When customers tap on any of the registered business phone numbers, a phone sheet appears allowing your customers to choose between voice and messaging. The Message Suggest feature allows your customers to contact you through Apple Messages for Business in the Messages app.

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Businesses can reduce phone call volume by offering Message Suggest instead. Given that messaging offers a better agent-to-customer concurrency ratio compared with either voice or live chat, brands can potentially reduce their contact center operational costs by launching Message Suggest.

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You can trigger Message Suggest from any place where the phone number is tappable on iOS devices, including search, Apple Maps, and a website. The below screenshots show: Message Suggest from search (left), Message Suggest from a website (middle) & Message Suggest from Apple Maps (right).

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The following screenshots are of an iPhone with no Message Suggest (left) and with Message Suggest (right).

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Benefits 

Enabling message suggestions allows to:

• Deflect calls before they reach your IVR queue

• Reduce voice support costs by shifting call volume to messaging

• Increase customer satisfaction by reducing wait times and getting cut off in mid-conversation on phone lines

• Better customer experience with built-in features, such as Apple Pay, list pickers, time pickers, and augmented reality

Configuring and Setting Up Message Suggest 

Getting familiar with different settings of message support is an important aspect to move forward with the process of the creation of the same.

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Configuration

Send an email to the Messages for Business team with the following Message Suggest form and Apple can set up the numbers using the parameters provided:

• Business operational Hours

• All primary and high call volume phone numbers. Brands may include their own store's phone numbers.

• The title and subtitle that are to be set for the UI. If the brands require different language support, translations are to be provided for the same.

• The intent and body parameters are required to be associated with each phone number. Intent, group, and body values define a customer's intent so they can be quickly directed to the appropriate group within the organization. 

• Current call volume for these phone numbers.

• Number of agents available to support customers over messages for Business

Please note that there is a ramp-up period of several days for the Message Suggest prompt to become visible across all eligible devices. We recommend that you wait until the propagation period (average of 5 to 7 days) is complete before checking the visibility.

Measuring Message Suggest Volume and Conversion Rate

The effectiveness of the Messages for Business channel is assessed by measuring the conversion from voice to chat, by tracking the overall reduction in call volume, increased customer satisfaction and NPS scores, and reduction in operational costs.

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To accurately measure the conversion from voice to messaging from Message Suggest, brands can calculate the conversion rate by measuring the phone call volume before and after enabling Message Suggest. For example, the call volume on a phone number prior to Message Suggest was 350 per day. After Message Suggest, the message volume from Message Suggest is 70 per day and the call volume decreased by the same amount. Based on this information one can calculate that 20% of calls convert to messaging. For a more granular approach, we can track the performance of message suggestions for brand properties as described in the best practices below:

• Capture clicks on any page where the registered phone number appears: Where applicable, we measure clicks on registered phone numbers on pages, websites, and iOS apps from which the click occurred.

• Measure taps on iOS 13 and later: Only iOS 13+ users need to capture clicks on registered phone numbers. Message Suggestions are enabled on iOS 13 and later.

• Measure message suggest volume: Message volume is measured by Message Suggest by tracking the Intent ID of every incoming message. When a client selects the "message for business" option in the message suggestion UI, the message passes the intent ID value in the header.

• Modeling the call volume: Customers tend to rely on search engines to find phone numbers quickly. When calculating conversions, you also need to consider the number of message suggestions from search engine results. Plan to apply the web analytics conversion rate to the total volume of calls and messages.

• Determines the conversion rate: One can determine the conversation rate by dividing the total number of clicks on your number by the number of message suggestions received from that same number.

The following conditions can affect the conversion rate:

• Additional iOS entry points for Messages for Business: Separately track other brand entry points such as Apple Maps, Siri, or business cards to measure conversion rates.

• Other Suggest message entry points: When calculating your conversion rate, consider the volume coming from other sources such as phone calls from search results and other social networking sites.

• Message button on the site: When brands place a “message” button on their website or app, it contributes to the overall volume of “message for business” messages. However, if the phone number registered for the message suggestion is on the same page, the conversation speed may be slow.

Maximizing Message Suggest

To reduce phone support costs, maximize message volume by rejecting voice calls. Based on our observations since the launch of Message Suggestions, Apple recommends the following best practices for maximizing the volume of Message Suggestions:

• Register all major numbers: For more messaging inclination, register your phone number with a high ring volume for message suggestions.

• Make sure your registered phone number is easily sniffed from your website and applications: To enable message suggestion UI on iOS, use E.164 format for registered phone numbers. Images or phone numbers in text format cannot be heard.

• Provides good visibility into the volume: Make sure that numbers with message suggestions enabled are easily visible on mobile websites, search results, and apps. Accessibility ensures all iOS brand customers have access to this feature, resulting in more rejections and fewer calls.

• Off-hours automatic message setting: Because Messages for Business is asynchronous, customers can message brands at any time, including after business hours when live agents are unavailable. For brands that do not use automation to support customers outside of business hours, Apple recommends providing automated responses to let customers know that a live agent is available to respond to requests when they return.

• Appropriate call-to-action messages set by Apple based on functionality: Assuming customers always have access to a live agent, Apple customizes the call-to-action message so customers know they can get help from a live agent quickly. You can change it to suit your business needs. Contact the Messages for the Business team to update your CTA text.