Are Bots the New Apps? – SALESmanago Launches Sales Bot for Facebook | Blog SALESmanago – Customer Engagement Platform for impact-hungry eCommerce marketing teams

Since Facebook’s developer conference F8 in April, bots are getting their time in the spotlight. They help to navigate the websites by being “interactive guides.” You’ll be hearing a lot more about chatbots soon, so let me introduce you to them with a brief overview.

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So, what exactly is a bot?

A bot is a program that imitates conversations with people by using artificial intelligence.

The software is designed to automate all kinds of tasks you would usually do on your own, such as ordering food, making an appointment, searching for news or finding the solutions to simple, logical problems. You no longer need to waste your time to install an app – the only thing you need to do is invite a bot to a conversation and chat with it like with a real human. If the bot is close to passing the Turing test (a series of questions designed to tell apart machines from real people while conversation; the example of this test’s practical usage is CAPTCHA mechanism), the chat should resemble the real life conversation.

Do I need a bot in my business?

Those who know how the wind blows assure that bots will cause a major paradigm shift in e-commerce customer service and all interactions of humans with software. So if you have a business, please think about implementing the chatbot, since their time is now. The technology has been around for a while – constantly improving and reducing risks, such as no trust to the bot or concern regarding the ability to understand each other. What’s also important: chatbots save your employees’ time so they longer have to answer simple questions or use a search engine to look for specific websites a person may ask about. That allows them to do various tasks more efficiently.

The intelligent, automated customer experience provides the great opportunities to e-commerce and advertising industries. The more the customer uses the chat box, the more personalized the messages are. Soon, users will also be allowed to pay directly from the platform for a product or service, making the whole process effortless.

It’s easy as 1-2-3! How does SALESmanago bot work?

SALESmanago launched a bot for Facebook Messenger that can automate customer service and sales on Facebook. The new tool uses artificial intelligence (AI) to recommend products based on previously recorded behavior from various channels. Additionally, it is fully integrated with SALESManago’s marketing automation software.

It can be used by any company to automate its customer service and sales through Facebook. Once you leave your email address while talking via Facebook Messenger, the bot recognizes you and links up the conversation with your profile on the SALESmanago platform. Using the information on your behavior from all available channels, including desktop, mobile, and Facebook apps, ad networks, call center or even brick-and-mortar stores, it can recommend you products, check your order status or help in the complaint process.

“This also works the other way around. All the data from your conversation with our bot is transferred to your profile and can be used for future offer customization. It can be delivered via e-mails, dynamic product recommendation boxes on the website or Facebook ads. All of this is automated by our system,” says Konrad Pawlus, CTO at SALESmanago. “For some users, the bot might be a great chat partner, but we designed ours to fit the e-commerce purposes.” – he adds.

Automatic Sales Chat

Automatic Sales Chat is a module that enables creating an automatic conversation with the user on Facebook Messenger. Using this feature guarantees an immediate reaction to your customers’ inquiries and hence, no inquiries left unattended and not answered to. The Automatic Sales Chat mechanism is based on artificial intelligence rules, while its configuration is very simple. The Automatic Sales Chat is a perfect solution for B2B and B2C actions.

What’s more, Sales Chat can be used as an additional communication channel on your website. The implementation is quite easy. Check THIS and THIS link for detailed guideline. TWhat you gain is an extra real-time communication channel enhanced with recommendations of products and services, tailored to customers’ needs and interests.

How does Automatic Sales Chat work?

To implement an automated conversation, you need to start with preparing scenarios. You can use such elements as:

Bot text – a command used to enter text to be shown to users;

Wait for a consultant – a consultant may join the conversation by interrupting the automatic chat with a bot or by terminating the chat to give the client a clear suggestion to wait for a consultant;

User’s command – enables to extend the conversation, depending on given defined words the user needs to type in order to go to the next conversation stage;

User’s command – buttons – allows for suggesting one of the 5 options the user may choose. Each option enables automating switch to the next conversation;

For ecommerce companies and all those who have the information on products and services included in XML file, we have the ecommerce module. It enables recognizing user’s exact preferences and – depending on the gathered information – automatically recommend up to 5 products. Available questions concern:

Minimal price
Maximal price
Product category
Product name
Product description
Product color

Creating elaborate scenarios is really pleasant, simple and intuitive thanks to available wizards. Before the chat is implemented, the entire conversation can be tested on Facebook with SALESmanago Chat Tester.

How smart are the bots?

We are still in the early days of the bot revolution, so they are not über-developed at this point. Today, we may observe a bot-to-consumer strike, but soon – with artificial intelligence improvement – bots will start consulting other bots to get the information they need, and delivering it to the customer afterwards. That will create a bot-to-bot-to-customer interaction. Other words, bots will be learning from each other (Machine Learning), which will guarantee a better communication and understanding between human and software.

Where can I learn more about bots?

Because the Bot topic is hot this season, we decided to make a special webinar dedicated to our Automatic Sales Chat. During this 60 min training, our expert will give you a tour through this useful tool. You’ll see how easy and user-friendly is our drag & drop bot creator, you’ll learn how to set up a simple chat scenario, and you’ll see a special ecommerce feature – automatic chat recommendations.

JOIN HERE

Would bots replace apps?

The idea of a world where people can interact with software to perform tasks more efficiently is compelling. Getting things done on one platform sounds very enjoyable and easy, compared to switching between dozens of apps. Well played, Mr. Zuckerberg!

Let’s face it: how many times have you installed an app and abandoned it after a single launch? According to a new study by Localytics, 23% of apps are abandoned after one usage. Sometimes the installation process takes more time than actual use.

Bots are a big potential opportunity, especially on Facebook, which is one of the fastest developing communication platforms. Chatbots work as invisible apps that are installed within seconds. Those intelligent personal assistants are infinitely patient, and the navigation is comfortable.

The big change is about to come, although it will take some time for a bot technology to become fully integrated into society.

We need to stay tuned to see what technology variations will bring for us, but for now – enjoy some of the developed bots and don’t forget to try ours!