Messenger and Instagram: reply to customers in chat

Many customers write to the shop on Messenger or Instagram instead of by email. If you connect the shop's Facebook page, those private messages land as cases in the Inbox, right next to the email cases. Nemma sorts them into a category, writes a draft according to the category's mode (Manual, Draft or Auto-send), and you reply from Nemma. Only private messages come in: comments on posts and ads do not.

What you need

• A Facebook page for the shop, and a Facebook account that manages it.
• If Instagram should come along, the shop's Instagram account must be linked to the Facebook page. It then follows automatically.
• You must be the owner of the Nemma account. Only the owner can connect and disconnect the channel.

The Facebook and Instagram card only exists once Nemma has opened up the connection to Meta (Facebook and Instagram). If it is missing, write to us.

Connect the page

1. Go to Settings → Channels. The Facebook and Instagram card says Not connected.
2. Click Connect Facebook and log in with the Facebook account that manages the shop's page. You are sent to Facebook and come back to Nemma afterwards.
3. Under Which page should Nemma look after? choose the page. If it has a linked Instagram account, that is shown next to it. Click Connect the page.
4. It now says that the page is connected and that messages land in Nemma. The card shows Connected with the page's name and, if relevant, the Instagram account, and Manage takes you to the channel's own page.

If you do not finish the choice within an hour, the connection expires and you start over from Settings. A page can only be connected to one Nemma account at a time. If it is already in another account, it has to be disconnected there first. If your Facebook account has no pages, there is nothing to connect.

To test that it works: write to the page from a different Facebook account than the one that manages the page, or ask a colleague to do it. The message shows up as a new case in the Inbox with the label Messenger (or Instagram, if it came from there).

How a message becomes a case

• A chat has no subject line, so the customer's first message becomes the case's subject (shortened if it is long).
• If the same customer writes again within 14 days of the case's latest message, the message goes into the same case, and a resolved case reopens. Otherwise a new case is created.
• The name is fetched from Facebook or Instagram. If Meta does not let Nemma see the name, the customer is called Messenger customer or Instagram customer. You can set or correct the name on the customer's page with Add name or Edit name.
• Replies you write yourself directly on Facebook or Instagram (for example in Meta Business Suite) are added to the thread as the shop's replies. They do not start Nemma, so no AI draft appears on top of your own reply.
• Reactions, read receipts and messages with no content at all are ignored.
• If the customer sends an image or a file, the thread shows [The customer sent an attachment]. The file itself does not come into Nemma, so open the conversation on Facebook or Instagram to see it.

The 24-hour rule

Meta only allows the shop to reply within 24 hours of the customer's latest message. That applies to you and to Auto-send alike. The rule is also shown on the channel's own page under Two rules to know, together with the rule about attachments.

• If there is time left, the case header shows the label Reply within with the time, for example Reply within 6 h. Hover over the label for the explanation.
• Once more than 24 hours have passed, the label says Reply window closed and the reply box is locked. The send button is switched off, and a note says that Meta does not allow more replies until the customer writes again.
• When the customer writes again, a new 24-hour window opens and you can reply.

In practice this means a chat case should be answered the same day. Do keep Drafts waiting switched on under Notifications, so a message does not sit unnoticed (see Notifications). If the category is on Auto-send, Nemma only sends inside the window. Outside the window nothing can be sent, either by the AI or by you.

No attachments

From Nemma you cannot yet send images or files on Messenger and Instagram. Instead of the Attach file button, a note says that attachments cannot be sent on the channel yet. The reply goes out as plain text. If the customer needs a return label, a size guide or similar, write a link to it. Your standing links are under Skills → Shared → Customer links (see Categories and skills). Email has different rules: see Undo send and attachments.

What the AI does differently in chat

• Orders. A customer on Messenger or Instagram has no email address that Nemma can compare with the order. So the AI does not look up orders on its own, but asks the customer for the order number and the email the order was placed with. See When the AI cannot find the order. The feature Was the order placed with a different email? does not exist for chat cases.
• Actions. A reply that contains a change to an order is never sent automatically in chat, not even on Auto-send. It becomes a draft that waits for you.
• Acknowledgement and out-of-office reply. The standing acknowledgement and the out-of-office reply are only sent by email, never on Messenger and Instagram.
• Insights. Under Channels in Insights, email, Messenger and Instagram are shown separately (see Insights).

Disconnect

Open Settings → Channels → Facebook and Instagram, click Disconnect in the card at the bottom of the page and confirm with Yes, disconnect (owner only). Nemma deletes the access to the page immediately. Cases and messages you have already received stay, but new messages do not come in, and no replies can be sent until the page is connected again. You can connect again, also with a different page. If the person who connected the page removes Nemma from their settings on Facebook, the connection is disconnected too.

Microsoft 365

If the shop has its support mailbox in Microsoft 365, it can be connected as a channel instead of setting up forwarding. This is described in Get customer emails into Nemma.