Customer service teams went through their own pressure zone in the last few years. With more than 2 billion active Facebook users, it was extremely difficult to handle customer inquiries on this network alone – not to mention all the other channels of communication. But with the rise of chatbots, the situation became much simpler.
Chatbots – also known as Talkbots or simply Bots – are computer programs which simulate human conversations through voice commands or text chats or both. Today, companies use this tool to answer customer demands and improve their services. In this article, we will show you 4 ways to use Facebook Messenger bots to grow your business.
Best Ways to Utilize Facebook Chatbots
There are many ways to exploit chatbots and use them to improve customer service. Carl Bottorff, a social media marketer at Superior Papers, recently stated: “From simple tasks like answering basic user questions and all the way to complex operations, bots help service agents to handle all customers. This trend is only going to expand in the future but some chatbot features already play a key role in this field.”
But what exactly are these major influences brought by Facebook Messenger chatbots? Let’s check out the 4 most influential models here.
- Bots answer FAQ
One of the basic duties of chatbots is to answer frequently asked questions. Average time saving per chatbot inquiry when compared with traditional call centers is more than 4 minutes. This way, bots reduce your operational costs and allow service agents to focus on more demanding tasks.
At the same time, chatbots keep learning and they improve with each new conversation. The only thing you need to take care of is to let users know they are communicating with AI. When they complete a conversation, bots should ask if the user received all information he or she needed. If not, chatbot will pass the client directly to the real service agent.
- Bots improve advertising
Chatbots have the option of sending private messages to users and advertising your brand, current activities, or discount promotions. According to the recent study, email marketing has an open rate of 24%, while chatbot reached as much as 80% in that regard.
The best thing about Messenger chatbots is that they can customize a message so as to fit personal preferences of individual users. That way, the odds of making a bigger impact on an average follower are much higher and users answer calls to action more often than in traditional content marketing.
- Bots can entertain users
With more than 30 thousand chatbots on Facebook Messenger, it is obvious that some of them serve a different purpose. Some bots are designed to entertain users, offering them all sorts of amusing contents and digital activities. Each one of these activities improves brand image and strengthens emotional relations with your followers.
For instance, chatbots can send links to brand followers and lead them to content that is relevant to this target group. There are also many other appealing options like online games, opinion polls, quizzes, etc. A lot of people love to learn fun facts about the brand, which is another way to entertain users through Facebook Messenger chatbots.
- Bots offer special services
Most IT experts consider bots to be natural extensions of mobile apps. Using automated Facebook Messenger bots, you can integrate numerous services into one channel alone and save a significant amount of time and efforts to your users.
For example, some chatbots allow users to conduct payments through Messenger, update accounts, change personal information, or make use of one-time discounts and promotions. There are even bots which connect Facebook Messenger with online shopping platforms like eBay and enable users to make purchases instantly. The list of features goes on and it is about to get much bigger in the months to come.
Conclusion
Facebook Messenger chatbots represent a highly efficient extension to the traditional customer service model. It evolved so quickly that it even became a great model to address your followers directly and grow your business through one-on-one communication. In this article, we showed you 4 ways to utilize the possibilities of Facebook bots. Feel free to give them a try and write a comment if you have other interesting proposals to share with our readers.
Joan Selby is a former ESL teacher and a content marketer. She also runs her own blog about social media and writing tips. Joan is a Creative Writing graduate and fancy shoelover. A writer by day and reader by night, giving creative touch to everything. Connect with her on Twitter and Facebook.