4 MIN READ

Facebook chatbots are all the rage. It almost seems like everyone has one or wants one. If you’re a small or medium business owner, you might be wondering why. This short guide will tell you what a Facebook chatbot is, what it does, and why you need one. 

So, What is a Facebook chatbot? 

The first question is, “What is a chatbot?”

A chatbot is an AI messaging system that interacts with customers directly. It appears, in most ways, to be a real person.  

The purpose of a bot is to give customers answers to their questions, order products, and solve problems without having to wait for a person to get back to them. It’s like having a robot on duty 24 hours a day to take care of things for you. 

A Facebook chatbot uses Messenger and its functions as its platform. 

In case that doesn’t make sense, if you’re on Facebook, you’ve probably used Messenger to talk with someone. You install a chatbot on your Facebook page. This bot communicates directly with customers without any need for human interaction, using Messenger. 

There are over 1 billion people that use Facebook actively every month. There are well over 2 billion who are signed up and use it periodically. Every one of those people is on Messenger! Because once you signed up for Facebook, you automatically signed up a Messenger account too.

 Facebook itself supports the use of its platform for chatbots. They’ve made it relatively easy to install one and to integrate into a website, an app, or almost any other platform.

Why should small and medium businesses use a Facebook chatbot?

There are several reasons:

It’s easy to get started. Everyone is on Messenger. It’s the third most-used app in the world. People use it to communicate with family and friends, but increasingly, people use it to communicate with businesses. There are only about 400,000 Facebook Messenger chatbots. That means it’s not a crowded field. 

There are a lot of possibilities for you to capture an audience because you’re the first in your field to give people the answers they need in seconds. Many people will decide in just a few minutes, and the company that tells them what they need to know first gets the sale.

It’s a lot cheaper than building a mobile app to communicate with customers. An app can cost you thousands. Even with the help of a company to make the chatbot, it will be thousands less than building a new app.

The Power of Facebook Chatbots

Chatbots on Facebook are becoming increasingly popular because they allow companies to speak directly to their customers. 

Marketing

If you use your chatbot for marketing, customers are 3.5 times more likely to open a Facebook message than an email.

Customer service 

You can take care of your customers faster and easier with a chatbot than at any time in history. That means they’re not waiting on an answer. Since most questions to customer service are the same ones over and over, you can teach a chatbot to answer them. Customers will be able to track a package, book appointments, check on availability, make a reservation, or any of thousands of repetitive actions.

Identify & Qualify leads

Because a chatbot can communicate with people at the moment, they’re most interested in working with you, and you’re able to use that to build a customer list. You can even use a chatbot to begin the conversation by asking questions like, “Do you know who your target audience is?” or “What’s your budget?” Great leads that are ready to be worked with can be sent straight to your sales team.

Make sales automatically

Every eCommerce business can use a Facebook chatbot to make sales. A bot can ask about size, colors, and much more. A bot can also act as a salesperson for 99% of eCommerce purchases. Unlike merely being a shopping platform, like Shopify or Amazon, a chatbot can actively sell to your customers.

Re-engagement

If your customers let you know that they’re on Facebook, you can use Messenger to reach out to the person about sales, special offers, or to say hi. Re-engagement is the fastest way to make sales. These are your former customers; they just need to be enticed back.

Why 24 hours a day?

The world has changed. If you sell clothing online or you have a small restaurant that’s open 12 hours a day, customers have questions, and they’d like to get answers. 

If someone’s insomnia has them up at 3 am looking for a new blouse or a place to have dinner with their parents, a chatbot will be able to answer their questions.

“Do you have size 18 clothes?”, “Is this available in purple?”, “Do you have any vegan dishes?”, or “Can I make a reservation for Saturday night?”

Above all, the world is open 24 hours a day nowadays, and a chatbot helps you to be there whenever someone has a question.

Getting Started with a Facebook Chatbot 

The easiest way to get started is by using Clepher. You create a Facebook Messenger chatbot in a flash.

The process is easy. You start by setting up an account and linking your Facebook account to it. Next, you can install a ready-made template. Or we help you write the questions that you need answers to and the keywords that a customer will use to ask a question. 

As soon as you’re done building, you can launch it to your Messenger. We’ll even show you how to set up a button on your company Facebook page that offers your new chat service.

Because it’s effortless to automate (using the right service, wink wink), you can have a basic bot running in 10 minutes or less. Best of all, you can fine-tune as you learn that you need more answers on it or that you need different keywords.  

A Facebook Messenger chatbot is one of the most powerful tools a small business can access. 

It helps to level the playing field by giving even small and medium businesses the 24/7 customer service BIG corporations have. Or have to a 24/7 sales agent, qualifying leads and making sales for you!

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