Take you always messaged a company on Facebook, only to expect so long for a response that by the time they become back to you, you lot forgot you contacted them in the first identify? For brands trying to stand out in a crowded online marketplace, this is not a adept expect.

Most brands don't have the resources to offer 24/7 online client service and sales support. Fortunately, chatbots don't demand to sleep (or eat lunch). A good Facebook chatbot can answer customer questions, track packages, brand product recommendations, and even close a sale whatever time of the day or nighttime.

Facebook's latest available data indicates at that place are twoscore million businesses using Messenger and only 300,000 active Messenger bots. Using a bot tin help yous create a streamlined experience for your customer and followers, and stand out from your competition.

Bonus: Download a complimentary guide that teaches you how to turn Facebook traffic into sales in four elementary steps using Hootsuite.

What is a Facebook bot (a.chiliad.a Facebook Messenger chatbot)?

A chatbot is a slice of automated messaging software that uses artificial intelligence to converse with people.

A Facebook Messenger bot is a chatbot that lives within Facebook Messenger, meaning information technology converses with some of the 1.iii billion people who use Facebook Messenger every month.

Chatbots can be programmed to understand questions, provide answers, and execute tasks. They tin provide a customized online shopping feel and even make sales.

The benefits of using Facebook chatbots for business concern

Come across customers where they are

Outset, allow's look at some quick stats to set the phase for how much of your potential audience is accessible through Facebook Messenger:

  • Chat and messaging are the most-used types of websites and apps, followed past social networks.
  • 64% of people say they would prefer to message a business than call them
  • lx% of people say they are open up to receiving personal messages from companies
  • Facebook Messenger has the tertiary-most active users of any app, beat out only by Facebook and Whatsapp
  • More 100 billion messages are exchanged on Meta apps every day
  • People spend an average of 3 hours every month using Facebook Messenger (and 19.vi hours a calendar month using Facebook itself).
  • Meta reports the potential advertising audience for Facebook Messenger is 987.vii million people
  • Most people (69% in the U.S.) who message businesses say being able to do so improves their confidence in the make.

The betoken is that your audience is already using Facebook Messenger, and they wait to be able to interact with your brand there. Chatbots can increase your rate of response, making it easier for people to get the data they look in real-time, on a channel they already utilize.

As a bonus, Facebook Messenger has sponsored ads, which can exist targeted to people who accept previously been in touch on with your Folio. Utilize these ads in tandem with your chatbot to target high-intent customers.

Save time for your squad and your customers

Customers wait 24/7 availability, and they hate waiting on hold. They also ask many of the same questions over and over (and over) again.

If you're spending a lot of time helping people track deliveries, check your return policy, or book appointments, a trivial automation will go a long style. Customers will be able to access the information they need, fifty-fifty if you're unavailable.

They'll relieve fourth dimension with instant answers to their questions, and you'll save time past letting your Facebook Messenger chatbot answer the easy questions, like in this example from Canadian retailer Simons.

Simons order tracking Facebook messenger chatbot

Source: Simons

This frees up more fourth dimension for humans to address more complicated Messenger conversations that go beyond the capabilities of a Facebook chatbot.

Automate sales

Don't limit your Messenger bots for Facebook to client service requests.

More than than xvi% percent of people use social media messaging and live conversation services for brand research. And 14.5% say a chat box to speak with a visitor is a driver of their online purchases. This all leads to existent concern results: 83% of consumers say they would shop for or buy products in messaging conversations.

With the right script, a Facebook Messenger bot can make sales. Conversational commerce allows for personalized recommendations, lead qualification, and upselling.

As your bot greets potential customers, it tin place their needs, inquire bones questions, provide inspiration, and direct loftier-quality leads to your human sales team.

Joybird sofa style quiz on Facebook messenger

Source: Joybird

shop matches for Eliot Loveseat in Modernist

Source: Joybird

Your Facebook chatbot can besides follow upwards with people who abandon the conversational commerce process, similar in this message Joybird'south bot sent 24 hours later completing the sofa manner quiz.

Joybird follow up message sofa style quiz

Source: Joybird

The dos and don'ts of using Facebook chatbots

Do set expectations clearly

Offset, make sure the user knows they're interacting with a bot. Introducing the bot can exist a practiced way to showtime. You can even requite information technology a name, like Decathlon does hither.

Decathlon Canada conversational and athletic chatbot

Source: Decathlon Canada

Then, go far clear what the bot can and can't do. Program your Facebook Messenger chatbot to take the lead in guiding the user through the experience past request questions or using prompts that move the interaction forward.

Decathlon Canada find in-store products and track shipments

Source: Decathlon Canada

If the bot needs fourth dimension to process a asking, employ the typing indicator (iii dots) to make certain your customer knows things are still happening, as seen in this example from Tiffany & Co.

Tiffany & Co typing indicator

Source: Tiffany & Co

If you demand fourth dimension to reply or pass the chat along to a person, make that clear, too, and set expectations almost when the customer can expect a response, similar Bumble's Facebook bot does here.

Bumble Support Team hours of operation

Source: Bumble

A mini-don't as part of this tip: Don't refer to your Facebook chatbot equally "live chat" or use other terminology that implies information technology'due south a real person.

Bonus: Download a costless guide that teaches you how to turn Facebook traffic into sales in iv elementary steps using Hootsuite.

Get the free guide right now!

DO proceed it short

According to Facebook, nearly people collaborate with Messenger bots on their mobile devices. Don't make them read large chunks of text on a pocket-size screen or type a lengthy reply with their thumbs.

Buttons, quick replies, and menus tin can make the conversation period more than easily than asking the customer to type at every stage. Here, KLM provides eight potential options to drive the conversation with the bot.

KLM conversation options including COVID-19 information baggage and flight status

Source: KLM

Permit the customer to blazon details when needed, but always provide default answers or options to choose from when your Facebook Messenger bot asks a question.

Do maintain your brand voice

While y'all desire to exist clear that your Facebook Messenger chatbot is a bot, you desire information technology to sound like your bot. Employ turns of phrase your customers expect from your website, and maintain the same full general tone. If your brand is casual and friendly, your bot should be as well.

That said, keep it simple. Don't use slang or jargon that will misfile users. Try reading your bot'due south prompts out loud to a colleague to make sure they're clear.

And ever use a tone appropriate to the task at hand. If you're request someone to provide personal details like a flight number or their accost, take a more professional tone.

DO permit human agents handle complicated inquiries

A Facebook chatbot's success depends on its ability to recognize when a human being is needed. Automated conversations are speedy and responsive, simply they tin can't supplant human connection.

Customers should have the option, at any indicate in the chat, to connect with a person. Your chatbot should be able to recognize a request for human aid, even if it'south outside the expected menses of conversation.

In this example from La Vie En Rose, the bot understands the requests even though information technology does not flow logically from the bot's prompt.

La Vie En Rose chatbot with human connection

Source: La Vie en Rose

DON'T spam

At that place'southward really only one major don't when information technology comes to Messenger bots, and this is it. Don't spam.

Don't assume that a customer who reached out for help wants to receive marketing messages. Personalized product recommendations might be helpful, just make sure you lot have permission earlier sending them.

Offer people a fashion to opt-in to ongoing messaging before you contact them. And be sure to offering a clear style to opt out of future communications. Your bot should recognize language that seems similar a request to opt out and either ask to ostend or implement the unsubscriber request.

World Health Organization unsubscribe request

Source: World Wellness Organisation

Facebook puts this frankly in their guidelines for developers: "Don't alter the type of info you send without consent. If people signed upward for a specific alarm, honour their preferences."

six tools for building effective Facebook chatbots

1. Heyday

Heyday is a multifunctional customer messaging platform that allows y'all to create Facebook Messenger bots that improve your customer feel. Its congenital-in conversational sales banana connects to your product catalog to provide personalized product recommendations in Messenger chats.

Heyday Makeup Forever custom messaging platform

Heyday also uses conversational Facebook chatbot AI to resolve customer service inquiries and empathise when it's necessary to pass the conversation on to a man agent.

2. Streamchat

Streamchat is one of the most basic Facebook chatbot tools out there. It's meant to be used for elementary automations and autoresponders. Rather than managing a whole conversation, it'southward useful for out-of-office replies or messages that set expectations virtually when yous'll be able to reply.

It'south quick to implement and piece of cake to first with if you're just dipping your toes into the chatbot waters.

3. Chatfuel

Chatfuel has an intuitive visual interface complemented by editable front end-cease and customization options. While you can build a Facebook Messenger bot for free, a lot of the more complex (and interesting) tools are simply available with Chatfuel Pro accounts.

four. MobileMonkey

This free tool features a visual chatbot builder for Facebook Messenger designed for non-technical users. Yous can apply it to build Q&A sessions in a Facebook Messenger chatbot.

There's also a "Chat Blast" feature, similar to Chatfuel's "broadcasting" feature, that allows you to send messages to multiple users at once. (Remember: Merely do this if y'all have permission!)

5. Messenger for Developers

If you accept the solid coding cognition required to code your ain Facebook chatbot, Facebook provides plenty of resource to go you started. And they are always working with their developer community to come up with new ideas to amend the user experience.

six. Facebook Creator Studio

While it's not strictly speaking a Facebook Messenger bot, Facebook Creator Studio does permit yous to ready upward some basic automated responses to common requests and events in Messenger. For example, you can set up an abroad message, provide contact information, or set up a listing of FAQs and answers. There's no bogus intelligence happening here to enable conversation or sales, but you can get some autoresponder functionality to keep Messenger working at a bones level when you're away from your desk.

Engage with shoppers on their preferred channels and turn customer conversations into sales with Heyday, Hootsuite's defended conversational AI tools for retailers. Evangelize 5-star customer experiences — at scale.

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