AI Facebook Messenger answering. The inbox nobody ever opens.
People message a local business through Facebook constantly, and your page inbox is not where you spend your day. You get first go at every one. Carrie takes the ones you have not got to, finds out what the job is, and puts it on your phone with everything else. Your page, your voice, and no personal account involved.
She answers everybody who messaged your page, in your voice, on your business page.
How does Facebook Messenger answering work?
Somebody messages your page. Carrie answers it, gets the job details, and you get a name and a number to ring back.
Customers message the page, not you
Often after seeing a job you posted or a recommendation in a local group. It goes to the page inbox, which is not the app you look at, so nobody sees it.
Carrie answers like anybody would
Straight away, in your words. What is the job, where are they, when suits, and what is the best number to ring. No form and no “please email us instead”.
The message turns up with everything else
On the same list as the phone calls and the texts, so you stop checking four different apps to find out who wants work doing.
What it looks like
Somebody asks in a Sudbury community group who is good for a job like this. Two people tag your page underneath, which is the best advert there is and it costs nothing. She clicks through and messages the page, because that is what is in front of her.
Normally that message sits in an inbox nobody opens and she assumes you are not interested. Instead she gets an answer in under a minute, gives her number, and says weekday mornings are best. You get a job off the back of a recommendation you did not even know about.
When does somebody message your page?
Usually because a person told them to, rather than because they searched. That changes what happens next. The whole thing runs in three goes: they ask around, they pick between the names they got, and they come back later.
- They ask around first. A neighbour names you in a local group and whoever asked taps straight through to your page. None of that started on Google.
- Then they pick between you and whoever else got tagged. They message two or three pages and go with the one that answers. Yours answers, in your words, whatever time it is.
- And they come back afterwards. The thank you, the follow-up question, and the next person their neighbour tells. All of it lands on the same list, so you get told rather than finding it in March.
What people ask about Messenger answering
Every question here is about the awkward bit of Facebook. Your page against your own account, what we can and cannot see, and where the sales messages go.
What exactly is AI Facebook Messenger answering?
Somebody answering the messages that come into your Facebook business page, at any hour. Carrie replies as the page, asks what the job is, and hands you the lead with everything else.
How does it compare to checking the page myself?
It is genuinely hard to keep on top of. The page inbox is separate from the app you use for your own Facebook, the notifications get switched off early on, and messages sit there.
Facebook also shows visitors how quickly a page usually replies, so a page that never answers says so to everybody who lands on it.
Can I just pick the phone up instead?
Ring them, and the phone is still the fastest thing you own. Phone answering is in the £45 with the chat on your website, and Messenger is one of the five channels you add on top.
Somebody who chose to type has already told you how they want answering, and the thread they opened is the shortest way back to them.
A reply also asks nobody to stop what they are doing. It gets answered while you are on another call. And it arrives written down rather than in somebody's memory.
Do people really message a trade on Facebook?
Constantly, and especially after a recommendation in a local group. It is the channel where you get found by somebody else's good word rather than by a search.
Which trades and local services is it for?
Anybody who gets recommended in local groups. Trades, salons, mobile services, dog groomers, garages, cleaners and anybody whose customers are local and talk to each other.
Is this my personal Facebook?
No. It is your business page only. Your own account, your friends and your own messages are nowhere near it and nobody at our end can see them.
What access do you need to set it up?
Permission to answer messages on the page, given the normal way through Facebook. You can take it away at any time from your own settings. We do not need your password and we will never ask for it.
What about comments on posts?
Comments underneath a post are part of running the page, and a person does those. This one is your message inbox.
Who does she message?
People who got in touch with you, which is the part that is straightforwardly allowed under Facebook's rules and the only part anybody should want.
Who gives the price?
You do. She takes the details and tells them you will come back with a price. What you charge stays yours to say, on a job somebody has actually looked at.
Can I take over the conversation?
Yes, whenever you like. Open the page inbox and reply, and she stops. It is your page and your conversation.
What about photographs sent through Messenger?
They are kept with the job, the same as on WhatsApp. A picture of what is wrong saves a visit, so it is worth having attached to the enquiry rather than lost in a chat.
What if somebody is just asking about a job you did?
She answers politely, and only turns it into a lead if there is actually work in it. You are not given a list of jobs that are really somebody saying thanks.
What about spam and sales messages?
They get nothing and they do not reach your list. Business pages get a lot of them, so this is a bigger saving here than on most channels.
What does it cost to run?
The setup and the monthly are on the price list. There is no per-message charge to pass on for Messenger.
Is my data safe and is it GDPR compliant?
The conversations and the details people give are yours. They sit in your own database on your own project, never pooled with anybody else's, never sold, and never used to sell anything. If you leave, you take them and we delete our copy.
Everything is encrypted on the way and at rest, and what is collected and why is set out in the privacy notice.
What happens when your facts only live on Facebook?
You are relying on somebody else's page to describe your business. Plenty of small firms put their opening hours, the area they cover and every answer they have ever given on Facebook and nowhere else. An assistant asked who to use quotes pages it can open, and a good deal of what is on Facebook sits behind a login.
- Everything on there that a customer needs belongs on your own site too. Hours, the places you cover, what you take on and what you turn down.
- The page you own is the one that can be quoted with a link back. A post from March cannot, and neither can a reply in somebody's inbox.
- Keep the two saying exactly the same thing. A different telephone number in two places is the commonest quiet reason a business ends up matched to nothing.
Where else does she answer?
Messenger is one of seven. She answers on every one of them, in the same voice, and it all lands in the same place.
Phone answering
The phone picked up on the first ring when your hands are full.
Text messages
The ones that come in at nine at night asking if you do this.
Where they send you a photograph or a video of the problem.
The enquiry that arrives at midnight with three pictures on it.
Website live chat
Somebody stood on your website deciding whether to ring.
Instagram messages
The DM that follows somebody seeing a job you posted.
Your Google listing
It sends you calls, not messages. Google switched that button off in 2024.
All seven together
What the AI receptionist is, and what the whole thing covers.
When did you last open your page inbox?
Go and look now. Everything sat in there was somebody who wanted work doing, and that is the whole argument for this one.
Twenty minutes with Chad. Nothing to pay and nothing to sign. The whole receptionist, and all seven channels, are on the AI receptionist page.