In today’s competitive landscape, brands that connect with their users instantly are the winners. And for that, they need to be where the customers are. One effective way to communicate with customers is through the Facebook Messenger chatbot.
Back in 2011, when Facebook released its Messenger service, people were hooked to it. By 2015, more than 600 million people had used Facebook Messenger. The next step was introducing chatbots to scale conversations and respond to users instantly.
At the outset, Facebook Messenger chatbots were used for simple use cases such as giving weather updates, taking food delivery orders, or sending flight documents directly to the user’s phone. The chatbot would connect the user to a live human agent or take them to the website or app for anything complex.
Since then, Facebook chatbots have evolved to help brands send personalized recommendations, increase sales, schedule meetings and do much more in a single window. Today, Facebook bots exchange 2 billion messages with users, allowing businesses to scale their conversations and save operational costs.
So let’s dive in and understand what Facebook bots are and how they can help your business.
What is Facebook Messenger Chatbot?
A Facebook Messenger chatbot is an automated tool integrated with Facebook’s Messenger service that interacts with users in real-time and natural language using conversational AI.
Facebook Messenger is very popular with users. Businesses could engage with their customers on Messenger to build strong relationships. However, this model wasn’t scalable. It led to long wait times and inaccurate answers. In other words, bad customer experience.
Integrating an AI chatbot with Facebook Messenger allowed businesses to reply to all customers, respond with accurate answers, and be available 24×7, improving customer experience multi-fold.
How does Facebook Chatbot work?
Facebook Messenger chatbot works by using artificial intelligence and automation. Once an AI chatbot platform is integrated with Facebook Messenger, they become functional and intelligent.
With AI technology, these FB chatbots can understand complex questions and respond to users accurately. AI subsets such as natural language processing (NLP) allow these chatbots to understand human language, converse in natural conversations and personalize interactions.
The Facebook Messenger chatbot works in a three-step process:
- Input: The user interacts with the Facebook Messenger interface and enters their query.
- Analysis: The AI part of the chatbot understands the intent behind the query. And the automation engine maps the intent with the database (with the help of Facebook Messenger API) to pull relevant information.
- Output: AI engine gets back to work and converts machine language back to human language to respond to the user.
This process is repeated with every user input.
Suggested read: Facebook Messenger Templates Guide
Capabilities of Facebook Chatbot
Should you opt for a Facebook bot for your business? With many businesses moving towards this trend, this must be a burning question for you. Worry not! We’ll list some benefits for you to decide.
1. Be available 24×7
Your customers are already on Facebook and familiar with Messenger service. Moreover, they spend a lot of time on the platform too. What they want from you is to be available when they need you. The Facebook chatbot allows you to interact with your audience 24×7. Your customer support is always on and running, even during non-business hours and holidays. Being available round the clock also ensures the messages you send have a high open and response rate.
2. Save customer time
Customers spend a lot of time waiting to resolve their queries. Either they spend time pressing one number after another on IVR or waiting to connect to an agent (or sometimes two). Facebook Messenger bot automates repetitive queries (e.g tracking orders, returning products, booking appointments, rescheduling bookings, etc.), without human intervention. It saves user’s time in accessing the information at their convenience.
3. Qualify leads and nurture them
Customers use social media channels as much to find new products as they use them to stay connected with family and friends. Every interaction is a chance to showcase your products. A Facebook chatbot can recommend products based on their preference, answer questions, process payments, and send invoices– all in a single window. This conversational commerce leads to actual business results through lead qualification, sales, and upselling.
Related: How to use Facebook chatbot for lead generation?
4. Enable self-service with automation
With the rise in DIY (do-it-yourself) culture, customers want to resolve their queries on their own. However, navigating through the knowledge base and help center docs is a troublesome task. Facebook bots can help users find the correct information and resolve their issues at their convenience. It gives them the satisfaction of completing a task without depending on others, resulting in a happy experience.
5. Reserve agents for more considerable challenges
As more and more users interact with the Facebook bot to resolve their queries, agents are liberated from repetitive and monotonous work (a.k.a. responding to frequently asked questions.) It allows them to work on projects with higher ROI, boosting their satisfaction. The intelligent routing feature in the FB bot ensures the chat goes to the right agent with relevant information. It saves the customer’s time and boosts the agent’s productivity.
6. Branch out your communication channels
There are more than 100 social media channels in the world, and 17 of them have at least 300 million active users. In addition to phone, email, and IVR, users want to connect with companies on channels such as Facebook, Youtube, WhatsApp, Instagram, WeChat, TikTok, Telegram, etc. as well. While a business can’t be on all of them, if your audience is on Facebook, integrating your chatbot on it allows your brand to connect with your audience on their preferred channel.
7. Improve customer experience at the check-out process
Cart abandonment is a spine-chilling experience for any business. The average cart abandonment rate is 68% for e-Commerce stores. That’s a lot of loss for businesses that should convert into revenue. A Facebook Messenger chatbot can reduce this number by answering customer questions immediately, guiding them through the checkout process, and re-engaging with them to complete the process—some of the most common reasons for cart abandonment.
What is the role of AI in FB bots?
Today, AI is infused into our everyday experiences. One such tool where AI is applied is chatbots. Unlike regular rule-based chatbots, AI helps these bots to understand human language based on context and previous chat history.
AI in FB chatbots understands a query by extracting its meaning, analyzing the sentiment, and gathering more context from words. This allows the machine to chat in natural conversations. In addition to this, AI helps personalize the customer experience by understanding their preferences and pulling information from customer databases.
Artificial intelligence in FB bots also helps in identifying patterns in customer behavior and flagging them for escalation. This improves communication security for sensitive data.
Facebook Messenger chatbots examples
Facebook chatbots can be used for various use cases by sales, marketing, and customer support teams. Let’s look at some companies who are killing it at Facebook chatbots.
1. Surveybot: Friction-free feedback collection
Getting customers to fill out a survey form takes time and effort. Especially when there are too many fields to fill. Surveybot reduced the friction by asking for customer input in Facebook Messenger when the user is already there. The chatbot asks conversational questions that are more engaging. And users don’t have to click any link or navigate to another page, resulting in high response rates.
2. Dominos: Smooth purchases with a personalized experience
Probably one of the most efficient chatbots ever, Dominos allows its users to buy pizzas directly from Facebook Messenger. The chatbot converses with the user to display the menu, takes the order, tracks it, and supports customers with common questions. And if a customer is a repeat user, the Facebook bot personalizes the experience by asking them if they’d like to repeat the previous order. It enhances customer experiences by leaps and bounds.
3. Kayak: Recommendations customized to your needs
Travel and hospitality is one domain where every user has a different need. Hence, a one size fits all approach doesn’t work here. Kayak overcomes this challenge by setting up a Facebook chatbot on Messenger to give flight and hotel recommendations to users. The FB bot asks users specific questions and uses previous chat and search history to understand their preferences. Based on this data, the AI shows users personalized recommendations.
4. Sephora: Convenience while scheduling meetings
Booking an appointment is one of the processes that can be automated end to end—the users open a calendar, search for the date and time they want a service, block a time according to their convenience, and get a confirmation email in their inbox. Sephora took this model to their users on Facebook Messenger and used a chatbot to enhance their experience. The chatbot would ask the user for their location and the type of service they want to finalize the booking.
5. L’Oréal: Make sales when live shopping
During one of their live shopping experiences, L’Oreal Indonesia used Facebook Messenger to interact with attendees. The users could chat with influencers, get more details about products, and make purchases in the chat. Automation would then take care of the other supply chain and fulfill the order. This personalized experience from the live stream helped L’Oreal Indonesia build trust and boost sales from one event.
FAQs
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Is Facebook chatbot free?
Facebook doesn’t charge any fee to build a Facebook Messenger chatbot. However, if you are building one through a third-party, then you will have to pay a nominal amount to them. You can also read: How to build a Facebook messenger chatbot?
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What to name a Facebook Chatbot?
Giving a name to your Facebook bot adds personality to it and makes it more approachable. The name could be based on the role they’ll serve (e.g. Helper Bot, AmazeBot), a brand name in itself (e.g. Siri, Alexa), or any funky and cool name (e.g. Eva, wall-e).
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Does the FB bot function on Mac?
Yes, Facebook bots work on Mac. They also work very well on Windows, Android, and iOS platforms.
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Can FB bots invent their own language?
No, at least not yet. In 2017, two Facebook chatbots, Alice & Bob started talking to each other in a language they made up, which humans couldn’t understand. This behavior is considered normal in AI and is nothing alarming.
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