InTheChat announced at Facebook’s recent F8 Conference that it can now offer Facebook Messenger as a platform for enterprises worldwide, allowing companies greater reach and flexibility when dealing with customers.

The Waterloo-based company offers a full-scale digital customer service platform that enables companies to serve customers through social media chat, email, text, and now Facebook Messenger.

InTheChat is one of the first platforms to engage with Messenger. The Ontario company reached out to Facebook late last year and both parties saw the integration of Messenger into InTheChat as strategic: Facebook wants to grow the “chat” side of Messenger among big businesses, the exact market that InTheChat specializes in.  

InTheChat makes customer service on messaging channels 58 per cent more efficient than a regular phone call, and thus offers significant savings on a company’s customer service costs. The company, which operates out of the Accelerator Centre, uses text analytics to route messages from customers to the best-skilled customer service agent. Customer service representatives can then chat with three to five customers at one time through various digital channels, rather than with one customer through the traditional method of the telephone call.

“People are so used to communicating with their friends and family through these channels that they’re waiting for companies to open them up and engage in that way,” InTheChat CEO John Huehn said in an interview.

InTheChat at the Accelerator Centre's Client Showcase

Huehn worked at Rogers Communications for 12 years: he started as call centre representative and worked his way up to Vice President, Client Management, accountable for call centre strategy.

He started InTheChat six years ago as a more efficient way for companies to interact with their customers through social media rather than telephone. However, he noticed that many customers would prefer to privately message the company rather than send a public tweet with a query or problem and introduced private messaging capabilities via text, chat and Messenger.

He said the company’s aim is “that a customer can get service whenever and however they want, and we make that [happen] so you get a great customer satisfaction.”

Last year, InTheChat launched TD Bank Group as one of the first big businesses available for chatting on Facebook Messenger. They also put Newegg, a California-based computer/electronics e-retailer, on Messenger. Though Messenger is an unsecured channel, webforms and other applications enable customers to provide information through secure channels rather than giving out private information over the chatting platform.

Huehn himself has gone through a review of his data usage and changed his data plan with his telecom company—all through Messenger and text chatting.

“You’re able to continue your conversation without disclosing private information to get your problem solved just as easily as you can on the phone,” he said.

InTheChat targets mainly large enterprises, as the most complex part of their system is routing the right message to the right person via text analytics.

Each company pays a personalized fee, which includes a platform fee. Companies then add users on to the platforms that they can access.

InTheChat is a growth-oriented company and its 22 employees are always looking to expand channels.

“How do we innovate emerging channels that emerging generations choose to communicate on to make those available for customer service?” Huehn said.