Apple to Introduce Business Chat for Customer Service and Commerce

Apple is set to take another turn toward the enterprise—and into competition with the likes of Facebook and Twitter—with an upcoming service called Business Chat. While Apple is set to formally unveil Business Chat during the Worldwide Developer Conference on Friday, a page on its website provides some basic details:

Business Chat is a powerful new way for businesses to connect with customers directly from within Messages. Using Business Chat, your customers can get answers to questions, resolve issues and complete transactions on their iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch. Customers can find your business and start conversations from Safari, Maps, Spotlight, and Siri.

Apple has said there are more than 1 billion active iOS devices in the world, giving iMessage a broad footprint. But iMessage isn't as widely used as Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp, both of which report more than 1 billion unique users. That's in part due to the fact that there are more than 2 billion active Android devices, and also because unlike Messenger and WhatsApp, iMessage runs only on iOS. Moreover, many Apple users have more than one iOS device, which shrinks the overall pool.

Still, iOS devices users are notoriously loyal to the brand, and therefore iMessage presents an ideal additional way for businesses to reach customers.

"The key is providing in-context experiences," says Constellation Research VP and principal analyst Alan Lepofsky. "People don’t want to leave what they are doing."

Constellation estimates that mobile messaging will reach 1.9 billion users worldwide this year and grow nine to 12 percent per year through 2020. 

Chatbot customer support has already become popular within Facebook Messenger, Twitter, WhatsApp and WeChat in Asia, says Constellation Research VP and principal analyst Cindy Zhou. "These mobile messaging platforms have the majority of the business chat market share," Zhou says. "Apple iMessage has an opportunity to compete in this space with its native app." 

The chatbot support trend is spreading fast. Other companies such as the Dutch airline KLM, rolled out chatbot support on Facebook messenger last year to provide customers booking confirmations, boarding passes, and seat change services.

Moreover, Apple plans to integrate Business Chat with Apple Pay. That ties into the trend toward messaging commerce, where customers can go from service requests to completing transactions in a single chat session, Zhou says. (Read a summary of Zhou's in-depth report, "A CMO’s Guide to Mobile Marketing Opportunities in 2017 and 2018.")