This newsletter follows each Business Messages Office Hours meeting, summarizing news from Google and from our brand and partner ecosystem.
Industry News
Sector Overview
M&A activity and funding:
- Freshworks raises $1.03 bln in IPO, valued at $10.13 bln
- Gupshup acquires Dotgo
- Synch acquires Messenger People
- Synch acquires email company for $1.9bn
Top questions of the week
Does Business Messages support Emojis?
Yes! They are supported today - add them as a standard unicode character.
Can a user send attachments like a PDF to a business? Not today. Users can send images (jpgs) and URLs.
What is the rate limit for the Business Messages webhook? Rate limits are governed by Cloud pubsub. Business Messages is designed/scaled to accommodate many use scenarios, and you shouldn't see rate limit issues. Contact us if you have concerns about specific use cases.
Can a customer purchase items through a Business Messages conversation? We don't support Google Pay within Business Messages yet, but many brands support purchase journeys using an external payment gateway. Take a look at the Bonjour Meal codelab.
If you have more questions please contact support or ask them at the next Office Hours.
Handover protocol
Do you use the handover protocol in any other messaging channels? We'd love to learn more about your needs with the handover protocol and how you might be able to configure your agents with multiple webhooks. Survey.
Bot feedback
How effective are automated messages? This new feature gives you insights into user response to your agents. If feedback is negative, you can configure custom questions to explore why. Details
Web widget
New attribute in web widget import that help ensure consistency across conversations as we experiment with ways to improve the widget entry point
NEW Live agent codelab
Try the new Live Agent Transfer Codelab! Builds on a new sample we have in GitHub that demonstrates a live agent CRM to send messages to users who have requested a live agent. Read it here!
NEW Help Center
- The Help Center provides searchable answers to common questions and explains basic concepts of Business Messages
- Use the Help Community to ask questions and share knowledge
- The Help Community is replacing our Slack channel, which will be deprecated next quarter
Marketing
Partner Logo Updates
- Have your logo added to the Business Messages Partner page if you've launched a 3P agent!
- This page is updated on the 10th of every month. Send your logo to vgoolnick@google.com in a *.png file format the prior month to be added.
Partner of the week
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