With Apple’s Business Chat, users can schedule appointments and process payments in iMessage

“On Friday at WWDC, Apple officially launched Business Chat for iMessage in developer preview — a feature that helps businesses connect to customers and even process purchases with Apple Pay, all through iMessage,” Alison DeNisco reports for TechRepublic. “‘Using Business Chat, your customers can get answers to questions, resolve issues, and complete transactions on their iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch,’ according to the developer preview website.”

“With Business Chat, customers will find message icons alongside the names of businesses in Siri, Safari, Spotlight, and Maps,” DeNisco reports. “They can click on these icons to initiate a chat to ask questions, schedule appointments, and make purchases, all with built-in features.”

“Businesses can also build custom iMessage apps for their customers, and help them complete tasks faster. For example, an airline could create a custom app that allows passengers to change their seat from within the iMessage chat,” DeNisco reports. “Business Chat also includes a scheduling function, allowing businesses to schedule appointments and deliveries with customers using a built-in app. An included list app helps companies present different options for customers to choose from—for example, a product in all of its different colors—without leaving the iMessage conversation window.”

Read more in the full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: Yet another reason why smart businesses choose Apple’s fullp-featured solutions.

For more information, watch Apple’s “Introducing Business Chat” (WWDC 2017 – Session 240) here.

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7 Comments

  1. This high tech wizardry is completely mind boggling. How does Apple do it? It must be reverse engineering from some advanced alien civilization. No human mind could have developed this code.

  2. I see a future for this for employee services within organisations standardized on iPhones. I don’t see this being used in retail since it doesn’t cover the customers not using iPhone. Unless Apple release this app on Android too.

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