Dive Brief:

• E-commerce retailer Everlane is ditching Facebook Messenger’s notification tool, telling customers that it’s going to stick with old-fashioned email, Recode reports.

• Customers can still use the app to reach customer service representatives, but messages like order confirmation and shipping notices will be sent via email, according to the report. Facebook and Everlane both declined to comment to Recode.

• The social media giant’s messaging app debuted the customer service tool with Everlane, which has been at the forefront of mobile commerce, and Zulilly two years ago. 

Dive Insight:

When Facebook forced users into a separate Message app, some were confused or annoyed, but its motivations became more clear as it rolled out the message-based notification and chatbot tools. But those features appear to be falling flat. In recent days, in addition to the news that one of its Message notification retail pioneers was scaling back the use of that tool, Facebook itself is reportedly drastically scaling back its chatbot ambitions.

While chatbots last year seemed poised to revolutionize retail customer communications, the reality at Facebook is that many humans are still needed to ensure that the bots can handle communications effectively. The bots recently hit a major milestone — a 70% fail rate.

Meanwhile, voice communications may be overtaking bots as the next wave of customer communications, as seen with Amazon’s successful virtual assistant Alexa, which has been added to more devices and which Amazon continues to refine with features like individual voice recognition. 

For Everlane, though, old-fashioned email seems to be the preferred mode of communication for most notifications, at least for now. “It was a good couple of years, but we've decided to stick with what we do best — email,” the company said (in an email), according to Recode.