Complete Apple Messages onboarding

Onboarding prepares your whole service for customers: the Apple account, the conversations you will support, the people answering them, and the way customers will find you. Use this guide as your path from planning to launch. Registration covers the account setup and submission screens.

You are ready to launch when Apple has approved the account, your team can handle the agreed customer requests, and a real conversation works from each public entry point through to a confirmed result.

Choose a small set of customer requests your team can complete well. For a store, that might be product questions, arranging a visit, and checking an existing order. Describe the result the customer should receive for each request.

Name the people responsible for the Apple account and brand assets, customer service, any connected business systems, entry points and launch communications, and performance reporting. One person can own several areas, but each area needs someone who can act when a problem occurs.

Agree on service hours, supported languages, expected response times, and how customers reach a person. Decide how you will handle requests outside those hours or outside the team's authority. Use journey planning to work through a complete example and its failure paths.

Prepare your corporate Apple Account, your organization details, a Bird workspace, and testers with Apple devices. Register the business and connect it to Bird.

Check that the connected business has the correct Apple Business ID, brand name, and default language. A connected Draft business can send test messages while you prepare the review evidence. Register the authorized testers in Apple Business Register before they start a conversation.

Complete a first test conversation. Confirm that a customer message reaches the intended business and that an operator can reply.

Keep account connection and launch approval separate in your plan. A successful test exchange is one piece of onboarding evidence; it does not replace Apple's review.

Open the business's Approval requirements in Apple Messages > Businesses. Download the current Readiness review and Use cases forms.

In the readiness review, explain the channel's purpose, staffing, service hours, languages, expected demand, escalation route, and how you will monitor the service. State which customer problems you expect messaging to solve and how you will recognize an improvement.

For each use case, record:

For example, a visit request starts on the store page, offers current appointment times, checks the selected time with the booking system, and sends a confirmation only after the reservation succeeds. If the time has gone, the customer receives another choice.

Follow Build an Apple Messages experience to write and implement the welcome, triage choices, task steps, human handoff, closed-hours response, recovery paths, and satisfaction survey. The guide includes example messages and the operator actions behind them.

Create the messages and templates for that script. Specify who sends each message, what a customer answer triggers, and how you confirm that the requested action succeeded.

Use fictional customer details to review every route on an Apple device. Check the answers returned by lists and forms, appointment dates and time zones, links, and any connected order or booking result. Include cancellation, an unavailable service, and a request to speak with a person.

Give customers a text, web, or human-service alternative when they cannot use a native interaction. Keep an approved copy of the wording and settings your team will use; template drafts are saved in the author's browser.

Invite your operators and check that they can access the correct workspace. Practice finding, assigning, labeling, and replying to conversations.

Have each operator handle a normal request, a request they cannot resolve, a customer returning to an earlier conversation, and a failed message. Make sure the team knows who monitors unassigned work, who takes escalations, and how to hand over at the end of a shift.

Prepare responses for closed hours and delays, and establish who or which connected service sends them. If you use an automated assistant, agree on conversation ownership and human takeover so the operator and assistant do not reply at the same time.

Show the team how to inspect message history, use suppressions, and collect the details needed for support.

Choose the entry points that fit your first use cases. Prepare approved website or app buttons, relevant Maps locations, and Message Suggest details for the business numbers you want to enable.

Review every placement on the actual page or printed material. Its wording should explain what the customer can do and set an accurate expectation about response times. Keep another contact option available.

Brief customer service, operations, and marketing on the launch date, supported requests, service hours, and escalation contacts. Schedule website changes, help-center updates, store materials, and any launch announcements around account approval and staff readiness. Avoid promoting a request your team cannot yet complete.

If you plan press outreach, follow Apple's operations and marketing guidance. Share the PR plan and media list with your Apple business-development contact at least six weeks before outreach. Apple asks for at least two to three weeks to review press releases and two weeks for blog posts and pitches. Obtain the required approval before distributing materials, and align any published performance figures with Apple. Time the announcement to when the service is live.

Use Apple Messages for Business in public communications and use Apple's provided button assets without modifying them. Make the supported customer tasks and response expectations clear in the launch copy.

Follow Prepare your demo for Experience Review for the recording script, review criteria, and submission checks. Capture the complete customer experience on an iPhone, with supporting operator evidence for the handoff and business result. Include the recovery paths and use fictional data.

Upload the completed readiness and use-case PDFs and the MP4 service demonstration through Approval requirements, then submit them. Follow the submission and status instructions.

Read review feedback, make the requested changes, and replace the affected evidence before resubmitting. Allow time for this work before announcing a launch date.

After approval, follow Apple's go-live instructions. Review the commercial account's branding, registered numbers, and entry points in Apple Business Register. Coordinate the launch with Bird. When your team and production service are ready, select Go Online to submit the account for Apple's final review. This action does not make the account live immediately.

Once Apple confirms the account is live, make the approved placements visible and verify each entry point on an Apple device. Confirm that it opens the correct business, an incoming message reaches your team, and the customer can complete the intended request. Have someone monitor incoming work and failures as you make the placements visible.

Monitor closely during the first 48–72 hours. Review unanswered requests, failed messages, confusing choices, and unsuccessful handovers. Correct problems before expanding promotion or adding more use cases.

Review channel metrics alongside confirmed business outcomes. Use Bird's conversation volume and first-response measures, and obtain resolution or satisfaction results from the process that records them.

Apple asks for performance summaries at 30, 60, and 90 days, followed by quarterly reviews, shared through your messaging provider. Include the results you actually measure, customer feedback, and the changes you plan to make. Coordinate substantial changes to the experience with Bird because Apple may require another review.