Channel Goals

Channel goals help you to define how you enable Messages for Business and design your customer's user experience. Channel goals are anything from improving sales or creating revenue to decreasing the average agent handling time or increase app adoption. Once you have your channel goals defined, Apple can provide suggestions such as incorporating your app into Messages for Business or sending out customer surveys. You can define channel goals by completing and returning to the Apple Messages for Business team the Readiness Assessment.

Use Cases

Define your business use cases to determine why your customer's contact your business. When filled out properly, the Use Case template provides valuable information for setting up your channel, implementing interactive features, and achieving goals.

Once your template contains about five of your most common use cases, you can begin to think how better to support your customers in the channel. Share your use cases with the Apple Messages for Business team and they can provide insight into how best to implement interactive features.

Interactive Features

Interactive features provide a range of functionality, from letting the customer select an item from a list to scheduling an appointment. Messages for Business comes with a set of interactive features, like list picker, time picker, authentication, and Apple Pay. Your MSP can set up and you can use in your goal design to provide a more satisfying customer experience.

Rich links. Allow customers to preview content inline by adding a picture to a URL and giving them the confidence to navigate outside the Messages for Business experience. Video previews can also be added to rich links for a more immersive experience. Rich links provide customers the reassurance that the website being directed to, is secure and owned by your brand.

Quick Replies. Provide a simple way for the user to make an inline choice with a single tap during an ongoing conversation. You can have between two and five customizable choices, and the user can select only a single item. For more information, see Quick Reply.

List pickers. Provides information or asks a question, see image below. List pickers are great for triaging customer questions when they initiate contact with your brand. To learn more about list pickers, see List Pickers.

Time pickers. Provides time slots for customers to choose and adds the chosen time to the customer's calendar. This interactive feature is great for scheduling delivery or service. For more information, see Time Pickers.

Apple Pay. Provides an easy and secure way for customers to buy goods and services through Messages for Business. Grow the channel as a sales or e-commerce platform by sending Apple Pay requests over Messages. See Apple Pay for guidance on how start integrating this with your MSP.

Authentication. Allows customers to view account information safely by adding an authentication interactive to their experience. Messages for Business supports the OAuth2 protocol that allows you or your MSP to integrate password autofill which uses a third-party vendor’s authentication to provide the authentication. Also, your MSP or third-party vendor can implement a full authentication and authorization flow. Learn more information using Authentication for guidance on how start integrating this with your MSP.

iMessage App. Allows your customers to interact with your app directly within Messages, including within a Messages for Business conversation. An iMessage app allows your customers to interact with your app directly within Messages, including within a Messages for Business conversation. Learn more about building and submitting your iMessage app.

In comparison a standalone app link sends the customer to the iOS app to interact, which resides outside of the Messages app.

Image sharing. Photos can be sent by or to your customers, allowing for faster resolution. Images can be sent by agents or automated assistants to display products, share image resources already created by your marketing teams, or just for fun! Allow users to send images to provide proof of purchase, damage, or just to share their favorite products.

Video sharing. Sharing videos with your customers can create a more immersive and direct way of providing product or service descriptions and instructions for troubleshooting. Allow customers to send a video for proof of incident or to share how happy they are with a product.

Document attachments. Send documents in the form of PDFs to provide billing statements or other forms that your customers can store for safe keeping. Send PDFs as fillable forms so that cusomers can complete a document, sign it electronically, and send it back to the agent for processing.

Augmented reality. Give customers a real world view of a product by sending over 3D images with Augmented Reality (AR) Quicklook. Your customers can view virtual and real content, side by side, for size comparison or product fit. For information about AR Quicklook, see Previewing a Model with AR Quick Look.

To send images, videos, documents and AR files over Messages for Business, see Sending Messages with Attachments.

Entry Points

There are many options available for customers to start a conversation with your business. You can use Messages buttons and URLs to meet your customers in places where they are likely to contact your business. You can also enable system features such as Apple Maps or Message Suggest so that customers can start a conversation when locating your business details.

A highly visible entry point with a powerful call to action can be key to success for your brands. Let's start with the native entry points which don't require you to perform a lot of configuration.

Message Suggest. Reduce phone call volume by offering Message Suggest. When customers tap on any of the registered business phone numbers, a phone sheet appears allowing the customers to choose between voice and messaging. For more information on getting the most from Message Suggest, see Message Suggest Guide.

Apple Maps place card. You can win twice with this entry point by adding and updating your brand's public location data in Apple Maps. When customers use Apple Maps, your brand's location data can provide instructions and estimated arrival times; in addition, of course, to having a Messages button that redirects customers to Apple Messages for Business. There is more than one way to add or update Maps information. Let us know the number of your brand's public locations so we can give you the best suggestion. To activate Messages button on Apple Maps, see Apple Maps and Your Business Locations.

Website button. The more visible your brand, the easier it is for the customer to contact you. For example, you can add a button for Messages for Business at the top and bottom of your website, on the contact page, and specific use-case pages. For more information about how to add buttons to a website, including codes to recognize if the device supports Apple Messages for Business, see Adding a Messages Button to Your Website.

App button. When adding a button to the app, you make it easy for the customer to contact your brand when necessary, quickly and safely. For more information on how to add a button to the app, see Starting a Message from Your App.

Email and SMS. You can include the URL in the email or send it using SMS to reach specific customers. For more information about how to start a chat from a URL, see Starting a Message from a URL.

Social media. Nowadays it’s difficult to find someone who doesn’t use at least one type of social media. In fact, most people access more than one type every day. Making entry points available on social media is another way for the brand to be visible to customers.

QR code and NFC tag. The QR code and NFC tag add an entry point anywhere you can post marketing material. You can post advertising on bus stops, on a street, inside stores and malls, business cards, tickets, and bills. In short, creativity is the limit. It's easy to create and there are several free websites apps to generate a QR code and program an NFC tag.

Wallet passes. Your brand can have a direct entry point for Messages for Business on the back of boarding passes, loyalty cards, movie and event tickets, debit and credit cards, store cards, coupons, and gift cards. For more information on how to add an entry point in Wallet passes, see Introducing Wallet.

Augmented reality (AR). You can add AR to your brand experience as an entry point if the AR is on your website or app. The customer can check how an object looks in their house, and ask questions if they want to know more. For more information about adding a custom action, see Adding an Apple Pay or a Custom Action in AR Quick Look.

Composing a Messages for Business URL. You can compose your own Messages for Business URL and give your customers another way to contact your business. Place the URL on all your websites, in emails, social media posts and activated when a customer taps the Messages button. Before you begin, you should understand the components by reading About Intent, Group, and Body Values and Starting a Message from a URL. For more information on adding Messages buttons to your websites, see Adding a Messages Button to Your Website.

Apple Maps and Your Business Locations

Messages are routed from the Messages for Business service to your agents through your Messaging Service Provider (MSP). To direct Messages to a specific business location enable the Message button on your Apple Maps location, Apple Maps displays the button on your business location next to the call button. Like other entry points, when customer's tap on it, they're directed to start a Messages for Business conversation.

You can enable the Message buttton on your Apple Maps locations directly from your Messages for Business account in Apple Business Register. Check the box to enable iOS and macOS entry points and add the countries you want to display the Message button for your locations. For example, if your business has locations in both the United States and Canada, but you only want to display the Message button for locations in the United States only add the United States. Once you activate the buttons submit the changes to Apple for review. When Apple approves the change, your business locations in the countries display the Messages button.

By adding intent and group ID information to your Locations profile, you can route messages directly to a business location the first time a customer taps the Messages for Business button. When performing traffic analysis, you can parse out your Messages for Business traffic by splitting out the intent and group information.

Your Apple Business Register representative enables the Locations service where you can set up your business Locations. Before creating a Location profile, determine which locations to register. The most useful locations are the ones customers visit, such as a retail store.

Customize Intent and Group ID for Your Business Locations

The intent and group ID values can be whatever you decide. When you don't define the intent or group ID, by default, the group ID is empty and the intent ID is set as:

business_name: physical_address_of_the_location

If you would like to customize the group and intent ID for your locations, this can also be accomplished in Apple Business Register. For each location you wish to add a custom group or intent ID, it must be added to Apple Business Register. If your business has more than 50 locations, speak with your Apple representive so that they can advise how to proceed in adding them.

After adding the locations for your business, you can customize the intent and group IDs. When the values are defined, they allow you to track the locations of customer requests from Apple Maps. Additionally, it lets you send messages directly to the appropriate group of agents for a business location. For example, if a customer in a store asks for a particular item, your agent can send the customer to the correct aisle.

When sending a message from a Maps location, Messages for Business uses the standard URL encoding, similar to a web button. When the MSP platform receives the encoded parameters, a plus sign replaces the encoded spaces. When the intent ID is defined, your logs contain something similar to the following:

{"intent":"My+Business:+One+Apple+Park+Way,+Cupertino,+CA++95014,+United+States", "sourceId": "urn:mbid:AQAAY1RfNajxPMgY5JzQHCnF6bY00d+HrG2YmTlgZ2VJ/spRqzPQUER1mT4wBWg=", "v": 1, "group": "poi_to_abc", "body": "hi", "locale": "en_PL", "id": "0c68c45c-fb66-47de-b255-df1644c", "type": "text", "destinationId": "70a55-11de-11e8-a180-b7c088"}

For more information on defining intent and group ID values, see About Intent, Group, and Body Values.

Important Tips for Successful Entry Points

Include a powerful call to action. Clear contextual information tell customers what to expect when they contact the brand. Use clear and succinct phrases that's relevant to the content on the page, such as "Style questions? We can help", "Book an appointment using Apple Messages", or "Message with our team now." Place the call to action next to Messages button to encourage customers to initiate a conversation.

Don't forget to add an Intent_Id to all available entry points. Intent IDs help you to understand which entry point your customer uses, and provides a customer's intent to ensure higher visibility. For more information, see About Intent, Group, and Body Values.

Include a prefilled message or body for the customer. It's easy to add and makes it easier for them to reach out to you. This message can be something like "Tap send to start a conversation." For more information on starting a conversation, see Starting a Conversation in the Human Interface Guidelines for Messages for Business.

Allow conversations to start anytime. Don’t disable buttons or links that initiate conversations outside of normal business hours. Even if you only respond to customer service inquiries during certain hours, people should be able to start a conversation anytime. If a customer starts a conversation after hours when live agents aren’t available, an automated agent should send a reply letting them know when a live agent is able to respond.

Show the Messages button on supported devices. To maximize Messages for Business usage, show Messages buttons for supported devices as the main option for contacting your brand. If a customer’s device doesn’t support Messages for Business, don’t encourage a conversation by displaying a button on your websites. You can use Apple's provided Javascript to hide the button when Messages for Business isn’t supported. Update the layout and remove the call to action or other related text for hidden buttons.