5 MIN READ

Every business is different. They all have different needs and goals. The Facebook Messenger chatbot that they create will be unique as well. There are some fantastic chatbots in the world. Some companies have made chatbots that are outstanding for different reasons. 

Let’s have a look at some of the bots & learn what makes them great:

The Ecommerce Messenger Chatbot

1-800-FLOWERS has been around since, well, back when people made phone calls to buy things. 

They sell flowers, so guess what their chatbot does. It sells flowers. 

In fact, their bot drops you right into placing an order for flowers. They know they have a few seconds to capture the sale, so they’ve created a bot that gets down to business. 

Imagine… it’s like getting to the florist, looking around, and talking to a professional salesperson. 

The bot gets right to the point. It’ll ask: what kind of flowers you want, who they are for, when you want them delivered, what you like the card to say, and (most importantly, lol) how you wish to pay.

Something to consider: 

• Where, in your sales process, do you usually lose customers (churn)? See if you can use your chatbot to smooth those spots out.
• What part of the sales process causes the most friction? Put the boring parts, like entering names and addresses, in the beginning. This way, the fun part, like shopping, is still there as a reward.
• Are you wasting your customers’ time? If there’s a step that can be eliminated, do so. Speed is imperative. People are chatting instead of calling because they don’t want this to take a long time. And they might be multi-tasking.

Messenger Bot for Content Promotion

A bot designed to send someone content they might be interested in is an excellent way to keep your business on the top of people’s minds. 

For example, if you run a food blog, you can ask people if they want to sign up for new content. You can then even narrow that down to blogs about vegan food and desserts. 

This has been used to significant effect by TechCrunch with their technology journalism. Since theirs is a crowd that’s quick to adopt new technologies, they’ve been able to get a lot of people to read their articles via Messenger. 

Here are a few points:

• What content will you share? You might want to share everything or break it down into keyword categories. If your site churns out 25 articles a day, sending everything isn’t practical. For a food blog, as mentioned above, perhaps you just want to submit recipes, not complete articles. 
• Can you offer Messenger-only exclusives? You’ll get more signups and more engagement if you create content just for people on Messenger. 
• Convert your readers to customers. You can nurture a relationship until you can get the readers to buy a book, pay a subscription, or buy a product.

Reservations

If Messenger chatbots were created for anything… they were created for making reservations.  I think our Clever Restaurant Chatbot showcases this well… Sure, I might be biased. But, give it a try for yourself. 

Here’s another scenario though: A woman in Pittsburgh goes on Facebook and asks friends if anyone has been to Bali. She even looks for the Bali tourism page. You have your Bali travel agency Facebook ads responding to the keyword “Bali”. She sees your ad. When she clicks on the ad, it pops up Messenger with a reservation system that takes her right to make a reservation. 

Cool, right? And definitely possible.

It can start by asking what she needs in Bali and can take her to book a hotel, a flight, a car, and even a snorkeling expedition.

All this has happened without anyone at the business touching anything. It’s done by bot, taking someone who’s thinking about something to making a reservation.

• While the sales are the point, include lots of answers and reference materials. If she asks, “Can I get a visa to Bali?”, the bot should be able to answer without sending her anywhere else. 
• You can include maps, photos, videos, and more. Make your customers’ experience come to life
• If they’ve blocked with you before, you can use that history to make recommendations. For example, when she went to Ecuador, she booked a forest canopy zipline. You can recommend one in Bali.

Personal services

So often, when we want to look at makeup or to get our haircut, we go to the store or salon and make decisions there. A Messenger chatbot can make it easier to walk someone through the process. 

I.E., someone booking a salon appointment can be asked if they know the hairstyle they want… And if they will want a shampooing. After the bot gets that information, it can book an appointment. 

If the customer doesn’t know what haircut they want… the bot can ask questions and show them examples of what they might like. It can show them photos of long hairstyles, short haircuts, or the shades of hair colors they might like.

Some takeaways: 

• Have your chatbot linked to the places your customers are going. If they’re on Instagram or visiting your website, link your chatbot there. Use a “M.me link”, or Customer Chat Widget.
• Make the whole process natural and interactive. Every image can have a rating button underneath so that the customer can express preferences. 
• Experiment with the whole process. Continuing the salon example, ask people to try it right in your shop on their phones or tablets. Offer a discount and see how they interact with the chatbot and what they might like to do differently.

Starting with, “Hello”, and ending with, “I have you down for 4 o’clock with Karen,” is how the whole process should go. You can build a chatbot that will do precisely that.

A Bot Can Do Anything You Want

You’re going to hardpressed if you’re looking for ways a chatbot can’t help businesses because there aren’t any businesses catering to customers that can’t benefit from a Messenger Chatbot. 

Even “internal customers” can use a chatbot. Imagine a chatbot set up by the H.R. department of a major corporation. Answering all the questions an employee might have… Rather than downloading a new app, they can go right in from the Employee’s Facebook page. Sweet stuff, right?

Not secure? Hold my beer. Here’s a note on security. 

While nothing is ever 100% hack-proof, F.B. encrypts messages from one person to the other. So any messages sent or received by customers or employees are secure. In the case of the H.R. chatbot, only authorized personnel at the other end can see the interactions. And when payments are concerned. Payment information is encrypted by the banks and credit card companies anyway. In short, Messenger was built to be secure and private, so it’s perfect for a chatbot application.

If you’re looking for more ideas, check out this article!

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