harkbell

Integrations · Messaging channels

Instagram DMs

For the studios whose entire enquiry flow is Instagram, and who do not have a website for a widget to sit on.

Requires activation

What it does

  • Answers the DM that would have waited until closing

    “How much for a full set?” gets your real price immediately, rather than at eleven at night when you finally sit down with your phone and forty unread messages.

  • It books, it does not just chat

    The same availability and booking tools the phone agent uses, over DM — so an enquiry becomes an appointment without moving to another channel and losing half the people on the way.

  • Everything lands in the same inbox

    DMs, calls and texts from the same person collapse into one thread with the contact record they all belong to, so you are not piecing a client's history together from three apps.

  • You can step in whenever you like

    Take over any thread and answer it yourself. The conversation stays one conversation.

Turning it on

  1. Have an Instagram professional account linked to a Facebook Page.
  2. Connect it in Integrations.
  3. Check the opening line, and publish.

What this actually takes

  • An Instagram professional account linked to a Facebook Page. Instagram only permits messaging software on professional accounts — that is Instagram's rule for every tool of this kind.
  • Meta's approval of the connection, which is how messaging access works on all of Meta's platforms.

the part nobody else prints

What it will never do

  • Post, follow, or read anything but the conversations you connect.
  • Send the first message.
  • Reply to comments on your posts. This is DMs only.
  • Reach a conversation that has gone quiet. Instagram reviews no wording of any kind for a business to send later — a reply has to be within a day of the client's last message, and after that the conversation waits for them to write again.

Questions people ask about this one

Does it reply to comments too?

No — direct messages only. Comments are public and carry a different set of risks, so they stay yours.

I have no website. Is this enough on its own?

For a lot of studios, yes. Instagram plus a phone number covers where the enquiries actually arrive, and neither one needs a website to exist.

Messaging channels

Hear it before you connect anything.

The free plan has real answered minutes. Put it on your own website, ask it the questions your callers ask, and connect Instagram DMs when you are convinced.