How to Use Facebook Messenger Bots for Business?

By Abhinav Girdhar | Last Updated on September 2nd, 2022 10:16 am | 5-min read

Chatbots are taking over the industry. Their potential is endless. There is a lot of hype surrounding chatbots. According to a survey, nearly 79% of businesses want chatbots in their business.

Today we are going to talk about a particular type of chatbot that is deployed usually on Facebook. Facebook bots or Facebook Messenger bots are chatbots specifically designed for the Facebook platform and then deployed to it.

Facebook bots are programmed to understand questions, provide answers, and execute tasks. For customers, chatbots are user-friendly tools that are easily accessible any time they want. They are a great alternative to normal forms of customer support such as emails, user guides, and phone support.

The usage of Facebook bots is continually increasing. To give you a perspective here’s an infographic with a few statistics.

Facebook chatbots have a surprisingly good click-through rate. This means that you can use these chatbots efficiently both for customer support and social media marketing. There are many reasons why you may need a Facebook bot. Keeping that in mind, let us jump right in.

Why Use Facebook Bots For Your Business?

The greatest advantage of building a Facebook bot is the ‘low entry barrier’. Deploying a chatbot is very easy and since most of your customers are likely to use Facebook, they are likely to find it easy to use your chatbot.

Another reason to build a Facebook bot is that right now, it’s unlikely that your competitors provide a service like it. It could become a major differentiator for your brand. In that context, a big question comes up – “What can a Facebook bot do for my business?”

Let’s answer that! Here is why you should have a Facebook bot for your business –

Reaches Your Audiences Directly

Facebook is one of the easiest ways to reach a large audience. It is, after all, the biggest social media website on the plant. People are more likely to read the messages and click the CTAs sent by your chatbot as proven by the infographic.

Generate and Identify Leads

A Facebook chatbot will greet potential customers, identify their needs, ask them relevant questions, etc. The chatbot will automatically judge good leads and direct them to your sales team improving lead generation. If you want to learn how to use chatbots to generate leads, you can read our guide on how to use chatbots to generate leads.

Cost-Effective in the Long Run

Chatbots are extremely cost-effective in the long run since they kill two birds with one stone. They can both market your products and provide customer support 24*7. The best part is that they’ll do this on the biggest social media platform on the Internet.

Re-engage with Leads

Your bots are capable of retaining information and can re-engage with old leads to ensure that your drop-off rates decrease. The bot can make suggestions to older leads or up-selling your products.

You can learn more about marketing with chatbots with our special guide to chatbot marketing.

Facebook Bots Case Studies

To understand how Facebook bots can be used for business, let us look at a few case studies of major brands that use Facebook messenger bots for their social media strategies.

Marriott Rewards

Marriott is a brand that focuses on providing excellent customer service. Marriott joined the chatbot race early, releasing their first chatbot in 2016. The original chatbot was meant as a way for customers to combine their Marriott and Starwood reward cards because the two brands merged.

However, the chatbot was such a hit that Marriott transformed it into a full booking bot that suggests users hotels for the destinations they are traveling to. The bot also sends users content suggestions from Marriott’s magazine, local guides for travelers, and important information if they’re visiting a city.

UNICEF

UNICEF’s U-report bot gathers opinions and data from younger people on world issues that matter to them. The goal of the UNICEF bot is to amplify people’s voices around the world. Ever since it’s conception, it has recorded over 3 million subscribers who regularly give their opinions on important matters.

Bud Light

Bud Light made an interesting Facebook chatbot in 2017. Made for the NFL, the chatbot let people order a beer case and get it delivered under an hour on match days. This chatbot was extremely effective. Numbers show that it had an engagement rate of over 75%.

The application of Budlight’s Facebook bot is an excellent application of a good chatbot. The chatbot personalized user experience (by only delivering within the hour on game day), made delivery easy (by geo-targeting based on match day), and sent user reminders on each matchday to increase sales(essentially re-engaging leads).

Facebook Bot Best Practices

Here are some of the best tips for Facebook bots from the experts.

Choose a goal

Your bot can’t do everything, yet. Chatbots are still relatively new. To ensure that you create the best possible chatbot, choose a goal for it. What you will want to do is create a chatbot that focuses on one business process. A customer support chatbot should not be used for booking appointments. Keep your chatbot simple.

Let Your Customers Know

Ensure that your customers know what your chatbot does. When launching, tell customers everything about it, and be honest with them. Tell them what the chatbot does, how it does it and how customers can use the chatbots for their needs. You must also know how to get people to use your chatbots.

Personalize your bots

Personalization is an important marketing tool in the current day and age. Segment your audience and personalize their chatbot experience. Identify customer preferences to get higher click-through rates for your chatbots.

Keep conversations short

The eventual goal of your chatbot is to save a user’s time. Ensure that your users get what they want as quickly as possible. Your users must not need to click more than 5 times to solve their inquiry. To learn how you can get your chatbots to converse better, check out 5 steps to design better conversational flows.

Keep Learning

Ask users for user feedback and use the feedback to improve the chatbot you are offering. Do remember that chatbots cannot replace traditional marketing and support agents/techniques yet. Chatbots are unique; treat them like that. Keep an eye on how customers respond to your chatbot and continually keep improving the user experience.

Transparency

Your chatbot will collect user data. Let users know of it. Transparency in the current day and age is important.

Tool for Building Facebook bots

The biggest question in your mind right now will be “How to build a Facebook Messenger bot?” The answer to that is relatively simple. You can go to Appy Pie’s Chatbot. Appy Pie Chatbot is a no-code chatbot builder that allows you to create Facebook Chatbots without needing to code a single line.

Creating a chatbot with Appy Pie is a simple 3-step process –

1. Enter the name that you want to give to the bot
   Select the type of bot you want to make
2. Customize the chatbot the way you want
   Make your chatbot within a few minutes
3. Add the chatbot to your Facebook account
   It’s a simple integration

You can create even more types of chatbots with Appy Pie Chatbot. Here is a list of the various types of chatbots you can create with Appy Pie.

Conclusion

Facebook Messenger bots are effective at what they do. Deploying them is easy and getting customers to use them is also easy. They are great for small businesses too. All kinds of chatbots are beneficial for small businesses.

Leave us a comment if you have an idea for a Facebook bot that businesses might be able to use!