F8 2019 : Messenger Sessions Recap

The Messenger team hosted breakout sessions at F8 yesterday. Here are highlights from the sessions, and links to watch the recordings.

Lighter, Faster, Simpler Messenger

In this session, Software Engineers Joshua Everson and Jeremy Fein shared how they are rebuilding the infrastructure of Messenger from the ground up to deliver a Lighter, Faster, Simpler Messenger.

Highlights Included:

• Shared the Engineering challenges around binary size & complexity.
• They revealed how we deal with binary size via changes to UI Logic, Business Logic, and Core Logic & how we deal with complexity using the OS, SQLite, and the server to shield client complexity.

If you missed it, you can watch this full recorded session here.

Leveraging Messenger's Platform Features to Deliver a Powerful Customer Experience

In this session, we reviewed how developers can use Messenger Platform's robust set of features to build great customer experiences. It was led by Partner Engineer Laura Lebovic, Software Engineer Steven Pham, and Spectrm co-founder Max Koziolek.

Highlights Included:

• Overview of the key features Oui.sncf (Leading rail travel company in France) used for creating their booking experience on Messenger. Features highlighted include Profile API, Templates, Webview, Checkbox Plugin and Built-in NLP language identification.
• Enhance your Messenger experience with Persistent Menu, Quick Replies, Messenger Extensions SDK, Personas
• Drive people to your Messenger experience using various entry points. We took a deeper dive into the customer chat plugin.
• Max shared how understanding user intent and building an experience around it can drive stellar results on Messenger.

If you missed it, you can watch this full recorded session here.

Using Messenger to Deliver Business Results

Head of developer partnerships Liron Wand, Product lead Mohit Rajani, and Smarters co-founder Pietro Bujaldon discussed how brands and developers are building experiences on the Messenger platform that drive business results.

Highlights Included:

• Business messaging is growing exponentially. 20B messages are exchanged between people and businesses every month.
• Pietro shared how they were able to to generate quality leads for General Motors using Click-to-Messenger ads and the automated experience they built on Messenger. The key to success was the tight integration between Messenger Platform and the dealer management system & CRM to enable seamless hand-offs of leads to sales representatives.
• Announcement of Lead Generation template in Ads Manager to help businesses send people from a Facebook ad to an automated Q&A experience within Messenger.
• We are making the booking experience in Messenger more seamless by launching a new, native appointment booking interface that developers can integrate with calendaring APIs. Appointment booking functionality is currently in beta and will be available more broadly later this year. Learn more here.

If you missed it, you can watch the full recorded session here.

Transforming Customer Care Experiences on Messenger

A session led by Customer Care product lead Zeev Rosenstein, Partnership lead Trusha Chokshi, and Air France product lead Camille Demarez covered the growth of customer care on Messenger. They highlighted examples of how businesses are creating delightful care experiences on our platform that increase net promoter scores & productivity and reduce support costs.

Highlights Included:

• Customer preferences are changing. >75% of people say they prefer to message a business over other channels & 66% say messaging a business makes them feel more confident about that business.
• The Messenger platform provides a rich set of features, allowing businesses to engage with their customers in immersive and personal ways. Partners highlighted were Globe Telecom, a leading telecommunications provider in Philippines and Volaris, Mexico's second largest airline.
• We have and are adding more solutions to help better serve your customers including: authentication, automation & personalization, routing, and post interaction.
• We announced a new, easy authentication solution. In the coming months we will be launching a significant new capability for m.me links - Authentication. When your customers are already authenticated in your app or website - they won't need to authenticate again on Messenger - reducing friction for your customers.
• Air France provided an overview of the Automated + Human messaging solution they built on Messenger to help answer customer questions. Today, 24% of their customers' requests are handled automatically by their virtual assistant, built on Messenger. They are seeing 50% reduction in resolution time as well as a 15 point increase in customer satisfaction scores.

If you missed it, you can watch this full recorded session here.