What Facebook Messenger Bots Mean For Omni Channel Retail

Facebook is always ever changing and improving their user experience to figure out the best ways for people to easily communicate with each other. They’ve made it so connecting with every person in the world is possible. Why not connect with your favorite businesses the same way? That was the thought process of Mark Zuckerberg and his team. Their solution: building Bots for Messenger so customers can interact with businesses right from the Messenger app!

Bots for Messenger

According to Zuckerberg at F8 2016, “No one likes calling a business anymore and no one wants to have to download a new app for every single business or service they’d like to interact with.” The idea behind it is that “you should be able to message a business like you would message a friend, you should get a quick response, and it shouldn’t take up all of your attention.” Zuckerberg is making it so businesses can build a deeper interaction with their customers through the Messenger app in a way that’s contextual, convenient, and enjoyable. As he shows an example of how to use it, he laughs, “To order flowers on 1-800-Flowers, you never have to call 1-800-Flowers again.” 1-800-Flowers, Staples and CNN are just a few examples of the businesses that agreed to be a part of the beta testing of the Bots.
Bots for Messenger is powered with artificial intelligence so you can build natural language services to communicate directly with people. Bots for Messenger can provide anything from automated subscription content like weather and traffic updates to communications between a business and it’s customer like receipts, shipping notifications and live, automated messages directly to the person. With this app, you can exchange text and images and interact with bubbles containing multiple calls-to-action. For example, once subscribed, CNN will send you a message with options like, “Top Stories”, “Stories for you” and “Ask CNN.” You would tap the “Top stories” bubble and it will respond back with some article options for you to scroll through, presenting even more options per story, such as, “Read Story”, “Get a Summary” and “Ask CNN.” The best part about this update is that they are still putting people first by letting them remain in control. They are giving you the option to mute and block the communications that you don’t want to receive.

What Does This Mean for Onmi Channel Retailers?

Messenger Bots can really help expose yourself to your customers and really get them where they already are. We always want to focus on staying at your customer’s fingertips! What better way than to message them directly on an app they already use daily? Using Messenger Bots allows you to keep your customers updated and informed with sale events, online and/or in-store orders, and engage with them in a 2-way conversation method.
Aspect has put together a demonstration of what this process would look like. This is a great example of how Messenger Bots can work out-of-store and even in-store. Give it a try and let us know what you think!
Are you pro the idea of Messenger Bots or against them? I think this is a really interesting idea and can’t wait to give it a try!