Facebook Messenger implements the 24-hour rule

Recently, Facebook Messenger implemented the 24-hour rule. In this blog, we'll discuss why this rule was introduced and what it means for Trengo users.

Facebook Messenger 24-hour rule

A lot of social media platforms are figuring out ways to prevent their users from being spammed. Facebook Messenger is one of them. That's why they decided to introduce the 24-hour rule, which prevents specific messages, such as chatbot messages, from being sent after 24 hours.Within 24 hours, businesses are allowed to send messages with promotional content. People are expecting companies to respond as soon as possible, which is why Facebook enables this for quick responders.

7-day window for human agents

Not all messages have to be sent within 24 hours.By managing Facebook Messenger via Trengo's customer service platform, human agents have the ability to respond to messages within a 7-day window. This means that human agent support for issues that cannot be resolved within the standard messaging window (e.g. business is closed down during the weekend or the issue requires more than 24 hours to be solved) will still be possible within a timeframe of 7 days.Automated messages and content unrelated to the inquiry will not be allowed outside of the 24-hour window.

Standard messages and message tags

Facebook chooses to differentiate between standard messaging and message tags.

Standard messages

For standard messages, companies will now have 24 hours to reply to users. Within the 24 hour period, messages may contain promotional content. The user will always have the ability to mute or even completely block a conversation with your company whenever they want.This is how your 24-hour window opens up for standard messages:

• Customer sends a message to your page
• Customer clicks a CTA button such as Get Started
• Users posts or comments on your page
• Users replies to a message
• Users clicks on a Click-to-Messenger ad and starts a conversation

Message tags

You may be able to send messages outside of the 24-hour window when you use so-called Message Tags. With Message Tags you can send important and personally relevant information to your customers. Facebook has a set of approved use cases for this. You can find a complete list of supported Message Tags here.