Comparing legacy chat with messaging for in-app and web (MIAW) in Salesforce
Salesforce offers two solutions in customer communication – it's legacy chat and messaging. Both facilitate real-time interactions between businesses and their customers but differ in some features, functionalities, and overall user experience.
Here are the experts we collaborated with to bring you unique insights.
Article highlights
Messaging for in-app and web (MIAW) supports a variety of digital channels, including mobile apps and social media, offering a more versatile communication platform than the legacy chat, which is primarily website-based.
MIAW provides interactive messaging components and asynchronous conversations, enabling personalized and engaging customer interactions that continue seamlessly across multiple devices.
MIAW features a lightweight web chat and better server connectivity, enhancing global performance, reducing cookie usage, and supporting rich media content for a more engaging user experience.
Let's compare these two platforms to understand their differences and benefits.
Legacy chat
The legacy chat, or embedded chat, is a traditional chat solution provided by Salesforce for customer support and engagement. It enables businesses to integrate live chat functionality into their websites, allowing agents to communicate with customers in real-time.
Messaging for in-app and web
MIAW is a modern messaging solution introduced by Salesforce, designed to provide a unified messaging experience across various digital channels, including mobile apps, websites, and social media platforms.
Channel diversity: While the legacy chat primarily focuses on website-based chat interactions, MIAW extends its reach to various digital channels, providing customers with more options for communication.
Personalization and engagement: MIAW offers advanced personalization features and interactive messaging components, allowing businesses to engage with customers more meaningfully than the legacy chat.
Integration and contextual insights: Both solutions integrate with Salesforce CRM, but MIAW provides additional contextual insights and customer data, enabling agents to deliver more personalized and efficient support.
Future readiness: As a modern messaging solution, MIAW is better equipped to adapt to evolving customer communication trends and technologies than the legacy chat, which may become outdated.
Why choose messaging for in-app and web?
It's important to note that Salesforce's legacy chat is in maintenance-only mode. While we can continue to use it, Salesforce no longer recommends implementing new chat channels with it. Instead, they advocate modernizing customer communication through MIAW. But why make the switch?
Enhanced user experience
One significant advantage of messaging is its asynchronous feature. Unlike traditional synchronous chat sessions, messaging allows conversations to continue seamlessly, even if a user steps away from the app. This eliminates the frustration of waiting for the next available agent or losing the conversation if the browser window accidentally closes.
Seamless continuity
With messaging, conversations can seamlessly transition across multiple devices using the same customer or conversation ID. This continuity ensures a smooth user experience, enabling agents to pick up where they left off effortlessly.
Streamlined interface
Messaging offers a unified interface for agents across various digital channels. This unified interface streamlines their workflow, enhances productivity, and ensures a consistent service delivery.
Rich media support
Messaging supports rich media content such as URL links, images, videos, and emojis, providing customers with a more engaging and interactive experience.
Improved architecture and performance
Messaging boasts a lightweight web chat client compared to the heavier legacy chat client, significantly improving global rollout and performance. Additionally, it minimizes cookie usage and gracefully handles browser cookie settings for enhanced privacy and security.
Enhanced connectivity
With features like server-side event (SSE), messaging ensures server connectivity without keeping the primary tab open. This improves efficiency and resource utilization while providing customers with mobile push notifications to stay informed and engaged even when not actively using the app.
Continuous innovation
Messaging continually evolves to enhance the user experience. It offers various features, such as messaging components, enhanced bots, and unified data models for comprehensive customer insights. Additionally, omni-channel Flow-based routing provides flexibility in routing, optimizing resource allocation for improved service delivery.
What's not in the MIAW
Insights
In comparing MIAW with the legacy chat, it's clear that while MIAW offers advancements, it still has areas where it falls short compared to the older system. One big drawback is that MIAW can't handle Excel or CSV files, and the process for uploading files isn't as simple as copying and pasting. Also, there's no way for agents to get a preview of what customers are typing, which was helpful in the legacy chat.
On the other hand, MIAW has some great features that the legacy chat doesn't. It can handle conversations across different channels, allow chats that don't need an immediate response, and offer tools for agents to use during chats. These improvements make MIAW a better choice for businesses in the long run.
While MIAW might be missing some features for now, it's still the better option for businesses looking to stay ahead. In the meantime, businesses can find workarounds or train users on different ways to handle these missing features. Choosing MIAW sets businesses up for success as customer communication continues to evolve.
Let your messaging be future-ready
While the legacy chat continues to serve as a reliable chat solution for businesses, MIAW in Salesforce represents the next evolution in customer communication. With its multi-channel support, advanced personalization features, and seamless integration with Salesforce CRM, MIAW offers a more comprehensive and future-ready messaging solution for businesses looking to enhance their customer engagement efforts.
Harald is the Co-Founder of Hutte, bringing his vision of no-code DevOps to life. His passion enables teams and individuals to focus on what matters most – bringing value to the users they build for.
