ICYMI: Viber's new 'Business Inbox' lets you filter personal chats from those of brands
If you've been using Viber daily, you may have already noticed that the app stopped beeping daily with messages from your bank or other companies in the past week—thanks to the app's new feature called the "Business Inbox."
On Jan. 24, Viber launched its Business Inbox that serves as a folder to separate message threads with your friends, family, colleagues, and other contacts from those of your bank, delivery services, stores, or other commercial businesses you've interacted with in the past.
The new feature is pinned on top of the main page and will first appear when you receive your first business message since the feature's launch or when you update your app.
In a message sent to its users, Viber listed the messages you'd find in the folder, particularly your real-time chat with companies, special offers and discounts from your favorite brands, and useful updates such as order statuses, tracking, and reminders.
Viber's owner Rakuten noted in a press release said that all messages from businesses with commercial accounts land in the Business Inbox automatically. And while you cannot move a business chat out of the folder, you can, however, transfer it to the main screen.
Other features include being able to pin a brand's conversation at the top of the Business Inbox and a counter for your unread messages on the folder icon.
In addition to improving "user disposition" when it comes to connecting with brands, Rakuten noted that the Business Inbox will assure you that the messages you receive are only from "verified official accounts."
"They can be sure it's from a real company," the statement says. "This is to improve the general levels of trust towards business messages and put users at ease."
Meanwhile, if a brand you want to connect with is not in your Business Inbox, you can now easily search for them on Viber, as the app has also been updated to enable users to look for commercial accounts through the search bar.
Each search will bring you to a page with the business' address, contact information, and texting link through the app.
All these are part of Rakuten's goal in "building the foundation and architecture" of Viber as a "superapp."
"Users have dozens upon dozens of apps, and so, so much to do; people have grown overwhelmed and tired of juggling them to get things done," the company wrote.
"But messaging apps like Viber are integral to most people’s routine and consistently top the lists of most used mobile apps," Rakuten continued. "That makes messengers perfectly positioned to fill in this role of a superapp, to enable users to solve as many tasks as possible—within the comfort of one app that they’re already using anyway."