it would buy Kustomer, a customer relationship management startup that will provide services to businesses that use Messenger and WhatsApp for communication with customers.While Facebook has been pushing heavily into social commerce over the past few months, its investments thus far have generally been centered around improving discoverability and adding new features to on Facebook and Instagram.
There are two reasons the focus on customer service may be beneficial for Facebook's push into social commerce: Building consumer confidence for those who aren't ready to shop on social media yet. Only 35% of US online shoppers had used social media to shop as of October, per a survey conducted for eMarketer. Though that's up from the 27% who said the same in April, it still shows that the majority of consumers aren't ready to complete the entire purchase process on a social media platform, even if they regularly shop online.
Accessing consumer data that goes beyond Facebook's owned and operated properties. Kustomer will allow businesses using Facebook to track customers across different channels, including WhatsApp or Messenger, email, and a company's website. For example, a business that receives a message from a customer on WhatsApp could see that the customer completed a return on its website a month ago.