:02am. All of this in an instant (and linked to her real Facebook profile). Plus, click on location and a full Wikipedia like entry is provided about her hometown.

A chat-like user experience

Round the edges and call it a chat! Whatsapp, Messenger and iMessage are a regular part of many people’s lives and Facebook is bringing this experience further into their product. Conversations between admins and customers now alternate left to right and have a nice bubble like design to give the conversation a sense of immediacy and familiarity.

Organise communications with keywords and notes

It’s easy to get lost in a Facebook converstaion, especially one that strings out over days or months. Links get forgetton and images misplaced. Keywords help admins easily categorize conversations and even assign customer personas, which can help add rel

It’s easy to get lost in a Facebook converstaion, especially one that strings out over days or months. Links get forgetton and images misplaced. Keywords help admins easily categorize conversations and even assign customer personas, which can help add relevance and context to an otherwise scattered experience. Internal notes enable better teamwork and improved organization.

What does this mean for software vendors?

I used to work at Socialbakers, a social media analytics company. I remember the chill that swept through the company the day Facebook introduced Competitive Benchmarks into the native analytics dashboard. The panic was short lived, but it was quite real. In a brief moment of insecurity we thought our value as a social media analytics platform was being diminished. It wasn’t, it was only being re enforced.

I believe it’s the exact same case for customer service platforms like Brand Embassy. Facebook is not going to make software vendors obsoletes, that will never happen. We add real value for our clients, something Facebook can never replicate, and they would never want to replicate. That’s so far beyond their focus. They need us and we need them. These platform improvements simply reinforce the importance and need for technology in customer service. If anything, it makes our industry stronger.

Our mission of creating better customer experiences through technology just got a Facebook stamp … and I’m happy about it. As a vendor, a Facebook admin, a social media manager or an end-user, what does Facebook’s platform update mean to you? I would love to hear your opinion.

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