What makes a chatbot special

Chatbots, in essence, are a computer programmed virtual assistant that can have many features throughout a company. A chatbot is basically a program based on Artificial Intelligence (AI) that will have a conversation with a real person through any medium of communication. AI chatbots are an evolution of natural language processing which has enabled companies to step up their customer service quality. Apps like Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and other messaging apps have seen large increases in monthly active users, with Facebook reporting 1.3 Billion monthly active users in April 2019. Customer service is most likely going to be largely made up of chatbots in the next few years as they eliminate the need for large teams of workers.

On top of customer support, bots are very useful tools for companies to get to know their customers. Chatbots, using messenger marketing campaigns, are able to gather information about customer preferences and tastes by using quizzes and other simple questions. Using machine learning these chatbots can turn data into individual recommendations and large segment data for the company to better understand their customers.

In the history of chatbots, there are two main types of bots. The first is a simple chatbot which only understands predetermined keywords and has the developers write out answers specific to each phrase. These are very limited and if prompted with any word not in its database will be unable to answer. The following type of chatbot is a smart bot, this bot uses artificial intelligence to communicate. This allows these bots to understand the text that they receive and to respond by giving information it believes is adequate. These types are a lot more performant than simple bot but are still far from perfect and still in development.

What are Use Cases of Chatbots

Today’s chatbot technology has come a long way and now there are many ways companies use bots. The advantage of a bot is that there is no waiting as the bot is automatic and will quickly reply to any question. The main case is as previously stated customer, where a bot can easily and swiftly answer any questions a customer has. The advantage you get from this are that you avoid making your customer wait for an available person to talk to, and instead of having the customer go through the help section or FAQ section of your website the chatbot does it instead and answers the customer. They can also be used to send out newsletters to customers in a more fun and interactive way. The bot can gather information for companies by asking customers questions or through extracting information from the conversation. This can include size preferences or regular orders suggestions. Chatbots are at the center of messenger marketing which today is a huge opportunity for every business that does business online. Messenger marketing, also known as chatbot marketing, allows companies to send their customers newsletter updates, shipment tracking, contests, quizzes, and other curated content specific for each customer. This will increase engagement with customers and increase customer loyalty.

How to create a chatbot

The chatbot development process can be as easy or as hard as you wish it to be. There are multiple ways someone can go about making a bot for their company. First, you have to know in which department you want to implement it, what do you want it to achieve? Then you can either choose to use an existing bot software or to build one from scratch. Building a bot from scratch can be very resource intensive but it can also lead to a more precise bot for what your company needs. Chatbot platforms exist in many forms. Using a premade chatbot can be less expensive but also will require some tweaking.

Leaders of Chatbots

The are many chatbot examples today, many companies specialize in making and supplying bots to businesses. The best chatbots that exist today are the following according to Hubspot:

• Watson Assistant
• Bold360
• Rulai
• LivePerson
• Inbenta
• Ada
• Vergic

Some of these companies are making conversation bots that have capabilities far beyond what we think is possible today. An example of a very advanced chatbot is the one Google presented during one of their presentations, this bot called a hairdresser and made an appointment for a haircut imitating human voice and intonations, this has left many people curious about all the possibilities possible with a chatbot but also raising the question of ethicality of this bot and if the people who are talking to a bot should be made aware at the beginning. Watson assistant was developed by IBM and has huge capabilities. Chatbots can also be implemented in twitch chat bots and Skype chat bots.

Conclusion

Overall this technology has a lot of potential and is still in an early stage of life. These bots may soon take over much of the services that companies offer to their clients online and there are many reasons for this including the fact that they raise customer satisfaction levels and also provide instant help for customers who may have questions or problems with a company. There are many companies that create these AI bots today and some are better than others but overall they all have different purposes that are useful for firms today.

Chatbots provide companies with a new tool that is still very new but is a huge asset that if used properly can make a very large difference in customer satisfaction and customer understanding.

Chatbot software is something a company should really utilize properly. Companies that invest today to become part of this movement during its early stages will be the leaders of the chatbot industry.

Check out Chatchamp, the messenger marketing tool to take advantage of the chatbot technology and generate more leads for your E-commerce.

What is a chatbot? Why should you care? was originally published in ECommerce Marketing Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

There is a considerable amount of traffic coming to your web store daily, but the sales figures do not seem to make up for it. This scenario can be attributed to several factors. The biggest and most common one being abandoned carts.

Statistic shows that a whopping 70% of shopping carts will never make it through the checkout process.

Imagine this — 10 people have already browsed through your products and added a couple of items to their carts. You are so close to sealing the deal, any moment now and they will be heading for payment. Then BAM! 7 of them ended up not purchasing and just left.

In another research done by Forrester, 88% of online shoppers admit to abandoning their shopping carts at the final ordering step. So how can we stop people from doing that? We will first have to understand why they are doing it.

“I’m just looking, thanks”

One of the top reason for customers abandoning their shopping carts is because they were just browsing and not ready to purchase yet.

A familiar situation, isn’t it? You walk into a store, take a look at the product, turn over the price tag, attempts to memorise the figures and calmly walk out again.

Truth is, everyone likes a good deal. Customers want to make sure that they are buying the product at the best price possible. Hence, they will likely continue to shop around a bit before coming back. As shoppers get smarter these days, they want to make more well-informed purchase decisions and they know just how to do it.

Some other times, the product could be something that was not on their shopping list in the first place. They simply chanced upon it while browsing. These purchases might involve a longer decision process, mainly composed of lengthy internal debates such as whether one really needs an Iron Throne Egg Cup.

With the sea of websites that an average customer visits each day, it is not surprising that they might have forgotten or lost the link to your web store.

As shop owners, it is your job to redirect them back to your store and encourage them to complete their purchase.

Retarget them after their visit by sending out a gentle reminder on Messenger. Key thing to take note is the 24-hour magic time frame. A study suggests that reminder emails that are sent out before that 24-hour mark boost ROI by over 2800%. People don’t check their emails half as often as they check their messages. So, if emails alone can yield such impressive ROI, just imagine the kind of result you can expect with Messenger!

Missing Product Information

When it comes to online shopping, the quality and completeness of product information have a huge impact on sales. Without being able to see or touch the product first-hand, these information are pretty much the only thing that customers can depend on to know what they are really purchasing.

In the eyes of the digital consumer, a product is only as good as the information associated with it. — via RetailDIVE

30% of customers have reportedly abandoned their shopping carts due to poor product description.

Just have a look at these two examples from Amazon:

Needless to say, I was immediately sold on the TomTom product. The product page provided all the information I needed and coupled with a competitive price, there was no need to look further.

As with the Sistema product, I had to dig into the customer feedbacks and surf on the net further to try collate all the information I needed before clicking on purchase. Honestly, it felt more like a game of jigsaw puzzle and I eventually made my purchase in the store.

Missing product information not only affects cart abandonment rate, but also returns and brand distrust.

Always try to include more high-quality product images (preferably from different angles) and product details whenever it is possible. Do your job right, so your customers don’t have to run around looking for missing information.

Unexpected Cost

Unexpected cost is probably the #1 reason why people abandon their carts. According to Statista, it makes up for 25% of abandoned carts.

What customer sees as product price is the same price they expect to pay in the end (excluding shipping and handling fees). If shipping cost is unavoidable, make it very clear at the start (e.g. through main banner, product page.) Don’t like it hide within the footers of your website.

Sneaking in additional cost at the checkout stage is very likely to turn your customers away.

Complicated Checkout Process

Make the checkout process as simple as possible. Customers are already at the final stage of purchase. Do not give them a reason to drop their carts and leave.

Unfortunately, many stores are still implementing long-winded checkout where customers are forced to create an account and fill up a long list of personal details (some of which absolutely unnecessary). This is an effective way to scare customers away.

Instead, offer customers guest checkout option or to create an account using their social login. Bonus of social login is that you can also tap on the data that is available from their social accounts. Talk about killing two birds with one stone!

Lastly, offer live chat.

Regardless of how well your website is designed, there will still be unanticipated customer queries. Product description and pictures may be available, but they are not fully dependable.

Hence, it will be good to provide customers a quick and easy way to contact you. Live chat is a great way. You can activate the customer chat plugin for your website by clicking on the button below.

Bottomline, always remember that customers are not looking for a reason to buy from you. They are looking for a reason NOT to buy from you. So do not give them one.

How to Deal with Cart Abandonment was originally published in ECommerce Marketing Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

In just the last couple of years, Facebook Messenger has proven itself to be a rising marketing channel that all brands out there should keep a lookout for.

We are betting on Messenger Marketing to be the new marketer’s pet phrase!

With more than 1.3 billion users and survey results showing over 50% of customers are more likely to shop with businesses they can message directly, it is hard to look away from the wealth of advantages that are left for businesses to mine from the Messenger platform.

You probably are very familiar with normal Facebook ads, but here is why you should be shifting your focus to Messenger ads instead:

• Messenger lets you reach your target audience in a minimal noise environment
• You can reach your audience faster in their preferred medium
• Messenger gives you the opportunity to later reach out to your audience on a personal level

What are FB Messenger Ads

Unlike normal Facebook ads, Messenger ads are mostly aimed to drive audiences to start a conversation with you on Messenger.

This is to drift away from the one-way conversation style where businesses just broadcast their ads on Facebook. Instead, Messenger ads promote a two-way conversation where your audiences are actively involved and engaged.

Types of Facebook Messenger Ads

There are 3 main types of Messenger ads:

• Facebook Messenger as destination
• Facebook Messenger sponsored messages
• Facebook’s Comment-to-Messenger feature

The ads work best in different scenarios, so it depends on the advertiser’s aim. We will now proceed to explore each of them.

1. Facebook Messenger as a Destination

Most of the Facebook ads you see includes a call-to-action button that redirects users to install an app or visit a product page. However, do you know that you can also redirect them to your Messenger? This is exactly what the Messenger destination ads do.

These ads prompt users to start a conversation with the business on Messenger — whether it is regarding customer support, a new product, or even to retrieve freebies and discount codes.

And why this is better than the other ads you ask?

This is because every user who contacts your business on Messenger immediately becomes a subscriber! This means that you will have the chance to reach out to them again later to do your retargeting.

Ads with Messenger as the destination can appear on 3 different platforms — Facebook news feed, Instagram feed and Messenger app home page.

If you are looking to generate more awareness and build up your Messenger subscribers list, this is a good way to achieve that. Once they are in your Messenger, it is easier to get their 100% attention without all the background noises (like those on busy new feeds).

2. Facebook Messenger Sponsored Messages

This one here essentially means that your ad messages are being sent directly into an existing Messenger conversation you had with your target audience.

Instead of having your ads appearing on the Facebook newsfeed, your target audience now sees your ad as a private message sent to them on Messenger. This type of ad ensures that your message gets seen by your audience.

When users tap on your ad, you can send them to a landing page, an app, or even start a conversation on Messenger with your business.

However, you need to take note that this type of ad only works on users who have previously contacted your business via Messenger. Otherwise, your business do not have the permission to reach out to them via messages on Messenger.

Facebook charges for these ad placements, regardless of whether the user opened your message. But, there is a workaround for this. By using a 3rd party chat manager (e.g. chatchamp), you can retarget these users without having to fork out the extra advertising dollars.

3. Facebook Comment-to-Messenger Feature

Alright, so this one is not really an ad per se. But, it is still a brilliant trick to achieve a better ad run.

Comment-to-messenger is a fairly new feature that was released by Facebook not too long ago. With this new feature, users are able to comment specific words on your Facebook post which will then automatically redirects them to start a conversation with you on Messenger.

Look at the example below. People were tasked to comment in the post with the word “Guide” to receive a free guide.

Everyone who commented with the correct keyword was then sent a message in their Messenger inbox. The message prompts them to reply BEFORE the receive the link to the free guide.

This step here is crucial. Only after they have messaged you, then will they be registered as your subscribers.

This could be a great strategy to significantly increase your ad’s relevance score. Rule of thumb is that the more positive comments, likes and shares an ad gets, the higher its relevance score.

Ads with higher relevance score will be broadcasted to a larger reach of audience and this also lowers your ad cost!

Start experimenting with these Facebook Messenger ads. Once you have built up a substantial list of Messenger subscribers, it will get even easier for you to fully realise the potential of what Messenger Marketing can do for your business.

Good luck! 🍀

Facebook Messenger Ads — What ECommerce Businesses Need to Know was originally published in ECommerce Marketing Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Talking to customers is no new trick. What is new is how Facebook Messenger has radically evolved the way businesses do so.

There are over 1.3 billion active users on Facebook Messenger today. Of which, over 50% have expressed that they prefer to shop with a business they can message directly.

In the last couple of years, we have seen exponential increase in the popularity of messaging apps and all signs are pointing to Messenger Marketing being the dominant trend in the years to come.

In this article, you will be guided through the quick steps to set up a Facebook Messenger chatbot for your business. It will take you only 5 minutes. Okay, maybe a wee bit more. But I promise it will be worth it. 😉

Step 1: Choose your chatbot service

The first step you have to take is to build a chatbot.

You can start building your own bot with the library of guides provided by Facebook. However, be warned that this can get pretty complicated. Especially if you do not have a lot of prior coding experiences.

Lucky for the majority of us Non-Programmers, there already exist a host of chatbot tools out there to help you get started immediately. If you have your own e-commerce shop, I strongly recommend chatchamp.

It comes with integrations to larger shop systems like Shopify and WooCommerce that would work right out of the box. As easy as setting up your new phone (or perhaps easier). It also covers all common use cases for e-commerce businesses without any prior coding experience.

Basically there only 3 simple things you need do during setup:

• Connect your business Facebook page

• Select the e-commerce platform you are using

• Integrate plugin with your e-commerce store

Step 2: Setup your basics chat flows

Now that you have connected your Facebook page and e-commerce store with the chatbot tool, the next step is to setup your automated chat messages for specific use cases.

A common problem in e-commerce is the huge amount of abandoned shopping carts. Luckily automated reminder messages in Facebook Messenger are a good way to recover these carts. Messenger Marketing is a very effective way to tackle the problems — the platform gets up to 90% open rates and 30% CTR.

The following screenshot shows an example on how to remind your customers about their abandoned cart in Messenger.

You can head over to “Abandoned Cart” under the Auto Remarketing dropdown menu to set up a basic Abandoned Cart campaign.

The next basic chat flow every e-commerce shop should implement are automated order and parcel delivery updates.

Customise your Order Confirmation and Parcel Tracking campaigns under the Automated Remarketing menu.

Additionally every chatbot should have implemented basic welcome messages.

Facebook recently launched its customer chat plugin. This gives you the opportunity to greet your customers when they come on your website. You can turn it on in your chatchamp account here.

Step 3: Encourage people to send you a text on Messenger

So you have tested your automated chatbot and it is functioning as it should. Everything is ready to go. However, it will not equate to any results if you have no subscribers. You have to drive traffic and encourage people to connect with you on Messenger.

There are 3 main types of audiences you can target.

Website visitors

Instead of the usual “Sign up to our mailing list for 15% discount” pop-ups requesting for email addresses, replace it with a “Send to Messenger” button. The discount code will automatically be sent to your customers on Messenger and they are now your subscribers too!

You should consider using “Send to Messenger” buttons and “Send to Messenger” checkboxes at the beginning of the customer journey while they are browsing on your web store.

These common tools are a good start:

· Above Add-to-Cart Button

· On Checkout Page

· Thank you Page

· Exit Intent Popups

You can activate all of them under the “Growth” menu in your chatchamp account.

Make sure to also set “Send Message” as your business Facebook page’s call-to-action. This encourages visitors of your Facebook page to start sending you messages and in doing so, subscribing themselves to your list.

Existing Audiences

You might already have an existing email list. Fret not, they are not going to waste. All you need to do is transition these people into your Messenger subscribers.

And it is not all that difficult. Just incentivise them to message you on Messenger! It could be for discount codes, free samples, lucky draw, etc. Get creative with this.

Check out how Boom! did it.

Simultaneously, retarget your existing customers with Facebook ads that open conversations in Messenger or send out sponsored messages to those who have interacted with your business on the platform previously.

Cold Traffic (Paid) — target with FB ads

If you are targeting audience from cold traffic, you may want to try setting up a Messenger Home ad.

Unlike sponsored messages, your target audience need not have contacted you via Messenger before. Your ad will appear on the home page of Messenger app.

Step 4: Analyse and Adapt

Lastly, analyse your results and take with you the learnings to test out new ways. There is no one single correct way to approach Messenger Marketing. It differs from business to business. And the best you can do is to keep testing till you find your Holy Grail.

What’s more important is to get started now! Be an early adopter. Not a late follower (or worse still, a Laggard).

Build Your Messenger Chatbot in 5 Minutes was originally published in ECommerce Marketing Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

You already set up your first Messenger Marketing Campaign, e.g. building your first chatbot. So what now? You want to gain some traction on it. This article is about different sorts of channels and entry points you can increase your subscriber list of your chatbot with. In the first part of the article I am introducing Facebook Messenger Ads. The second part will demonstrate some cool organic techniques how to grow your subscriber list without paying any money.

Facebook News Feed Ads with Destination Messenger

The most common (paid) practice to grow your chatbot audience is Facebook Ads. Traditionally in a News Feed Ad the Call-to-Action Buttons where something like Like our page, Download an app or Visit our Website. There is a new option now, which is called Send Message with Facebook Messenger as destination.

Let’s go through it step by step:

1. Create a regular Facebook Ad with a video or image as the media and fill it with your promotional content. Be aware of the importance of ad text and headline as Messenger Ads are quite a new topic and many user do not expect to switch to the Messenger by clicking on an ad. Therefore it is necessary to prepare the user that the Messenger will open.
2. Choose Messenger as Destination and select Set up messages to customize your welcome message.

3. You have several options for your first message you send to your user after the ad click. You can choose between Quick Creation or inserting a custom JSON. Using a JSON enables you to send custom templates like button or gallery templates within the first message. In my opinion the welcome message should ensure that the user understands what is happening and what he can expect from the chatbot. Therefore the Quick Creation of the welcome message is sufficient enough.

In the screenshot below you see the Quick Creation Editor in the Ads Manager. Each welcome message can have an optional introductory text. Additionally you can choose between text, image & text or video. If you choose image & text you can also add a title and a subtitle for the image. The Call to Action of the welcome message can be a Quick Reply or a Button.

In my example I chose the introductory text to welcome the subscriber to the chat. The image and the text below should then prepare the user what he can expect by starting the chatbot. Don’t forget to insert your payload into your button action if you want your bot to react to the button click accordingly.

By selecting Preview in Messenger App Facebook will send you the welcome message and you can preview it on your mobile phone anytime.

4. Now you are ready to go. Launch you Ad and you will start growing your subscriber list.

Hints & Tricks

In my very first Messenger Marketing Campaigns I noticed a high drop rate (up to 80%) between the link click of the ad and the first interaction of the user inside the chat. You can measure that by comparing Unique Link Clicks with New Messaging Conversations inside your Ads Manager.

I was very clueless how to improve the transition from the Facebook Ad to the Messenger. After a lot of testing with different headlines, ad texts and welcome messages I can say that is is necessary to ensure that the user knows what will happen. At any time. As most of the user expect to go to a landing page after clicking on a Facebook Ad you have to clarify inside the Ad Text that the user will move to the Messenger.

Then the welcome message kicks in, which is the next critical part. michael wrote a really good article about which variables you can test within the welcome message to ensure a smooth transition between the ad and the Messenger.

Thanks for reading and stay tuned, I will publish an article about organic growth options next week!

How to grow your subscriber list: Part I was originally published in M³ | Messenger Marketing Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The newest opportunity in online marketing is called Messenger Marketing. And guess what? The possibilities it presents are huge. In this article, I’ll provide a short overview of the reasons why Messenger Marketing is the new way for online marketers. In addition, I’ll discuss the big advantages and offer some insights into how you can use it for your business.

What happened?

Mobile messenger applications have become a strong force in the mobile app sector. In 2015 the four big messenger apps surpassed the four biggest social networking apps in terms of monthly active users. More than one billion people are using Facebook Messenger.

What does this shift in application usage mean to companies, especially online marketers?

It’s obvious, that the way we communicate with our customers must change. As a company, we must be in the places where our customers are having their conversations. Especially where they’re spending the most time online.

Until last year, there was almost no opportunity for companies to reach customers inside chat. Then, in early 2016 Facebook launched its Messenger API (learn more) and the chatbot hype started to grow. Chatbots are automated services that can respond to humans within a chat. They are one of the hottest topics in tech and marketing, because they are completely changing the way businesses communicate with their customers.

With the launch of Messenger, companies can now automate communication with their customers using chatbots within their Facebook pages. And Messenger Marketing has become the new way to reach your customers!

What are the main advantages?

The main advantage of Messenger Marketing over other online marketing strategies is that the users are spending most of their time online inside their messenger applications. That has an enormous impact on the probability of reach your customers.

Another huge advantage is that the chat itself is not one-way communication, but two-way. You as a company are not just sending out a single email newsletter to the end user, instead you’re having a whole conversation in which you can react to users’ preferences and needs. That enables you to personalize your content big time. In the end, marketing is all about sending the right content/products to the right customers to fit their personal needs. Messenger Marketing is going to lift this to a new level.

And don’t forget: chatbots are automated, so they’re available 24/7.

How does it work?

First you need to build a subscriber list. You can compare that to a classic list of email leads. There are several ways to grow your subscriber list. One possibility is Messenger Destination Ads (like the classic newsfeed ad but with Messenger as the destination). We’ll talk about the possibilities in one of the next articles, so stay tuned.

After you have your first subscribers, it’s all about getting to know them better. For example, a streaming service like Sky wants to know which subscriber are into which kind of movie/series genre. These personal interests could be gathered either explicitly by asking users inside your chat, or implicitly by analyzing the data in terms of how the subscribers communicate within the chat. And don’t forget, this is all automated by a chatbot. You’ll set it up once and receive information about every subscriber who enters your chat.

Afterward, the exciting part about Messenger Marketing begins. You can segment your subscribers according to their preferences. For each segment, you can create new Messenger Marketing campaigns to send the best content to the subscribers who really want to receive it. A huge House of Cards fan is interested in when the next season will begin, so Sky can send important informations about House of Cards right into his Messenger. That has a huge impact on your customer engagement and thus, also on your sales strategy.

Where to go from here?

If you’re interested in creating your first chatbot, there are several SaaS tools that can you help to build your chatbot within minutes. If you want to boost your marketing strategy using Messenger Marketing, chatchamp.io is a good choice to start with. They are enabling Messenger Marketing for business, and you’ll have a detailed analysis of your whole funnel, from growing your subscriber list to selling your product.

Remember: It’s always about delivering real value to your customers. Jump on the Messenger Marketing train and send the right content to the right people.

The Rise of Messenger Marketing was originally published in M³ | Messenger Marketing Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.