You’ve chosen the perfect cover image, implemented an efficient marketing strategy, and you’re almost done setting up your store on social networks. Have you thought about adding a Facebook chatbot?
You may not be sure it’s worth it, or you may not know exactly what it is. You may be wondering if it could be a boon to your business, or just a desperate attempt to gain more followers.
Don’t worry, because in this article we will talk about just that, and you will have all your questions answered.
We will start by trying to understand what a chatbot for Facebook is, and how to use bots in Messenger. Then we’ll look at the benefits it can bring to your business. Finally, you will learn how to make a Facebook chatbot creator to create a bot for your page.
Let’s get started right away.
What is the Messenger bot?
A chatbot is an artificial intelligence program that can chat with your customers for you, offering pre-programmed answers to frequently asked questions.
Conversation can be simple. On Facebook, a chatbot can, for example, direct customers to your product page. Or it can be smarter, and help them find the right product or change a reservation.
Think of a Facebook Messenger chatbot as an assistant talking to your Facebook audience.
From the customer’s point of view, a Facebook Messenger chatbot is an added value. He answers his questions instantly, so your customer no longer has to google your site, go to the FAQ section, search for the relevant question, and finally get an answer.
Plus, having a chatbot on Facebook saves you time. Quickly answers all those questions you should answer if bots didn’t exist. It can also direct your customers to your product collection or provide them with your phone number or address.
Do you need further confirmation? Here is some data on Facebook Messenger chatbots:
- 21% of consumers surveyed believe chatbots are the easiest way to contact a business. This statistic dates back to 2017, and the number is even higher today.
- Some customers may prefer human interaction to one with a bot. However, a recent survey found that 40% of respondents don’t care whether there’s a bot or a human on the other side as long as they get an answer.
- People are three times more likely to interact with your bot than to read your marketing emails .
Furthermore, chatbots are unlikely to go bd email address list out of business. Just see how their use has branched out into different areas:
Convincing enough, right?
So how can you use a Facebook Messenger bot for your business?
How do Messenger bots work?
There are tons of ways to use a Facebook chatbot for your business. For example, you can engage your audience with interactive content, drive traffic to your latest blog post, share shipping details, and more.
Let’s take a look at some of the main benefits of Facebook chatbots.
Promote your brand
It is very likely that a potential customer liked your Facebook page because they liked a photo you shared. It is also possible that he has heard about your business elsewhere and spontaneously decided to follow your page.
But in the tangle of pages every prospect sees on their Facebook Home, they’re likely to forget about your business within days.
What to do? Resigning is not an option. This is where Facebook chatbots come into play. A Facebook chatbot can ensure that potential customers are aware of your brand by interacting with them via the chat.
With a Facebook chatbot you can:
- Send a welcome message. Say hello to your prospect and present your business offer
- Offer auto reply buttons in the Messenger window. This prompts the audience to browse your menu so they can get an idea of your offering.
Enhance your customer experience
According to The Social Habit, 42% of customers expect a response on social media within 60 minutes. Any delay carries the risk of offending the customer.
Not to mention, if you take too long to respond, your customer may start looking for alternatives.
Facebook chatbots can prevent this from happening by replying to your customer instantly. Make sure you program your bot for Messenger so that if it doesn’t know how to answer a question, it puts your customer in touch with customer service.
By 2020, the customer experience is expected to be superior to product and price as a differentiating factor for the bran. Surveys also show that customers are willing to pay more for a good experience.
By responding to the public with immediate answers to their questions, you are already improving customer service and experience. But that’s only a small part of the potential of Facebook Messenger chatbots.
The brand pairs its Messenger bot with simulation technology, which allows users to try on different lipsticks before making a purchase.
While it is certainly true that not all types of businesses can use this type of Facebook chatbot, this gives a good idea of how beneficial a Facebook chatbot can be for your business.
You can also improve your prospects’ experience by sharing valuable resources they may find useful.
Your Messenger bot can help you direct them to your latest blog post. Or you can schedule the Facebook chatbot to share guides or videos with your audience depending on their purchase history.
Alternatively, you can share interactive content like quizzes with your prospects to keep them engaged.
Take care of potential customers
On Facebook Messenger, a chatbot can also work wonders in increasing conversions . As? By nurturing a relationship with your audience.
Victoria Beckham, for example, keeps the conversation going by sharing product updates with her fans.
These kinds of updates are a great way to make sure your business is in the thoughts of your prospects.
Extra tip: Make sure you leave some space between your Facebook chatbot messages. Sending too many messages at once could have negative consequences.
Save your customers time
Finally, it is also possible to create a Facebook chatbot to offer an extremely linear shopping experience, as Pizza Hut does with its customers.
Since the average user has around 80 apps installed on their smartphone, Pizza Hut has taken a unique approach to grabbing the attention of its potential customers.
Instead of building an order delivery app, it allows customers to place an order in just a few clicks through its Facebook Messenger bot.
The Facebook chatbot also collects transaction data, to make it easier to place future orders.
Put simply, the Facebook chatbot is able to show the order history and suggest new promotions and items based on customer preferences.
How to create a chatbot on Facebook
Now that you understand what Messenger bots on Facebook are, we will show you how to create a chatbot for Facebook with the help of Chatfuel.
Chatfuel is an easy-to-use chatbot builder that powers 46% of Facebook chatbots.
With Chatfuel, you can create a Messenger bot without having to know how to program and without having to go crazy. You can try a number of other chatbot builders as well.
For now, though, we’ll stick to Chatfuel and show you how to use it to build a Facebook chatbot.
Here’s how it works:
Step 1: Create a free account
You can use Chatfuel for free up to less than 500,000 monthly active users. However, once this limit is exceeded, you will need to upgrade to the premium version.
Setting up Chatfuel is extremely simple. All you need to do is login via Facebook. There is no need to process a new passcode for a new user ID. Just enter your Facebook username and password.
Chatfuel requires access to your Facebook name and profile photo. Click Continue as [your name] to grant access, then select the company page on which you want to set up the chatbot for Facebook.
If you don’t have a business Facebook page, you’ll need to create one before creating a Messenger bot for your service or product.
Afterwards, Chatfuel will ask for the appropriate permissions:
For best performance, you need to grant access to each of the four options. Once this is done, just click Done to finish the process.
Step 2: Write your welcome message
The welcome message is what appears when a prospect first interacts with your Facebook chatbot.
You can use it to give an introduction to your Facebook chatbot. Let your visitors know that there is a cute robot (you can even give it a name) who will do its best to answer their questions.
It also works on customizing the default message, which is presented to the customer when the chatbot is unable to answer questions.
You might say something like, “I’m not sure I understand what you’re asking.” Then provide links to FAQs and other useful pages on your site.
Step 3: Create your Facebook chatbot conversation
Conversation navigation is how your Facebook chatbot will interact with your audience.
A good idea is to program your Messenger bot to answer frequently asked customer questions.
At this point, start adding blocks with the Add Blocks option in your Chatfuel dashboard.
In each of these blocks, type the responses your Facebook chatbot will give to customers.
Let’s say you run a library. In this case, two frequently asked questions might be:
- Where are you?
- What books do you currently have in your library?
You can provide answers to these questions by creating blocks that:
- They help visitors identify the location of your shop.
- Redirect visitors to your store’s inventory.
When you title these blocks, add a URL to your website where possible so that the Facebook chatbot can take visitors to the corresponding page.
For example, you can add a link to your website’s library page when adding the “Browse library inventory” option.
You also have the option to choose how long your bot will show it’s typing when interacting with your audience. Choose from a scale of 0.1 to 20 seconds.
Step 4: Link these blocks to your welcome message
Once the blocks are ready, add them under your welcome message by returning to the Welcome Message tab in the dashboard.
Use the Add Button option to add the button name.
Next, select the block that will need to go under the button.
By doing this, you have created a button with a block that will provide an answer to one of your customers’ most frequently asked questions.
Step 5: make your Facebook chatbot smart with artificial intelligence
At this stage, from the left side of the dashboard, you can click on Set AI .
From there you will need to fill in two main details: first, the phrases your bot should look for under the “ If user says something like “ section, and secondly the content that will appear in response.
Put simply, this content is the response your Facebook chatbot will give when words similar to those entered in this section are used. In the box on the right there will be the replies of the bot .
You can choose one of the blocks you created in the previous steps or you can insert a new content.
And this is all.
You are now one step away from launching your Facebook chatbot.
Step 6: Test and launch your Facebook chatbot
Test your Facebook chatbot via the Test your bot button at the bottom right of the page.
Click on Promote Page on the left side of the navigation menu to get the URL of the page.
This is the URL of your chatbot. Put it on your Facebook page, website or online classifieds. You can also advertise your Facebook chatbot as part of your marketing strategy .
Facebook Chatbot: Now it’s your turn
Running your business through Facebook can be a challenge, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be. A Facebook chatbot can help streamline your communications, improve productivity, improve customer service, and boost sales, among other things. With just 300,000 chatbots in existence, this is a great time to build a Messenger bot and enhance the customer experience with a friendly and smart Messenger bot.
Are you using a Facebook chatbot for your business? Let us know in a comment below.