Recommendations and guidelines
When interacting with users through Business Messages, keep the following best practices in mind.
Opt-in
Only end users can initiate chats. When an end-user initiates a chat, it is considered an automatic opt-in to receive replies through Business Messages.
Messaging window
Chats are active for 30 days from the time of the last message received from the end customer. You can contact the end customer within this period.
Google Performance monitoring
Slow or unreasonable response times to user messages create a bad experience for your customers. Make sure that you design your response infrastructure to consistently provide timely replies to user messages.
Even worse than a slow response is no response at all. Make sure that users always receive responses to their messages, regardless of your message load. For example, if live staff aren't available, send an automated message acknowledging the user, and include an estimate of when the user can expect a full response.
Google measures time to respond (TTR) between messages. If a brand's agent is slow to respond to consumers, Google will remove the brand's messaging buttons.
Caution: If your agent doesn't meet minimum performance thresholds, your brand may be suspended.
Business Messages evaluates brands performance by monitoring various metrics to ensure a satisfactory user experience. You'll receive weekly status emails as a warning if an agent's metrics fall below a certain threshold. If an agent consistently fails to meet the threshold for 28 days, Business Messages may suspend the brand.
Business Messages uses the following metrics to track brand performance:
Metric | Description | Volume threshold | Normal volume threshold | Low volume threshold |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Customer satisfaction (CSAT) | The customer satisfaction score indicates the overall experience the customer had after engaging with a brand. | 10 surveys | 80% | 0% |
Merchant response rate (MRR) | The number of sessions that had brand responses (bot or live agent) relative to the total number of sessions. | 3 sessions | 95% | 60% |
Human merchant response rate (HMRR) | The number of sessions that had live agent responses relative to the total number of sessions that contained one or more live agent requests or live agent responses | 10 live agent requests | 95% | 0% |
Each metric's volume is measured against an independent metric volume threshold, above or below which, determines if the performance of the brand can be measured against normal volume threshold or low volume threshold for that metric.
For example: if an brand has 9 surveys, 10 sessions and 9 live agent requests, then the performance of the agent is measured against a threshold of 0 for CSAT, 95 for MRR and 0 for HMRR. If the brand is below any of these thresholds, then the brand is marked in a 'Requires attention' state.
If the brand continues to be in 'Requires attention' state for 28 days or more, then the brand may be suspended.