Customer Service
Instagram DM Customer Service: How to Handle Customer Questions via Instagram
Bugalou Platform
Discover what Bugalou can do for you
Everything you need for great customer service — in one platform
Everything you need for great customer service — in one platform
Instagram has quietly become one of the most important customer service channels for webshops and brands. Customers who discover your product through a post or story don't want to navigate to a contact page — they send a DM. Right then. Right there.
The problem? Most businesses are completely unprepared for this. DMs get missed, responses are slow, and there's no way to collaborate with your team inside Instagram itself.
In this guide, we cover everything you need to know about handling Instagram DM customer service professionally — and how to scale it as your business grows.
Before we get into the how, let's understand the why. Customers use Instagram DMs for customer service because:
Key stat: Over 150 million people have a direct conversation with a business on Instagram every month.
For all its appeal, Instagram DM support creates real operational headaches:
Instagram's native app doesn't support multiple agents handling DMs. If your colleague needs to take over a conversation, there's no handoff mechanism.
A customer might have emailed you last week and is now DMing you. You have no idea — and you'll ask them to repeat themselves.
The Instagram inbox is not built for support volume. Notifications get lost, messages get buried, and response times suffer.
You can't set up auto-replies, quick responses, or chatbot flows natively in Instagram.
How many DMs did you receive this week? What's your average response time? Instagram won't tell you.
The first and most important step is to move your Instagram DMs out of the native app and into a proper customer service tool.
With Bugalou's Instagram integration, all incoming DMs appear in a shared team inbox alongside your WhatsApp, email, and other channels. Your whole team can see and respond to messages — no shared passwords, no forwarding DMs manually.
When a new DM comes in, send an immediate auto-reply so customers know you've received their message. Something like:
"Hi! 👋 Thanks for reaching out. We typically reply within a few hours. In the meantime, check our FAQ at [link]."
With Bugalou's automations, you can set this up in minutes — and even customize it based on business hours.
Not every DM needs to go to the same person. Route product questions to your product team, complaints to your support team, and orders to your logistics team.
Bugalou's routing rules let you automatically assign conversations based on keywords, labels, or other criteria.
If you're answering "Where is my order?" 20 times a day, you shouldn't be typing that response from scratch each time. Set up saved replies (also called canned responses) for your most common questions.
This alone can cut your average response time in half.
Use labels to categorize incoming DMs: Order inquiry, Return request, Product question, Complaint, etc.
This makes it easy to filter, report on, and follow up on specific types of messages.
Respond fast. Instagram users expect quick replies. Aim for under 2 hours during business hours. Use auto-replies to set expectations outside business hours.
Keep it conversational. Instagram has a casual tone. Your responses shouldn't sound like formal email templates. Be friendly, direct, and human.
Don't push customers to other channels. Telling a customer "please email us instead" is friction. Handle the conversation where it started.
Use emojis appropriately. Instagram is a visual, casual platform. A well-placed emoji makes your replies feel more natural.
Follow up on unresolved issues. If you promised to look something up and get back to a customer, actually do it. Set a reminder or use a task feature to stay on top of open conversations.
| Feature | Instagram DM | |
|---|---|---|
| Reach (NL) | High | Very high |
| Open rate | High | 98% |
| Rich media | Yes | Yes |
| Automation | Limited natively | Full API support |
| Customer intent | Discovery → purchase | Direct support |
| Best for | Brand-driven businesses | Any webshop |
The good news: you don't have to choose. With Bugalou, you can handle both Instagram DMs and WhatsApp messages from the same inbox — so your team has one place to manage all customer conversations.
Connecting Instagram takes less than 5 minutes:
From there, you can set up automations, assign to team members, and track response times — all from one place.
Instagram DMs are already a major customer service channel for many webshops — whether you're ready for it or not. Customers are sending messages, and they expect answers.
The businesses that win are the ones that treat Instagram DMs with the same professionalism as email: structured, fast, and with a proper team workflow behind it.
Connect Instagram to Bugalou for free → | See all supported channels →
Founder of Bugalou and e-commerce entrepreneur. As a business owner, I noticed that customer service tools were either unaffordable or so complex you needed an IT department. That frustration led to Bugalou.