“No one wants to install a new app for every business or service they want to interact with.”
Mark Zuckerberg
According to Facebook, 40 million businesses use Messenger, and 3 million actively advertise on Facebook. Brands that are trying to stand out in the competitive marketplace should be on their toes to respond to customer queries and create customer engagement. Most of the brands do not have the resources to offer 24/7 online customer service or support.
That is where the Facebook messenger chatbot comes into the picture. A Facebook chatbot can answer customer questions, track packages, make product recommendations, and even close a sale any time of the day or night.
What are Facebook Chatbots?
A Facebook Messenger bot is a chatbot integrated with Facebook Messenger, using artificial intelligence to converse with people.
Facebook chatbots are now extensively used across different sectors and industries. These bots are programmed to understand questions, provide answers, and execute tasks, from providing a customized online shopping experience to tracking the orders and details.
The idea behind integrating chatbot to Facebook messenger was to connect with 1.4 billion daily users, taking the leverage of innovative technology like AI and ML.
Chatbots can take on the burden of time-consuming business tasks and handle communications with your visitors, becoming the first point of contact. This is accelerating communication between businesses and customers at a rapid scale. And Facebook’s data shows that!
- 61% of people in the UK messaged a business between March and June 2018
- 53% of people are more likely to interact with a business they can message directly
- More than 50% of people consider business messaging as the modern way to communicate
What’s different about Facebook chatbots?
For starters, you don’t have to be a programmer to build a sophisticated Messenger chatbot. Mark’s major advantage lies in the fact that Messenger notifications pop up rather overtly on the user’s screen. This causes them to be noticed and replied to even if the user isn’t on the app then.
This is pivotal since native chatbots living in websites & mobile applications could only reach users if and when they were using these websites or apps.
Zuckerberg blessed marketers with the ability to push promotional messages & content in a way that people will notice.
A. Messenger links
Facebook generates links to your Messenger bot using your Facebook page’s username. Users clicking those messenger links will get be taken directly to your Facebook Messenger chatbot.
B. Customer matching
This lets you connect customers that are already in your database to your bot. Messenger lets you add them by their phone numbers. You can use their phone numbers to send them messages directly in your Messenger bot.
C. Messenger codes
These are essentially QR codes for your Messenger Chatbots. They can be printed out & stuck in physical locations and work in a fashion similar to Snapchat and Instagram codes. On being scanned, they redirect users to your chatbot.
D. Messenger buttons
Facebook lets you embed these buttons into your website. This allows anyone who clicks on them to initiate a conversation with your chatbot.
E. FB Recurring notifications
Just like WhatsApp, Facebook allows businesses to share personalized notifications with their customers to drive engagement & revenue through the existing users.
What are the benefits of Facebook Messenger bot?
The benefits of employing Facebook Chatbots are numerous. Here are a couple of ways to use a Messenger bot to improve your business processes.
Catch them where they are!
Your users are already chatting on Facebook. That’s where you bait them in. You don’t have to make an effort to send them to an external site or a different application . Make it easy. Comfortable. Minimize the effort that they need to put in to reach you, and you’ve got yourself a winning strategy.
You can actually collect email addresses by simply asking for them and then, using Zapier, transferring their replies into your Email CRM (e.g., MailChimp & Salesforce)
You even qualify leads, using the decision node to find out whether they fit certain criteria.
1. Make it personalized
Your Facebook bots can collect customer preference data, based on their conversations with the users. Now, using this information, they can curate marketing messages, offers, promotional messages, and content relevant to the users’ interests.
Personalized content and offers are more powerful than average marketing messages. Messenger chatbots help you employ this with ease.
2. Get them clicking and win
Facebook Chatbots boast phenomenal ORs and CTRs. On average, Messenger chats have Open Rates of 70-80% and Click-Through Rates well above 20%, whereas emails can expect to achieve 5-10% open rates. Send them content that interests them enough, and they will take action.
3. Make it visible
Having a verified Facebook Business Account is can help increase the visibility and trust in your account. One of the most significant advantages of deploying a bot on Messenger — notifications are obvious. The chances of readers missing out on what you have to say are tremendously reduced. And you can thank Facebook Messenger's in-your-face style of sending notifications for that.
If your users have conversations with your Messenger chatbots on their phones , you’re in luck. The Open Rates and Click-Through Rates above make that quite visible with integrated notification
4. Build relationships
The only way someone will buy from you is if they trust you. And the best way to get them to trust you is by establishing a relationship with them.
Facebook bots allow you to build a relationship with your potential customers. Especially, if you use these bots to share content that provides them with value. Sending them content that is beneficial and/or educational to them gets users to trust you, and that’s when your chances of getting a sale go up.
5. Diversify service lines
You can only handle so many service requests via phone calls. If that’s your only way of taking care of your customers, your lines will certainly get swamped. Using Messenger chatbots, you can provide support to multiple customers at the same time.
Even if customers want to have a conversation with an actual human agent, with Live Chat software, the agent can handle more than 7 customers simultaneously.
6. Solve the ‘abandoned cart’ issue
An issue that has been plaguing E-Commerce operators ever since E-Commerce came into existence. Abandoned carts are the one thing that E-Commerce businesses have nightmares about.
Messenger chatbots reduce cart abandonment by making the checkout process substantially easier.
They even help in retrieving carts that were already abandoned. By sending the users reminders and offers, E-commerce chatbots can lure them back into completing their purchases.
7. Educate them!
There are some things about your product or service that your users need to know to utilize your offerings to their full potential. But a lot of them aren’t too keen on digging through your knowledge base to find a bit of information. It’s too much effort. A Facebook Messenger Chatbot would be a simple and effective way for them to access information about your products and services.
8. Uses better engagement tactics
As mentioned above, Facebook bots take your customers' information, but this time they can also personalize their content by analyzing their history of searches and interests. Therefore, you can send your customers links, images, carousels, and much more! Yes, you can sell your product through your Facebook Messenger bot! You can also provide a CTA that directs your customer to your website or allows them to make payments. Hit a home run, E-commerce!
9. Send special offers or coupons
If you’re an e-commerce enterprise, Facebook marketing seems to be the ideal strategy for you. Sending your customers special offers and discount notifications through your Messenger chatbot is a lot more effective than sending emails that end up going into the spam section. Your message is communicated clearly and effectively with chatbots.
10. Save time and money on customer care
Customers expect 24/7 availability, but they hate waiting on hold. They also ask many of the same questions over and over (and over) again. If the internet time demonstrates that you’re spending a lot of time helping people track deliveries, check your return policy, or book appointments, a little automation will go a long way. Free up your focus for the tasks that a Messenger chatbot can’t do.
11. Automate Q&A for common queries
Chatbots can be the first point of contact for your business and by integrating them on Facebook, you can be easily available to your customers and provide assistance for common queries 24/7.
12. Identify leads
As your bot greets potential customers, it can identify their needs, ask basic questions, (i.e., “What’s your budget?”), and immediately direct high-quality leads and receive facebook leads to your human sales team.
13. Handle e-commerce transactions
With the right script, bots can do the selling, too. And because everything happens without leaving the comfort of Facebook Messenger, drop-off rates are lower than in a traditional ad-to-webpage pipeline. Also, conversational commerce leaves room for personalized upselling as the bot makes suggestions. Everything from “Seems your flight won’t be leaving until 4 PM. Would you prefer a late check-out?” to “Fries with that?”.
How to build a Facebook chatbot? [in 10 minutes]
Did you know that chatbots have single-handedly contributed to an increase in profits by 25%?
Anyone can build this bot! Using chatbot tools such as Engati, all you need to be is S-M-A-R-T. There is no coding required at all! Convenient, isn’t it?
So, to create a Facebook Messenger chatbot, follow these simple steps:
Step 1: Sign up and register on Engati to get started for free!
Step 2: Go to the Bot Marketplace, identify your use case, go through 100+ bot templates, and download one that’s perfect for your requirements.
Step 3: Construct and customize your conversational flow. You can add carousels, build paths, use multilingual features, and much more. You can also customize your welcome message and default answers, though they’re already inbuilt in our bots using the NLP engine.
Step 4: Go to the ‘Deploy’ section after you’re done building the bot. This section lets you integrate your chatbot with Facebook Messenger and any platform of your choice. Our bots can be currently integrated on 12 platforms like Slack, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Kik, Telegram, etc, including Zapier and JSON API.
Step 5: Make sure you have an existing Facebook page connected with your Facebook account to integrate the bot on messenger.
Step 6: Link the bot to your Facebook page. To deploy the bot on Facebook, copy your Facebook account URL, paste it in the deploy bar, hit the deploy button, and here’s your new Messenger bot!
How does Facebook messenger chatbot add to omnichannel customer experience?
Customers want instant answers to their questions and connect with brands on multiple digital platforms. Regardless of what channels your customers prefer, Engati provides all-in-one customer engagement that powers your omnichannel customer experience.
Facebook is on the popular social media platform, having more than 2.9 billion monthly active users, carries a great potential for brands across the globe. With Facebook Messenger Chatbot, brands can achieve the omnichannel strategy to connect and engage with their customers.
How to send recurring notifications on Facebook messenger?
1. Introduction
FB Recurring Notification feature is available only if the bot is deployed on FB Messenger Channel. The FB recurring notification node enables the user to receive notifications at a specific interval, either daily, weekly, or monthly, depending on the frequency that the user has opted in. Notifications can be related to ongoing promotions and campaigns that the user is interested in.
Using Engati’s Recurring notifications node you can capture the required information such as Notification frequency and topic. You can then use this information to categorize and send broadcasts to the targeted users.
2. Setup
As a bot builder, you can configure the following on the Send recurring notification node:
- Frequency: You can select only one frequency category per node.
- Daily - One notification/day
- Weekly - One notification/week
- Monthly - One notification/month
2. Topic: Here you can directly set a topic name or pass an attribute based on the option provided. This helps in categorizing the users based on the category they have opted-in.
3. Upload image: You can send the opt-in message with an image by selecting this option.
3. Sending Broadcasts
After collecting the required information like Frequency and Topic from the users who have opted-in, you can configure the broadcasts based on their opt-in category.
- Broadcast name: You can set any name of your choice for the broadcast.
- Target channels: By default Facebook messenger will be selected as this feature is only available for the Facebook channel.
- Broadcast type: Select the options based on the type of your broadcast. Using send message option you can send a simple text message, Also you can send a text message with multiple options or you can trigger a path.
- Broadcast topic: Enter the category/option name in which the user has opted-in for receiving the recurring notifications.
- Broadcast message: Here enter the main body text of your broadcast.
- Broadcast repetition: Select broadcast frequency as per the opt-in frequency selected by the user.
- Date: Select the start and end date depending on the broadcast frequency.
- Time: You can set the time period for which you want to send the broadcast to the targeted audience.
What are the examples of Facebook Messenger Chatbots?
Here are some real-life Facebook chatbot examples to inspire you.
1. Ananda Livemore
As with any company in the telecommunications industry, providing phone and internet services isn’t enough. Ananda livemore was putting in continuous efforts to improve the customer experience while adapting to new digital technologies to stay ahead of the market.
Ananda livemore is a 4G+ data operator with international service standards, a state-of-the-art network. It’s owned and operated by Amara Communications, a leading telecommunications service provider in Myanmar. Through the delivery of high-speed, reliable broadband solutions, ananda aims to provide a truly liberating digital experience to enterprise customers and consumers.
A Messenger chatbot allows them to improve their customer experience by providing easy access to basic information while reducing wait time. Instead of customers going through the usual route of calls and long wait times, Engati's messenger bots answered customer queries immediately.
2. iMile
iMile is a flexible logistics solutions provider for E-commerce deliveries and courier services for the Middle East. When expecting a courier, customers typically feel a lot of anxiety. Queries on tracking and scheduling are bound to come up and clog support lines. Since these queries were repetitive, iMile needed a solution that could automate addressing these queries. They also needed a solution to respond to these queries in English and Arabic.
Hence they deployed a multilingual chatbot over Facebook Messenger. With Engati's omnichannel feature, iMIle could deploy the bot on both Facebook and their website. They could answer multiple users at once, answering almost every query coming.
3. Marriott
Marriott created their very first Facebook bot back in 2016. It allowed guests to combine their reward points when Marriott purchased Starwood hotels.
This Messenger bot took off so well that Marriott created an entire fleet of chatbots. From making reservations to showcasing content from the Marriott Traveller Magazine, their bots can do it all. They even send you tips, tricks, and suggestions to make your stay with Marriott a better experience.
Amanda Moore, senior director of Social & Digital Marketing at Marriott International, said that they utilize chatbots in collaboration with humans. She said, “We truly believe the machine experience is best paired with a human. They can always signify if they want to speak to a real person. If the chatbot can’t answer a question, it can route to one of our associates.”
Marriott essentially utilizes a live chat function to give their guests a choice between speaking to a bot and a human, improving their customer experience.
4. Tokio Marine
Tokio Marine & Nichido Fire is Japan’s oldest and largest non-life Insurance company, which traces its roots back to 1879. They needed a solution to reduce customer wait times and attend to customer queries coming from multiple channels.
The bot provides quotes, renews a policy, reviews claim status, and answers FAQs round the clock. It fetches user information, effectively working as a stream for lead generation. When new users land on TMNF, the bot generates a quote in real-time and allows users to register directly. Tokio Marine is a great example of a company that uses a chatbot to drive growth. Its bot managed to turn 75% of its users into MQLs.
Get a quote - Instead of navigating through portals and web pages, customers can get a direct quote for cars, homes, travel, and other insurance through the chatbot.
Track a claim - Customers can check the status of their claim with the claim reference number.
Renewing a policy - Customers can renew an existing TMNF policy or a policy from another insurance company.
5. Livspace
Livspace is a trusted interior design marketplace that connects interior designers, vendors, and customers across India and Singapore that provides end-to-end home interior services. As a design and technology-first start-up, they started to employ a combination of data science, algorithms, and design to create unique experiences for homeowners and scale the job of interior designers.
Their 1st stepping stone into this venture is a Messenger chatbot. Through Facebook Messenger, their leads and customers can browse through Livspace's catalog without having to open extra windows or download extra apps. And if users felt stumped, a live chat agent can swoop in and help them navigate.
6. XacBank
XacBank is one of the largest systemic banks serving individual consumers, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and corporate customers by providing a full range of banking, insurance, and other value-added financial products and services. Their vision is to bring world-class financial services to Mongolia. Since Facebook is one of the most popular messaging applications in Mongolia, they decided to pull customers in with a Facebook chatbot.
Conclusion
Zuckerberg created a winner when he launched FB Chatbots. Missing out on these would be a mistake that you would not want to make.
We can make it even easier for you to make and deploy a chatbot on Facebook Messenger. With Engati, you can build and create a chatbot without having to know anything about coding. But we don’t just stop there. We let you deploy your bots on a variety of platforms like WhatsApp, Twitter, and even your website.
Register with Engati to build your very own Facebook bot today!
