How You Can Achieve Facebook’s ‘Very Responsive’ Badge

If you manage a Facebook page for your hotel or any other business for that matter, then you most likely have noticed your profile has an area for a ‘Very Responsive’ Badge at the top left, right below your profile photo. This badge will be turned on and shown on your Facebook page if you qualify. So how do you turn on Facebook’s Very Responsive Badge? The answer is simple: make sure you are responding to every message you receive in your Facebook’s inbox as quickly as possible. The Very Responsive Badge will turn on once you reply to 90% of all messages within 5 minutes or less.

Your initial thought may be that this is a very high expectation. Being able to respond to messages within 5 minutes must mean that someone needs to be checking Facebook continually, right? In today’s world, consumers are turning to social customer service more than ever. Instead of visiting a business or even calling to ask a question, many are finding it more convenient to reach out on social media. It makes sense since many find themselves on social media daily anyway, and reaching out to businesses this way does not require that much more effort. Initially, Twitter was thought the be the one social media channel that was real-time. For example, say a guest was currently at a hotel and sent a tweet out to the hotel. They would expect a response either immediately or sometime soon while they were still on the premises. Slowly, we are starting to see this same expectation shift over to other social channels, such as Facebook. When users initiate a message with the hotel, it is shown as a chatbox. This, in and of itself, gives the impression of a chat session that should be replied to immediately. 

Hotels are busy places, and no one on the premises has time to be logged on to Facebook all day, always refreshing to see if a new message has been received. Instead, here’s how you can stay on top of any messages received.

-Many hotels already have a company handling their social media. If you want this badge, let your company know that all communications need to be responded to within 5 minutes or less so you can receive Facebook’s Very Responsive Badge. Once your response time goes down and 90% of messages have been responded to within 5 minutes, you’ll be able to display your new badge proudly. This is the easiest way to achieve the marker with almost no effort on the hotel’s part.

-If you’re the type of person that lives and breathes by email and are always checking your inbox, then a good option would be to set up email alerts. This way, you receive an email each time your hotel gets a new message. Keep in mind that sometimes there is a delay to these emails, so you might not always be able to answer within 5 minutes consistently.

-If you are using a social media tool such as Hootsuite, you can use this to monitor Facebook messages. Set up a stream for your incoming Facebook messages and monitor them regularly throughout the day. This is only a good option if you find yourself always on Hootsuite anyway.

-Assign the task of tracking messages to someone who is on the computer all day. If you have someone at your property who sits at the computer during their shift, you can ask them to keep a tab with Facebook open. If there is a new activity on the channel, you’ll notice the tab will add parentheses with the number of new notifications. For example, the tab will say ‘(2) E-Marketing Associates’. This means that the page has two new notifications, which could be messages, likes, comments, etc.

-Everyone has their phone on them at all times, so setting notifications on your phone may be a good option. You will need to download the ‘Pages Manager App’ and allow notifications. You can also respond to messages with this app, which you are not able to do on the regular Facebook app.

Facebook knows that it’s nearly impossible to respond to ALL messages in 5 minutes or less, which is why they only expect you to answer this quickly to at least 90% of messages. If you miss a few, don’t be discouraged and keep trying. You may need to use a combination of the tips above to reach your goal.

Facebook’s Very Responsive Badge is a great item to showcase on your profile, especially for a hotel. It shows potential or even current guests that your hotel is on top of it and will respond to their inquiries right away. Good luck on getting the badge!