Jumia Travel launches a new feature to scale Facebook Messenger as a CS channel

Facebook Messenger is now fully integrated in Jumia Travel’s system as a powerful channel for Customer Service. The integration of customer service for Messenger in Jumia Travel’s system marks a new dawn for its customer service experience, as it offers 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”.

On 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.

“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.

Madam Omolara Adagunodo, Country Manager of Jumia Travel in Ghana also stated that ” Social Media is a very important tool of communication these days making it more important for our customers to directly have access to or well trained travel advisors. Instant feedback and real time solutions to all their travel related problems are what we aim to achieve”