---
title: "Solid Chat: answering Facebook Page chats from your phone"
description: "Our own app for Facebook Page admins: every Page's Messenger chats in one place, with quick replies, a chatbot for when you're away, and broadcasts. Our first chat app, and our first time building on Facebook."
url: "https://rayson.me/writing/solid-chat/"
category: "Projects"
author: "Janarayson"
published: 2017-03-01
---

We have a few Facebook Pages for our own apps, Sophie Lens, Guess That Song and Facemoji, and people message them. Last April at F8, Facebook [opened Messenger to bots](https://about.fb.com/news/2016/04/messenger-platform-at-f8/), and businesses can now plug their own apps into their Page's chats. So we built Solid Chat, an app for answering the Messenger chats of all your Facebook Pages from your phone, with a chatbot to help out. The store versions are ready.

<Figure
  src={phones}
  alt="Five iPhones in a row showing Solid Chat: a chat, the list of Pages, the purple speech-bubble logo with A chatbot for your Facebook pages, an empty home screen, and a chat list"
  caption="Solid Chat."
  wide
/>

## How it works

You sign in with Facebook and add the Pages you manage. Each Page gets its own list of chats, with a score for how satisfied people were, taken from the rating they give at the end of a chat. Quick replies drop in the customer's first name, so a follow-up or your opening hours goes out with one tap. When you need to, you can end the chat or opt the person out.

<Screens
  screens={[
    { src: store2, alt: 'Store screenshot, Manage enquiries from multiple Facebook Pages: a home screen listing Pages like Sophie Lens HD, UI UX, Naruto Fans United, Recipe Weekly for Moms and Unity, each with its status' },
    { src: store3, alt: 'Store screenshot, Receive live enquiries: the chat list for Sophie Lens HD, 85% satisfied, with messages from customers' },
    { src: store5, alt: 'Store screenshot, Quick personalised replies: Follow up, Opening hours and Hello replies, each starting with the customer\'s name' },
    { src: store4, alt: 'Store screenshot, Broadcast updates to potential customers: a broadcast going to 534 users who opted in, with a title, a message, a link and an image' },
  ]}
  caption="The App Store screenshots."
/>

Each Page also has a Chatbot Assistant you can switch on. It answers by keyword when nobody's around, and otherwise tells people you'll get back to them soon. And you can broadcast to everyone who opted in to hear from the Page, as plain text or with a title, a link and an image, and preview it the way it'll look in Messenger.

<Screens
  screens={[
    { src: chatbotAssistant, alt: 'A Page with no chats yet: Sophie Lens HD, an Unsubscribe button, the Chatbot Assistant switch, and Oops! No conversation in this page yet' },
    { src: broadcastPreview, alt: 'The broadcast preview: a Messenger card with a photo of chicken casserole, Recipe for Chicken Caserole, Here\'s our recipe for the week!' },
  ]}
  caption="The Chatbot Assistant switch, and previewing a broadcast."
/>

We tried it on our own Pages first. Since January it's been running in TestFlight against the Nerd Attack Page and our app Pages, each on a trial or a subscription of its own.

<Figure
  src={ourPages}
  alt="A simulator screenshot of the real app, January 2017: Nerd Attack on a trial, Guess That Song active, Sophie Lens HD expired, Facemoji Keyboard cancelled, and Solid Chat active"
  caption="The app on our own Pages, January."
  small
/>

The site went up in December, solidchat.co, and in January we put the plans on it... a free 30-day trial with no credit card, then $5.99 a page a month, or $4.99 a page if you pay for the year. Last month we opened the beta, so for now every button on the site says join the beta.

<Figure
  src={siteHome}
  alt="The top of solidchat.co: a phone showing the Broadcast screen next to Broadcast Messages, Reach out to customers that opted in to hear more from you, with Google Play and App Store badges, then Our App's Key Features: Live Chat Collaboration, Broadcast Messages and Personalised Quick Replies"
  caption="solidchat.co."
  wide
/>

<Figure
  src={sitePricing}
  alt="The pricing section of the site, Simple Plans for Everyone: Trial at $0 a page, Monthly at $5.99 a page, and Annually at $4.99 a page with a Popular ribbon"
  caption="The plans."
  wide
/>

## Facebook's rules

It's our first chat app and our first time building on Facebook's platform, and Facebook's side of it has been a pain. Every permission an app asks for, like managing someone's Pages, goes through Facebook's review. The messaging rules are strict too. Since [last August](https://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/2016/08/15/updated-messenger-platform-policies/), a Page has 24 hours to reply to someone who messages it, plus one more message after that. Anything later counts as a subscription message, which needs its own permission and can't be promotional. So a broadcast to the people who opted in has to stay inside those lines.

*Update, April 2017: there's a web version now as well, so you can answer from a desktop. Same chats, quick replies and broadcasts, in the browser, and you can pay for the subscription there too.*