Chatbots have become an essential tool for small businesses. When used correctly, they can help to boost order value, cut down the cost of customer services, and speed up the buyer’s journey.
You don’t need to have technical knowledge to implement chatbots into your business. Facebook has an excellent chatbot service that works within its messenger app.
If you want to benefit from these high-tech assistants, below you’ll learn everything you need to know.
What is a Facebook messenger chatbot?
A Facebook messenger chatbot is a computer program which interacts with you via a conversational interface. They are placed within the messenger app and will automatically answer messages you receive.
It is estimated that just 27% of small businesses use a chatbot. However, over 1.3 billion people use the messenger service. This means you could be missing out on significant customer engagement opportunities.
The messenger service has a developer API. This lets you add automated messaging. However, you will need to create the chatbot yourself.
How are messenger chatbots created?
While messenger chatbots are created with complex coding, you don’t actually need any experience to make one. With that being said, you can hire somebody to make one for you. However, here we will cover how to create a messenger chatbot yourself.
You can use specialist chatbot creating software such as ManyChat, Chatmatic, Chatfuel, etc., to create a bot in minutes. After signing up for an account, you can link it to your Facebook page. You will then work on creating the messenger bot content.
To personalize the messages, go into your Facebook messenger settings and click on “show a messenger greeting”. You can then create a welcome message.
All other messaging personalization will be done through the chatbot platform’s dashboard.
After you have set up the chatbot, you will need to add a message icon to your Facebook page. To do this, head to your page and click on “Add a button”. A popup window will appear, and you should click on “Contact You” followed by “Send Message”. When instructed, tell it to send people to messenger. You should now see your chat button displayed on the page.
This is the easiest way to create a chatbot yourself.
Ways to use chatbots to increase conversion
There are a number of ways you can use chatbots in Facebook Messenger. Your main options include:
• Customer resource chatbots
• Chatbots that influence decisions
• Simplified sales chatbots
• Engagement chatbots
• FAQ chatbots
• Chatbots that streamline payments
Chatbots are commonly used for customer resources. They have the ability to remember information and use it in future interactions. This means it can answer basic queries with ease.
Most businesses don’t have the time or resources to give customers a one-on-one experience. However, chatbots are available 24/7. They can use data to recommend personalized products for your audience. This frees up your sales team, helping to promote products automatically.
You can also use chatbots to simplify the sales process. If a customer has an issue when trying to make a purchase, they are likely to head over to your competitors. A good bot will provide a streamlined sales process from beginning to end.
Engagement chatbots help to keep your followers and fans engaged with your business. They provide fast responses and keep customers happy. If they know they will receive a fast, helpful response, they will keep coming back and ultimately buy from you.
As well as customer resource chatbots, you can also have bots that focus primarily on FAQ’s. You will often find certain questions get asked more frequently than others. You can design the chatbot to answer your most commonly asked questions. This frees up a lot of your time and ensures customers are met with fast responses.
Finally, you can also use messenger chatbots to streamline payments. They can save customer payment information, making it easier for them to check out next time.
These are just some of the ways you can utilize Facebook messenger chatbots. Having a chatbot that your audience can interact with can deliver a lot of great benefits to your business. They aren’t overly complicated to set up and you can always hire somebody to create them for you.