Messaging channels

Providing your customers with the opportunity to reach you (and vice versa) via a portfolio of different channels truly calls for an awesome customer experience.

With Infobip, this means that you can use some of the most popular chat apps and offer your services via:

• Apple Messages for Business
• Google's Business Messages
• Telegram
• Messenger by Facebook
• WhatsApp
• Viber
• KakaoTalk
• Email
• LINE
• SMS
• RCS
• and Social Media channels such as Facebook Posts, Instagram Posts, Instagram Messaging, Google Play Store Reviews, and Twitter Tweets & Twitter Direct Messages.

All of this should boost and enrich your overall customer experience and provide support to your customers via their preferred channels of choice that are most familiar to them.

Chat Apps

You can use a broad portfolio of the world's most popular chat apps in Conversations. Below you can find more details about each chat app available in Conversations and how to use them.

Apple Messages for Business

Apple Messages for Business is a new channel in the Infobip portfolio that helps businesses connect with customers directly from Maps, Siri & Safari on any Apple device. This channel gives you the opportunity to reach over 1.65 billion iOS devices worldwide. Read more about Apple Messages for Business in our in-depth section on the Documentation Hub.

Use Apple Messages for Business in Conversations to provide customers with quick support through one-on-one conversations with a live agent. This way you are offering them the option to switch a conversation from a chatbot to a live agent for requests that chatbots cannot handle further.

Other supported solutions:

• Answers

Connect Account

1. You first need to create a new Apple Messages for Business account, and, during this process, select Infobip as the Messaging Service Provider. If you already have an account, all you need to do is select Infobip as the Messaging Service Provider. You can find more info in the Apple docs.
2. Connect Apple account to Infobip account. You can connect your Apple account to your Infobip account automatically (without any help from the Infobip side) – as you will be redirected to the Infobip web interface from Apple's Register. It is critical to note that you must be logged into the appropriate Infobip account during this step.
3. Make sure you are logged in to the Infobip web interface and find your way to the Channels and Numbers section on the left-menu navigation.

Here you can configure specific Apple Messages for Business' features:

• Apple Pay support
• iMessage app sharing support
• Authentication request support

Supported Message Types

The table below outlines supported message types depending on whether the client (mobile-terminated) sent them or the end user (mobile-originated). 

Message Type	MO Messages	MT Messages
Text	✔	✔
Image	✔	✔
Audio	✔	✔
Video	✔	✔
Files	✔	✔
Quick Replies	✔	Conversations API and preview in message history
Authentication Request	✔	✔
Apple Pay Request	✔	✔
iMessage App Sharing	✔	✔
List Picker	Preview of response	Conversations API and preview in message history
Time Picker	Preview of response	Conversations API and preview in message history
Typing Indicator	X	✔
3D Files (usdz)	✔ (as file)	✔

Specific Message Types

Check out which specific message types you can send to end users in Apple Messages for Business: Apple Pay support, iMessage app sharing support, and Authentication request support.

Apple Pay Request

To send Apple Pay requests inside the agent panel, you need to set this up in the Channels and Numbers section. Navigate to Channels and Numbers > Apple Messages for Business. Locate your connected accounts and click the three-dot menu on the far right. Select the Create Apple Pay Configuration action.

After configuring this:

• You can utilize this feature inside the agent panel and send the Apple Pay request to your customer by clicking on the Apple Messages for Business icon.
• Select Apple Pay within the Apple Messages for Business card in the agent panel.
  
• Fill in the required data to send the Apple Pay request to the customer. After the payment has been successfully processed, you will see the confirmation in the agent panel.

Authentication Request

To successfully authenticate a customer, use the Apple Messages for Business action inside the agent panel.

To send the Authentication request to the customer from the agent panel, you need to set this up in the Numbers and Channels section. Navigate to Numbers and Channels > Apple Messages for Business. Locate your connected accounts and click the three-dot menu on the far right. Select the Authentication action.

After configuring this:

• You can utilize this feature inside the agent panel and send the Authentication request to your customer by clicking on the Apple Messages for Business icon.
• Select Authentication within the Apple Messages for Business card in the agent panel.
• Fill in the required data to send the Authentication request to the customer. After the customer has been successfully authenticated, you will see the confirmation in the agent panel.

iMessage App Request

To send an iMessage, you need to set this up in the channel itself. Click on the Apple Messages for Business, then the three-dot menu, and click Edit Custom App Configuration. Fill in the required info and hit Save. 

• To chat with a customer and send an iMessage, click the Apple Messages for Business icon in the agent panel.
• Choose the iMessage App from the drop-down.
• Fill in the data needed to send an iMessage app to the customer.

Rich Link Messages

Rich links in Conversations are now supported. If you are sending a message that only contains a link, it will automatically be converted into a rich link for the end user. This way your end users can have an overview of what your agents are sharing to them and thus strengthen your overall customer experience.

This is the view from the agent panel when sending rich link messages:

This is an example of what the customer sees on their iOS device:

For more info, read the specific Apple Messages for Business channel page.

Apple Messages for Business Forms

Use Apple Messages for Business Forms as an interactive way of the customer journey all in a single step. This way, you can collect information from customers using questions and selections and reuse that information later.

With these forms, your users can complete things like surveys, troubleshooting, account creation, etc. without having to leave the chat or even having to open any additional windows on screen.

If you need to make any edits before using the form, you will need to edit it back in the Content module in Forms.

Once the channel is active, you can proceed with creating the forms.

Navigate to the Content module on the left side of the web interface. Here, on the Forms tab, click the Create form drop-down menu for more options.

1. Select Apple form.

   

2. Within the editor, use the Component block to create new fields. For example, add the Radio button component and type in the form`s name.
3. Next, add options to the component. These are available in the side panel.
4. Click Settings to choose if the form should be marked as private (choose this option if you do not want agents to see the responses), or if you would like the user to see a summary of their responses before submitting the form.
5. Define the processing rules for the form to update profile information in People so you can use it in future marketing campaigns and for funnel analytics.
6. Activate the form, and the agents can now use that form to send to customers. Customer's responses will be saved in Forms and CDP.

Google's Business Messages

Google's Business Messages is another channel available in Conversations that agents can use to resolve customers’ issues over their channel of choice.

For the time being, agents can send and receive Texts and Images.

If a user contacts support via Google’s Business Messages channel, their data will be stored in the People module so the agents can manage their profiles. According to the Google business model, agents cannot start a conversation over Google's Business Messages. Customers (end users) need to initiate the conversation.

To enable this channel in Conversations, refer to Google's Business Messages on our Documentation Hub. 

Telegram

Being one of the most popular messaging apps and used worldwide, Telegram is a new channel available in Conversations and agents can use it to communicate with customers.

Currently, agents can send and receive the following:

• Text
• Images
• Documents
• Audio
• Video

If a user contacts the support over Telegram, their data can be stored in the People module and used later on in your communication. According to the Telegram business model, agents cannot start a conversation over Telegram. Customers (end users) need to initiate the conversation.

To enable Telegram as a channel in Conversations, refer to Telegram on our Documentation Hub.

Messenger

Use Messenger by Facebook in Conversations to communicate with your customers. You can use Messenger via templates, same as WhatsApp so the process is fairly similar for both channels.

Note that you need to submit your Facebook page and Messenger channel to Facebook for review. Please check the Messenger App Submission section and Getting Started in case you need help.

Messenger has introduced message tags that are used in mobile-terminated (MT) initiated scenarios. This means that it is possible to send a message to a customer even 24 hours after receiving the last message.

To send a message, you need to select one of the three message tags predefined by Messenger. The message content is free-form, meaning it is not predefined by any template.

Once a message has been sent, the tag that was used will be visible under the actual message inside the agent's desktop window.

WhatsApp

When you select WhatsApp as your channel of communication, the system automatically detects if this is the first contact or if more than 24 hours have elapsed from the last customer interaction. In this case, you are shown an alert within the message reply box:

You can use WhatsApp templates within ongoing conversations or when starting a new one.

When you select Use a WhatsApp Template, a pop-up opens where the user can select a template from already registered and approved WhatsApp templates. A template can also contain placeholders (variables) for personalization purposes. In this case, the user will need to map all placeholders by entering a value for each.

The experience is same the as for user-defined templates but agents cannot edit the content other than the variables part.

Message Types

Use WhatsApp product messages type to send an interactive message about a product or service that is present in your catalog. Customers can ask questions about the product, add the product to the cart, and submit the cart without leaving the chat.

To send a Product message, you must have a Meta catalog that is connected to your WhatsApp Business Account. Refer to the WhatsApp channel for more information on Product Messages, as well as the Manage Catalog section.

You can set this up via Conversations API but the agent can only preview this in the agent panel (no modifications available at that time).

Stickers

Agents can now use stickers to send (over API) or receive messages to/from customers over the WhatsApp channel.

Viber

You can send all supported formats such as pictures as attachments (.png, .jpg), documents, PDFs, and spreadsheets.using Viber in Conversations. Send and receive files as long as they are supported based on the table below:

File Type	File Format	Max File Size
Documents	.doc, .docx, .rtf, .dot, .dotx, .odt, .odf, .fodt, .txt, .info	20MB
PDF	.pdf, .xps, .pdax, .eps
Spreadsheets	.xls, .xlsx, .ods, .fods, .csv, .xlsm, .xltx

Viber Bots

Use Viber Bots in Conversations and allow your agents to utilize this channel for better customer engagement, and faster support.

With Viber Bots you can:

• Widen reach and extend conversations to new and existing customers.
• Customize the end user's keyboard capabilities and use rich media to offer a dynamic and immersive messaging experience.

With the API portion, you can provide your customers the possibility to:

• Reply in real time to subscriber requests with the information they need: purchase receipts, account setup change confirmation, bank balance status, and more.
• Identify new and existing audience types to engage and send them customized offers.

Channel Specifics

You can only start a conversation with the customer if they have subscribed on their mobile device through Viber. If they have not subscribed, you will not be able to communicate with them using Viber Bots.

Message Types

You can use the following types of messages in Viber Bots:

Web Interface
Text message with keyboard	Text only
Picture message	Yes
Video message	Yes
File message	Yes
Contact message	No
Location message	Yes
Sticker message	No
URL message	No
Carousel message	No

Additionally, you can use the available attachments:

Audio		Image		Video		Document
aac	aac	jpeg	JPEG Image	mp4	MPEG-4 Video	pdf	Adobe Portable Document Format (.pdf)
mp4	MPEG-4 audio file (mp4)	png	Portable Network Graphics (PNG)			msword	Microsoft Word (.doc)
amr	Adaptive Multi-Rate (amr)					vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document	Microsoft Office-OOXML-Word Document (.docx)
mp3	MP3 audio file (mp3)					vnd.ms-powerpoint	Microsoft PowerPoint (.ppt)
ogg	Ogg Audio (ogg)					vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.presentationml.presentation	Microsoft Office-OOXML-Presentation (.pptx)
						vnd.ms-excel	Microsoft Excel (.xls)
						vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet	Microsoft Office-OOXML-Spreadsheet (.xlsx)

Read more about Viber Bots.

KakaoTalk

With over 52 million global monthly active users (MAU) today, KakaoTalk is the most popular and the most used messenger application in South Korea.

Set up real-time conversations with your customers, offer live agent support, and help your agents provide the best customer service by using our Conversations solution.

To enable KakaoTalk in Conversations, contact your dedicated Account Manager to enable the service for you. Also, refer to our KakaoTalk docs for more information.

Live Chat

Here you can see in a bit more detail how to use Live Chat in Conversations. More importantly, it will give you a better insight into leads and authenticated customers are shown in Live Chat.

Customers visiting your website or using the mobile app can be classified into two types: 

1. Leads – An unidentified customer. It can be an existing customer or a potential customer who opens the chat widget and starts a conversation. 
2. Authenticated customer – A customer who has logged in at your website or mobile application and can be identified as your customer within your information system. 

Leads

Leads are website users who haven’t been identified because they didn’t log in. Although, Live Chat can remember visitors within the chat session and associate it with a visitor ID.

This goes even for cases where a conversation was closed, and the same visitor started another conversation. The customer card will still contain the entire conversation history and their previous requests for this visitor. That way the agent can see the backstory and have an overview of the visitor’s previous questions.

Learn more about leads.

Authenticated Customers

Authenticated customers are the known customers who have logged in to your website.

Learn more about authenticated customers.

Authenticated customers can be grouped in two ways:

• A person that exists in the People module
• Authenticated Customer not found in People 

Authenticated Customer Found in People

This is an authenticated customer who has their profile in People. When such a customer starts a conversation on your website, you can rely on People to provide you with additional information about this customer. For example, then you will know their first and last name.  

Here’s what the conversation with such a customer looks like:

However, sometimes, you might not have a first or last name entered in People. If this is the case, then Conversations will use the provided key identification.

Authenticated Customer Not Found in People

This is an authenticated customer who has not been entered as a profile in People. This means, that this customer and their email address (which is used as a key identity) do not match anyone in People.

Here’s what the conversation with such a customer looks like:

Supported File Types

The following are all the file types that both agents and customers can share over Live Chat. You will not see a lot of other file types because we want to control which ones can be shared due to security purposes, as we want to make Live Chat as secure as possible.

File Type
Image	jpeg, bmp, gi, svg+xml, png, tiff
Video	x-msvideo, mpeg, quicktime, mp4
Audio	aac, mp4, amr, AMR, mpeg, ogg, x-wav
Others	xml, x-directory, javacript, x-wav, vnd.ms-excel, text/plain, vnd.oasis.opendocument.spreadsheet, vnd.oasis.opendocument.graphics, x-gzip, octet-stream, pdf, msword, json, rtg, text/html, vnd.oasis.opendocument.text, vnd.oasis.opendocument.presentation, zip, vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document, vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.presentationml.presentation, vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet

Instagram

Use Instagram in Conversations to reply to your end-user's requests, both on posts and direct messages.

Make sure to activate Instagram Messaging first before you start using it. Then you can benefit from one of the most popular social media platforms by responding to your followers' posts and direct messages.

Instagram conversations are located in the All Work panel. Agents (or a Supervisor/Manager) can simply assign these conversations to themselves and continue with their work as usual inside the My Work panel.

Generic Template

Create interactive content for your customers, and engage them in simple communication.

You can create and reuse templates that contain generic information or standard responses to customers.

Your agents can share a list of possibilities in a single message to the customer (maximum of 10 cards per message).

You can create these in the Conversations API solution but can only preview them in the Conversations full solution.

Check out our Instagram docs for more information on the channel itself.

LINE

Use LINE in Conversations to offer your customers quick support and resolve issues in one-on-one conversations over their favorite communication channel. Offer different lists and showcase your offerings, and at the same time, decrease your call center operational costs.

You can now use two new content types in LINE in Conversations: Carousel Message, and Button Message. This should definitely help simply content sharing with your customers, allowing for a more user-friendly customer experience. Use the LINE channel in Conversations to attach and send PDF files to your customers.

For more information about supported message types, refer to the main LINE documentation, covering end-to-end scenarios.

SMS

SMS (Short Message Service) is one of the first mobile communication channels familiar to all mobile users. It remains a simple and quick method for delivering text messages to all mobile devices.

Unlike other chat apps, it does not require internet connectivity and it is a secure and fast channel for two-factor authentication.

SMS requires signal coverage for messages to be delivered, and if the user is out of the signal range when the messages are sent, they will be stored for 48 hours by default (can be extended to 72 hours) and will be delivered once the user is within the range.

Standard SMS messages:

• Hold up to 160 characters (or 70 characters if Unicode data coding is used).
• If more characters are used, the messages are broken into parts and reassembled when they reach the mobile phone.
• Do not support media file messages, only text characters.

For more information about SMS features and configuration, visit this page.

RCS

RCS (Rich Communication Services) is an A2P messaging service that uses carriers to send messages offering rich functionality and customization in addition to the features offered by SMS and MMS.

Currently, RCS in Conversations only supports text messages.

If you want to know more about its features and technical specifications, check out the RCS article.

Email

Use Email in Conversations and let your contact center agents reply to customer emails directly from the agent panel. To start using Email as a 2-way communication channel in Conversations, you need to set it up first.

Getting started

In the web interface, navigate to the Channels and Numbers section → locate and click on the Email card.

In this window, you have two options: Marketing and Transactional, and Conversations. Choose Conversations.

Here you can configure your email setup to enable your contact center agents to email customers directly from the agent panel or to configure the possibility to add previous messages, including threads, into replies.

You can choose between:

1. Custom sender
2. Infobip sender
3. Other settings

To use the Custom senders option, you need to own the domain that will be used to register senders to.

If you do not have your own domain, you will need to purchase and register it from a domain provider before adding senders or go back and choose to use Infobip senders instead.

Alternatively, you can use Infobip domain to register a new subdomain, and then you can add senders (unlimited) to that domain.

Note that the main domain is always ibconversations.com and your register a new subdomain which could be something like acmesupport.ibconversations.com.

1. Custom sender

As mentioned earlier, to add a custom sender, you need to own the domain that will be used to register senders to.

If you already own such a domain, click on the ADD SENDER button on the far right.

If you do not own a domain or do not want to use this type of sender, go back and choose to use Infobip sender instead.

If you want to use more formal communication, use the ''Replies will include the sender's name'' option and enter your brand name as the sender.

Enter the name of your custom sender domain. You can choose to use either the sender name in all emails or use the agent's name. This means that the agent's real name is displayed for every outbound email they send to customers, e.g., ''David Smith''.

If you want to use more formal communication, use the ''Replies will include the sender's name'' option and enter your brand name as the sender.

What follows is an intuitive sender creation process and you will see a checkmark next to each completed item as you go through the list.

• Enter your sender name that will be displayed in replies.
• Define Conversations email address - this email address will be used for receiving emails on Conversations from your domain. This email won't be used in communications. Your default domain is @fwd.ibconversations.com
• Set up forwarding - go to your email provider settings panel and enter your Conversations email address you created in the previous step as a forwarding address. This means that every email sent to your domain will be forwarded to the Conversations agent panel. e.g., if you are using the Gmail suite, go to settings, select Add forwarding address, and paste the address into the input field.

  

• Verify forwarding of incoming verification - Enter the email address you used to set up forwarding from. Click on the VERIFY FORWARDING button to receive a test email. The test email is sent to the Agent Panel in Conversations.

  

• Outbound verification - to be able to send outbound emails, you need to confirm the domain ownership by creating a TXT record and then entering it into your domain’s DNS settings. Enter your domain and click the CREATE RECORD button.

  

Once the DNS records have been generated, click the Export Records button to export these. Then, proceed by adding them to your domain settings. When done, come back to the Infobip web interface and click the Verify button to verify the DNS records. Note that it can take up to 48 hours for these to be verified.

Read more on how to manage DNS records.

Also, the Custom senders list will show the status of your senders:

• Verified (green) - Inbound and outbound verification done.
• Unverified (red) - Inbound and outbound verification still pending.

  

If your sender status is still pending, click on the sender name, and in the verification window, you can try resending the test email and check the All Work panel for that email to verify your sender.

These statuses are applicable to custom senders only.

In the Other settings options, you can enable adding previous messages, including threads, into replies. If you enable this setting, the history in replies will include the previous email in the current conversation reply, and you can choose between two options:

• Yes, include whole previous message in reply - the complete previous message, to which the agent is replying to, including previous threads, will be sent as a part of the new message body
• Manageable by an Agent - available only if the previous option is enabled

Usage

Two-way email communication is now available in Conversations. Both customers and agents can initiate an email conversation.

Emails within any conversation contain the following information:

• Sender's name
• Sender's email address
• Email subject
• Email body
• Email attachments
• Day of the week, date, and time the email is received/sent

Additionally, agents can use these actions when handling emails:

• Reply to email – use it to send a reply
• Forward email – use this to forward the existing email to another recipient
• Show original email – hidden behind the ellipsis, providing an overview of the email in HTML, TEXT, and SOURCE

Moreover, an option to expand and contract an email card in conversations history is available and visible with an arrow icon.

Send email

Agents can send emails in two ways:

1. When an agent wants to initiate a new conversation and send an email to the customer, they should use the Start a Conversation button.

   

2. When sending an email from an existing conversation, they need to click either reply or forward or use the New Email button at the bottom of the page.

Common editing options are available while writing an email, along with the ability to send attachments up to 20MB.

To make reading and writing emails easier, the right-hand pane containing context cards can be contracted to a narrower size, thus providing extra space for managing emails. Agents can also take over emails by clicking the take-over icon.

When sending an email, agents can choose the sender's email address and the recipient. Also, common options like CC and BCC are available.

If an agent gets distracted from writing an email because they are working on different tasks, a draft will be stored in the Email drafts tab. They can access it from the top of the conversations history section.

Emails are always ordered from newest to oldest: the latest email is shown at the top of the agent panel but you can view the older threads by clicking the arrow next to the three-dot menu on the right.

Also, you can make use of the draft option while forwarding an email. This option was previously available for replies only. During forwarding, simply click on the Edit draft button to edit your email.

Supported attachments and templates

In the Email channel, the agent can send the following templates and attachments:

File type
video/avi
application/xml -
image/jpeg -
image/bmp -
image/gif -
video/x-msvideo
audio/wav
text/plain
application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.spreadsheet
application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.graphics
application/x-gzip
image/png
application/octet-stream
application/pdf
application/msword
audio/mpeg
audio/ogg
text/html
application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.text
video/mpeg
image/tiff
application/zip
video/quicktime
video/mp4
audio/mp3
image/Icon
application/json
application/SVG
Application/WEBP
application/WEBM
.HEIC
.pcap
7-ZIP

Threading

When an inbound email is received, the system checks if that email belongs to an existing thread. Different behaviors of different email servers and email clients used by customers impact the parameters that are sent along with each inbound email.

To bypass those limitations, you can incorporate email threading by using these four parameters:

• Reference ID stored in the header of the email
• Reference ID stored in the email body
• Recipient list
• Email subject with prefixes such as “Re:”, “Fw:” and their localized version stripped

The system checks these parameters and if at least two are a match, the inbound email is considered as a continuation of an already existing thread.

Outbound emails

You can enrich outbound emails with various values such as placeholders and simple templating language. You can create a template for every outbound email. Before the email is sent to the end user, the template will be applied.

To access this feature, navigate to Conversations → Settings → Outbound Emails.

Outbound Emails consist of two main parts:

1. Templates - the place where you can define multiple templates. You need to enter the name and the description (optional field) when creating a template. Templates consist of a Subject and Content. Those fields are by default prepopulated with the subject and the body already defined by an agent sending the email. Agents can play around those fields and add placeholders available in the standard placeholder picker used in multiple places in Conversations. These templates are usually used to define a signature to be automatically applied when sending emails. Once the agent saves the template, it will appear on the list of templates and they can edit it, delete or search for a specific template.

2. Conditions - this is where you can define which template will be applied to which outbound email. When creating a condition, you can enter the title and description (optional), select the template that you wish to apply the conditions to, and then set these conditions using the AND action, as well as the OR action. You can also enable/disable the conditions by moving the toggle at the top right corner.

For example, the Sender Queues condition takes into account all emails set in a certain queue, and the routing, automation, SLA, etc., are applied as well. Once you add new emails to a Sender queue, all automations and other setups work immediately based on that queue.

After you have created your conditions, they will appear on the conditions list where you can edit or delete them.

3. Threading - When an agent replies to a customer's email, you can include threads of previous emails that both of them have exchanged in order to provide full context and solve issues more quickly. The following options are available for setting agent permissions:

• View and edit threads
• View threads

By enabling this setting, any person added to the conversation later on will have access to the entire content, ensuring that no information is lost, which ensures transparency, customizable approach and increased flexibility.

Short ID

Short Conversation IDs are concise and easy-to-use identifiers that streamline the process of referencing and organizing conversations. If you enable the this option, a new variable will be added in the Conversation attributes that enables you to find a specific conversation.

Social media

You can use Infobip Social Media channels to resolve customer inquiries over some of the most popular social media sites, such as Facebook Posts, Instagram Posts, and Twitter.