The Continuing Rise of Facebook Messenger Chatbots

Facebook’s Messenger platform plays home to a fast-growing number of chatbots, booming since launch over the last two-and-a-half years. With over 1.3 billion people on the platform, it is a clear focal point for business, charities and educational institutions to engage with. But, what’s the word from the chat box as more brands and developers try to get attention on the platform?

At its F8 event a few months back, Facebook announced it had crossed the 300,000 chatbot barrier on the Messenger platform. That’s despite the brief pause as the company checked through its security and privacy features, but now new bots are being added at pace, at a 200% annual growth rate.

Brands and businesses large and small set their new bots to appear on Messenger every day. The latest big names include WestJet’s Juliet, a French and English bot with AI skills to help the Canadian airline deal with customer queries from its million followers. In the finance sector, Raiz Invest, a fast-growing micro-investing platform with over 25,000 followers, also launched a bot called Ashlee to help prospects understand the mobile-app based opportunity.

These moves make sense as the majority (56%) of users would rather use messaging than call a company’s customer services. Add to that the fact that 53% are more likely to shop with businesses they can message, there’s a clear business case to keep and win customers rather than see them move to a move communicative rival. Look in any market and you can see businesses adding chatbots to their business as part of the office furniture.

Chatbots Gaining New Features

But, do they work? While bots are still in their formative years, Danish toy giant LEGO demonstrated the value of their chatbot, seeing a 3.4X boost in sales. Its Christmas 2017 family-friendly highlighted the creativity and sense of fun LEGO toys can unlock in children. Gaining sales while reducing ad costs is something many businesses would like to achieve and with a little thought around your brand and use of the bot, it is possible.

As Messenger grows in scope, chatbots can play video or even use augmented reality. These allow new ways to interact beyond just text and emoji, which widens the audience further and creates new opportunities for marketers, while even simple customer support apps can use imagery to shorten conversations and refine queries.

Brands can create their own bots directly in Facebook with features like Natural Language Processing, payments and extensions. Or, they can use wider platforms like №1 SnatchBot. It offers similar features but allows a bot to publish on your own website, in mobile apps and on Facebook Messenger and other communication services. The fast-growing chatbot is attracting more vendors into the market, with a focus on growing features and a global audience.

Clever Bot Uses for Better Value

Victoria Beckham, Jamie Oliver, MoshTix, Kodak and many others are using bots to sell, raise awareness or engage with their audience. And the move from sharing information to generating sales is taking over, with Kodak trying to sell you prints of your favourite photos, making wider use of the Facebook platform just one example.

Any business and its clients or customers can benefit from a chatbot, but being on Facebook makes the bot immediately accessible, shareable and a focal point for growth. The bots can also help grow your audience, From handling bookings to travel queries, promoting the latest offers, bots are rapidly becoming the most accessible face of many businesses.

All the business need to is work out what questions customers will answer during their busy Facebook day, provide the right information, and then look to broaden the conversation to make the bot more useful.

Chatbot success comes from the 24/7 access, making your business always contactable. Beyond that, every company needs to measure what it is doing now, and see how the chatbot helps save time, reduce worker effort or boosts sales to measure the return on investment.

With most businesses looking to move to chatbots, virtual assistants and other technologies, time is running out to make it look like a competitive advantage. Companies should be making their plans now or will likely miss out and be left behind.