Facebook acquires Kustomer, an omnichannel customer relationship managementcompany, for $1 billion. The social media giant hopes to improve itscustomer service features with this new acquisition.

Facebook plans on improving its offerings for businesses that have adigital presence on its social media network through Kustomer.

Kustomer also explainslink.ina statement that although Kustomer will continue to own the data that isgenerated from customer interactions, Facebook eventually expects to hostit.

It also adds that “while Facebook will not automatically use Kustomer datato inform the ads that a user sees, businesses will have the option to usetheir data at Kustomer for their own marketing purposes, which may includeseparate advertising services on Facebook.”

Kustomer CEO and Cofounder, Brad Birnbaum, also commentslinkthat“with our complementary capabilities, we will be able to help more peoplebenefit from customer service that is faster, richer, and availablewhenever and however they need it–via phone, email, text, web chat, ormessaging. In particular, we look forward to enhancing the messagingexperience which is one of the fastest-growing ways for people andbusinesses to engage.”

As customers are increasingly communicating with business via messagesinstead of calling, Facebook has also started focusing on expanding itsecommerce offerings this year by adding shop features to its various apps.