Online travel agency, Jumia Travel, has announced the launch of a Customer Service for Messenger tool in partnership with US customer relations company, Salesforce.
The integration of customer service for Messenger in Jumia Travel’s system will offer a live chat experience on Facebook Messenger. The tool can also be used to instantly request for a hotel room on the platform, where the company’s professional Travel Advisors will offer counsel on the best accommodation options as well as make the booking.
As the first African company to integrate Facebook Messenger in its own system, Estelle Verdier, Jumia Travel’s COO and Co-Founder says that this is a “show of our great commitment to always bring the latest technology and high quality services to our customer in Africa”.
In its recently published hospitality report for Africa, Jumia Travel states that 51 % of searches done on the website are via smartphones, with 68% of the bookings. This compares to 49% and 32% of searches and bookings respectively done through the desktop.
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“In Africa, e-mail penetration has remained low especially because it doesn’t provide a fluent conversational experience and is not fitted for mobile. With Customer Service for Messenger integration, we bring to our customers an instant and convenient way to chat with us on mobile from Facebook. We trust that Facebook Messenger will become a major channel in the coming years, and this new feature allows us to scale the communication with our customers on Messenger,” says Stanislas de Dinechin, Jumia Travel’s Global Head of Customer Service.
The tool will also be used to handle customer queries and requests such as airport pickup, and booking modification among others. With a high ‘mobile first’ population in Africa, Facebook Messenger provides a great opportunity to reach people in addition to other social media platforms, as compared to the conventional browser.
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