Should Call Accounting Take Facebook Messenger into Consideration?
July 25, 2016
By Susan J. Campbell
TMCnet Contributing Editor
The way in which we communicate with each other has certainly changed. It doesn’t seem that long ago that all of my siblings shared the one olive-colored rotary phone in the main hallway of the house, privacy a thing known only to our parents who had an extension in their bedroom. Even when my children were young, there was no need for them to have a cell phone, so I knew most of their communications.
Today, much has changed. While our home once had a rule of no phones in bedrooms, smartphones are now used as alarm clocks and time management devices. Staying connected to friends doesn’t generally include the standard telephone call, but instead the use of an app – whether it’s Snapchat, Instagram or Facebook (News - Alert). While the majority of my daughter’s friends have left Facebook, a growing number of older users are finding it and its Messenger app to be extremely helpful.
In fact, for those responsible for call accounting within the organization, it might be of interest that Facebook Messenger is responsible for 10 percent of all Voice over IP (VoIP) calls made globally. Facebook has been wanting to be in the telephony space for a while and a large percentage of people in the Facebook stratosphere are using Messenger to make and receive calls, according to this recent post in Venture Beat. This is an interesting statistic given that most of my “Friends” on Facebook avoid the calling feature in Messenger.
Still, whether or not your call accounting solution needs to include Messenger, people are engaging with the app at an increasing level. They regularly use it to send photos, stickers and GIFs to one another. According to Facebook, more than 17 billion photos are distributed by the app each month, and 22 million GIFs are shared every day. This is the equivalent of 254 GIFs being shared each second. The new basketball game within the app has already been played a billion times – but does this compare with the Pokémon Go volume? Sorry, I had to ask.
For its part, Facebook is still focused on the end goal and how to get there. “As part of this journey to 1 billion, we focused on creating the best possible experiences in modern day communications,” said Facebook’s vice president for Messenger, David Marcus (News - Alert) in Venture Beat. “We remain focused on helping connect people to the people and businesses who matter most.”
Given this stated strategy and the way in which Facebook follow through on its initiatives, it’s likely that companies will need to ensure they can incorporate Messenger into their call accounting activities. And since it’s VoIP, the costs should be manageable.
Edited by Stefania Viscusi