Apple is bringing the fight to the likes of Facebook Messenger for Business with its new Business Chat tool. It allows companies and customers to communicate with each other without the need of a social media presence. If you want to get in touch with a business, all you need to do is search for them on Spotlight, Siri, or Maps. Business Chat will let you do everything from simple inquiries, get customer support, schedule appointments or deliveries, or make transactions right from your Apple device (using Apple Pay, of course).
While setting up appointments using the tool will pull up your own calendar to see if you can make it, other more complex shopping or scheduling requests can also be fulfilled within Business Chat. Similar to how Facebook is encouraging companies to make apps and bots within Messenger, a company can create a custom-built app for iMessage. The likes of LivePerson, Salesforce, Genesys, and Nuance have already integrated Business Chat into their customer service platform.
Source: ZDNet