Facebook Inc.’s strategy for widening the use of its platform among businesses isn’t limited to the services and content found directly on the social network. The company is also targeting organizations’ external websites, a push that its latest update to Messenger Platform aims to advance.

Messenger Platform is a development toolkit that Facebook has created to help brands customize the chat service for their users and create bots. The new release expands upon Customer Chat, a recently added tool that makes it possible to embed Messenger into a company’s site, with features aimed at giving organizations a stronger incentive to adopt it.

The first addition is a new interface component dubbed Persistent Menu. Brought over from the Facebook version of Messenger, the feature provides the ability to display a set of custom shortcuts for users. A retailer, for instance, could fill the menu with links to a customer’s account page, shopping history and a help desk line.  

The Persistent Menu is joined by a new embedded alerting capability. When a company responds to a chat inquiry sent via its site, users will now see a red dot appear on the Messenger icon while the web page title displayed in their browser’s tab bar will change as well.

To help brands take advantage of the different customization options, Facebook also is rolling out a new setup tool that it says can be used to embed Messenger into another site in a matter of minutes. Easing the integration process could lead more firms to adopt Messenger. It should be a particularly big boon for small businesses, which typically have limited access to technical talent.

Rounding out today’s update is an upgraded version of Messenger Plaform’s existing Quick Replies feature. The main change is that users can now automatically pull contact details from their Facebook account into a message instead of taking the trouble to write everything down manually, a convenience designed to curb customer abandonment.

Facebook is working to enhance the business appeal of Messenger in parallel with a push to do the same for WhatsApp. Last month, the company launched a version of the app specifically designed to provide a channel for companies to interact with customers. Other tech giants are also stepping up their efforts to target consumers who prefer to do their communications via chat.

Image: Facebook