What is a Facebook Messenger bot?

At the most fundamental level, chatbots offer a way for organizations to automate many low-level customer service functions.

Instead of waiting on hold to speak to a service agent, customers can chat with a bot to answer basic pre-purchase questions, or to complete the early stages of an RMA returns request.

Chatbots are supported by a range of different platforms, but Facebook Messenger is probably the most important when it comes to dealing with shoppers.

After all, Facebook Messenger use now far exceeds that of the social network itself among consumers.

In fact, according to Business Insider, the top 4 messaging apps now have more active users than the top 4 social networks.

Customers simply click the “Message” button on your Facebook page (or website) and a Messenger session is launched automatically, allowing them to type a question and begin chatting with your bot.

With the right chatbot in place, virtually any customer interaction can be initiated and automated using Messenger.

The importance of bots

With a well-staffed customer service department, bots may seem like a pointless extravagance—but they offer all businesses significant benefits, including:

• Reducing the workload for frontline staff, allowing them to focus on more complicated customer issues
• Being available 24/7/365—even when your staffed service desk is not
• Letting customers access basic information quickly and easily, increasing the convenience of your offering

What effect will these benefits have on your bottom line? Prepare to have your mind blown.

Juniper Research estimates chatbots will cut global business costs by $8 billion a year by 2022.

How to make a Facebook Messenger bot

Considering the power of Facebook chatbots, you’ll probably be surprised to hear that they can be built by anyone.

With tools like Chatfuel you can build and deploy a bot in just 7 minutes—and you don’t have to be an experienced developer, either.

In fact, there is no coding required at all.

If you already have a Facebook page in place, the basic bot building process looks like this:

1. Sign up for a Chatfuel account

Visit Chatfuel.com and click the Get Started for Free button on the homepage. You will be prompted to log in to your Facebook account and grant Chatfuel permission to access your public profile and email address.

2. Link your Facebook page

With your Facebook login confirmed, you will be redirected to your Chatfuel account dashboard. Click “Connect” to add your Facebook page. Chatfuel will show a welcome message to confirm the page has been linked successfully.

3. Create a Messenger greeting

The next step is to create a welcome message that will be shown to your customers when they launch a Messenger chatbot session. This message is extremely important because it tells users what to do and what to expect.

• Go back to your Facebook page and click Settings -> Messaging
• Set the Show a Messenger Greeting switch to Yes
• Click Change
• Enter your welcome message into the box, and click Save

Now when a customer clicks the Message button (see stage 6) on your Facebook page, this message will be displayed first.

4. Create a welcome message

When a chatbot session is launched, your user is shown a ‘welcome message’.

This is where you can greet the customer by name and provide further hints about how to get the most from their chatbot session.

• In your Chatfuel dashboard, click Welcome Message
• Add your desired copy to the box—for example, “Hi {{first name}}, how can I help you?”

And that’s it—the changes are saved automatically. You can test the welcome message yourself by visiting your Facebook page and clicking the Message button.

5. Create a default reply

Sometimes a user will ask a question that the Facebook Messenger chatbot cannot answer. When this happens, you will need a default reply to tell them what to do next (email support, reword their question, call your helpdesk, etc.).

• In your Chatfuel dashboard, click the Default Answer button.
• Change the placeholder text to something more friendly (“Sorry, I’m still learning the ropes. Please try again!”)

Again, your changes are saved automatically.

6. Unleash the AI