What are Facebook Messenger bots?

The basic explanation for the term chatbot could actually be an automated messaging software that uses AI to chat with people.
Bots are coded to comprehend questions, provide responses and perform tasks. From the customer’s perspective, it’s a friendly and affordable time-saver. Instead of opening an app, making a phone call, performing a search, or loading a web page, your customer can simply type a message, just like they would with a friend.
Chatbots have been around in some form for decades and today they exist on websites, apps, social media, etc.
A Facebook Messenger bot engages in conversations with some of the 1.3 billion people who use Facebook Messenger every month.
If your business has a Facebook presence, you probably already have a Facebook Messenger strategy. A Facebook Messenger bot is the way to take it one or more steps further.

Why use Facebook Messenger bots?

Let’s start with the two main pros of using Facebook Messenger bot.

First, there is no barrier to entry for both you and your target audience. Facebook Messenger is one of the most popular apps in the world and is becoming more powerful every day.

And it’s not just for group chats between friends and family. People nowadays prefer messaging more than any other mode of communication and the same is true even in their dealings with businesses. People exchange 2 billion messages with businesses through Facebook Messenger every month.

Compare that to the rest of the mobile app market, where 71% of users delete an app within 90 days.

Also, building a Facebook Messenger bot is not only more effective for reaching your customers, but it’s also much cheaper than building a mobile app.

The second advantage is that there is still a lot of room for a business to move beyond the competition.
Chatbots can also help you bypass the competition in your email inbox.

So that’s the context. Let’s go over what exactly a Messenger chatbot can get you:
1. Engage your audience directly
Most people are more unlikely to leave a message unread on messenger than on other channels. They are also more likely to respond and move further along the customer journey due to the nature and immediacy of the channel.

2. Save time and money on customer service
Customers expect 24/7 availability and want to be prioritized at all times. Also, they may ask the same questions several times.
Stop spending your time trying to assist your customers to find their order, book an appointment or simply find out the price of a product. Let the Messenger chatbot do it for you and focus on what really needs your attention.

3. Lead Generation
Your bot has the ability to recognize the intentions of each customer and give them proportional responses. So, it can immediately direct high-quality leads.

4. Handle e-commerce transactions
The bots are suitable for making sales too. Let your customers complete their order without even having to leave Facebook Messenger and see cart abandonment rates drop dramatically.

5. Re-engaging customers
Bots collect and store information about all your customers, which you can use at any time to re-contact them in case they have dropped out.

Take the next step for your business with Routee’s Facebook Messenger API

Boost your impact on Facebook with Routee’s Facebook Messenger API. Routee provides the tools you need to get Facebook Business Messenger up and running, helping you make it possible to open a powerful and sustainable Facebook communication channel.

Example

Your Header should contain authorization and content-type:
HEADERS

KEY	VALUE
Content-Type	application/json
Authorization	Bearer {access_token}

An example request is shown below:

curl –request POST
–url https://connect.routee.net/sms/campaign
–header ‘authorization: Bearer 12dc9fe4-7df4-4786-8d7a-a46d307687f4’
–header ‘content-type: application/json’
–data ‘{
“campaignCallback":{
“strategy":"OnCompletion",
“url":"http://www.yourserver.com/mindpuzzle/campaigns"
},
“callback": {
“strategy": “OnCompletion",
“url": “http://www.yourserver.com/message"
}, “body":"Welcome to MindPuzzle! Invite your friends and win special gifts. see more in http://my.link/url", “campaignName":"Welcoming",
“to":[
“+30694xxxxxxxx",
“+35594xxxxxxxx",
“+44794xxxxxxxx",
“+30694xxxxxxxx",
“+22894xxxxxxxx",
“+32294xxxxxxxx"
], “scheduledDate":"2017-01-23T09:00:01Z", “from":"MindPuzzle"
}’

Integrate now and start working

As soon as you create your bot, you’re in action.
Use Waymore’s all-in-one platform to test your strengths, measure the performance of your campaigns, and continuously evolve your strategy with the help of cutting-edge technology.

By now, everyone knows that automation makes marketing easier, better, and more efficient. It improves sales conversions, shortens the sales cycle, extends customer lifetime value, increases return on investment, and creates a more collaborative workforce. Nevertheless, for all its advantages, marketing automation can come at a heavy cost. Especially if not implemented correctly.

Although marketing automation customization has exploded in the last couple of years, too many marketers are still making a lot of mistakes when implementing and using marketing automation tools. If you fail to set up your tools the right way, it can lead to frustration in the short group and a lot of missed opportunities in the long run. Now, let's see the most common marketing automation mistakes you should avoid.

Common marketing automation mistakes

You don’t have a strategy

An excellent strategy should be the foundation of your marketing automation campaigns. Before you start sending emails and assigning roles, take the time to develop and refine a content and lead generation strategy.

Spamming your clients

With automation making things so simple and fast, it's hard to fight the temptation to spam your contact list with emails. The metrics may even look good – but they won't last. Just because you can send frequent emails, doesn't mean you should. Email automation is ideal for sending relevant, personalized emails at the right time and place. No annoying spam.

Giving priority to quantity over quality

This is a common mistake of many online businesses. In an effort to beat the competition, you may be tempted to prioritize quantity over quality and focus on producing more content than anyone else in your niche. However, that won’t help you. Automation is designed to help businesses develop highly personalized solutions for customers. Invest more time in your content development strategy and make sure you only send content that is exceptional in terms of pure quality.

Non-compliance with GDPR

Υou need to ensure that your company complies with the GDPR. You must protect your customers' data and use it in accordance with the usage agreement between your company and the customers. In addition, you must allow your customers to unsubscribe from your messages with a prominent link at the bottom of your message, accompanied by your company's physical address. Failure to do so can lead to lawsuits, which could destroy your business.

You do not test

If you're not testing, how do you know your strategy, campaign, or customer journey is working?
Getting the most out of email automation software means using testing wherever possible. Otherwise, you'll never know which idea has the best performance.
Variations you can test include:
Subject line
CTAs
Landing pages
Device compatibility

Playing set and forget

We understand that the purpose of automation is to alleviate workload and bring better marketing results. However, that doesn't mean you can simply set and forget an automation campaign. Automation will undoubtedly save you countless hours of work, but you still have to guide marketing campaigns and track their progress.
Moreover, you may find that your marketing efforts are not yielding the desired results. This is usually not a cause for concern and happens to all marketing campaigns over time, but it does mean that you need to analyze your data and develop more optimal strategies.

Marketing is a dynamic field. If you don't stay up to date and keep working on it, your campaigns will get progressively worse. Don't get lazy and don't fall into this common marketing automation mistake.

Use of more than one automation platform

Marketers are sometimes very eager to automate tasks. This may require more than one automation platform, but we highly recommend it. Of course, multiple platforms can offer more capabilities than a single automation program, but they also bring a host of unnecessary and unwanted options. If you are starting to automate your processes, a large number of functions can be counterproductive and it can be difficult to track and analyze feedback.

In addition, if you use more platforms, you risk forgetting to check certain tasks and processes, making them more likely to malfunction or underperform.
We recommend you do your research before choosing any marketing software. If you're looking for an all-in-one platform that will help guide your marketing efforts, we advise you to check out Waymore.

This powerful platform will allow you to store and process your customer data, as well as automate all types of marketing tasks.

Not integrating your database

Another common automation mistake comes in the form of unused databases. If your automation software doesn't contain a database of your most valuable information, you're essentially starting with a huge disadvantage. Always make sure to integrate and integrate your database into your marketing automation solution.

Invest in all-in-one marketing automation software.

Marketing automations should make things easier and more efficient. You and your team won't get there tho, if you spend too much time on updating documents or manually targeting your database of leads. Integrated marketing automation software offers a variety of criteria options for targeting your audience, as well as visualization tools so you can see how your marketing automation efforts are working together.

This means you'll spend less time writing numbers and emailing spreadsheets to your team members, and more time implementing strategies designed for lead nurturing.

Although most companies are starting to implement good business practices, they may make mistakes that can have a negative impact on their brand awareness.

Your customers expect a lot from your business – you probably already know that. Treat them well, in good times and bad, and they could become your most loyal brand ambassadors. However, if you let your customer service slip or fail at any point, then the story could be very different.

Providing excellent customer service is not an option or a luxury; it is a standard your customers expect. The customer experience can win you many new customers or put you out of business, depending on how it goes. Taking care of and addressing customer needs is vital to success. However, if they are overwhelmed and overcrowded with tasks, teams often struggle to deliver results and build relationships with customers.

While some companies are starting to apply good business practices, they may make mistakes that can have a negative impact on their brand awareness. Often, companies get sucked into a false sense of security by seeing decent business results, but there are no customer relationships behind them, so in the long run, the business may not be profitable.

Customer service mistakes

Let’s see some common customer service mistakes and how you can fix them and avoid them in the future.

Unavailability for customers

This is the pain point for your customers! Your customers may be in different time zones and would like issues to be resolved immediately. Customers have to be able to contact you whenever they need to. They lose trust and your company's reputation takes a hit when they can't contact you. Hiring the right staff and implementing a Chatbot is a very useful solution to manage all incoming customer queries. At times, customers would like to talk to you over the phone and make things right. Place your phone number on your website in an area that is easy to locate.

Missing data

Data is all around us. What you need to do is to select it and go into deep analysis. The more data you have, the better services you can offer. On a smaller scale, you may not see much difference, but when you have thousands of customers around the world, you need to optimize certain processes. You need to constantly have data available about your customers and your team's performance to identify potential problems that both your customers and your team members may be experiencing.

You do not keep your promises

Your customers will start to frown when you promise a lot and don't keep your promises. It will be a good experience for them if the opposite happens. In a perfect world, the product should do what you said it would do. It's always best to inform the customer about the delayed progress and also apologize if your team is unable to deliver on the commitment.

Not delivering omnichannel support

Your customers reach you from multiple channels. It can be a phone conversation, a live chat, or social media. You can't force a customer to use a particular channel. Companies with omnichannel support recorded a whopping 89% customer retention rate compared to companies that did not offer omnichannel support, recording only 33% customer retention.

Not having a plan B

Technology is great and can make life easier, but what if something goes wrong? You need an action plan for times of emergency to ensure customers are aware and supported.

Dissatisfied and poorly trained staff

If employees feel appreciated and that an investment has been made in their training and wellbeing, this will show in every interaction they have with clients. Happy employees mean happy customers.

Not provide customers what they want

Customers want accurate answers or quick, efficient, and respectful solutions, and giving them to the customer is the most important thing, even if the answer or solution is not ideal.

Fixing mistakes when they happen

No one is perfect. Whether through lack of concentration, understanding, guidance, or diligence, mistakes will happen. The key is knowing how to correct the situation when it has happened and ensuring that the customer still receives the best customer service, despite some bumps in the road to resolution.

Evaluate your customer service

A great way to review your customer service is to put yourself in the place of your customers. One of the easiest ways to get started is to try it for yourself! Give them a call and see what happens. Experience the way your automation works and how quickly you are served. If this works for your business model, consider introducing regular “mystery shopper” style calls to monitor quality and provide feedback to teams.

Success when it comes to customer service is all about focusing on personal communication. It's about having common thinking across teams and speaking with one voice. And it's about making the whole process as easy as possible for customers so they feel valued, listened to, and encouraged to praise you to others. Focus on getting these basics right and you'll already be ahead of the game.

Giving your customers excellent customer service is not an option or a luxury; it is a standard they expect. Avoid the common customer service mistakes and stand out from the competition.

Also, discover how you can upgrade your customer support, increase your sales and more by using effective customer profiling.

Learn why creating customer profiles is important and how you can create your own in a few steps

To be able to develop a long-term relationship with your customers at all levels, you must first understand them. The best way to do that is by creating a customer profile and designing a system to build and control these profiles. You can end up wasting time and money if you don’t create customer profiles, using the wrong moves on the wrong audience.

One of the most critical parts of any successful business is knowing who your customer is.

What is a customer profile?

A customer profile is the description that emerges about your current customers after gathering various data about them. A customer profile helps you define shopping behaviors, soft spots, demographics, and psychographic data in order to target like customers in your sales and marketing campaigns.

The best part about customer profiles is that you create them from the pool of customers you already have. Instead of inventing ideal and imaginary characteristics, as you would for a buyer persona, you would research your existing customers and discover the types of consumers who are most likely to buy from you.

Customer profiles can help you run successful marketing campaigns and increase your ROI and sales. With all this useful information, you can decide which strategy to implement and which to avoid.

Tips for creating customer profiles for your business

1. Get feedback from your customers.

To create the most accurate customer profile possible, you need to systematically survey your audience to get their feedback on your offerings as well as their perception of your company. You can use smart tools like Waymore’s forms to collect the data you need from your customers easily and quickly.

No doubt it can be difficult to get your customers to participate, so it’s always good to have incentives for participation – like $10 off their next purchase if they complete a survey. Also, make sure that the survey is enjoyable. Customers will stop responding to the survey if they feel tired of the questions.

2. Identify your client’s characteristics

So you are on the right track to finding your target clientele, but you need to define it at a deeper level. Find out their personal interests, their gender, their job role, their location, etc. The more information you can collect about your customers, the more precise you will be in convincing the customer to do business with you. This could be done easily by using Routee’s analytics.

3. Update your customer profiles frequently

Once all the data you need is gathered, it needs to be organised in a database using a simple template. This template should be the same for each client type so that whenever a new update or record is required, it is easy to find and update the relevant part.

4. Survey your customers

Do not forget to send regular surveys to your customers to update the data you have about them. These data are driven as much by changes in the market as by the customer’s experiences. It is also important to make sure that you get feedback from your customers when you are testing something so that you know what may need improvement and what customers prefer. The feedback results will tell you what worked well, what didn’t and the improvements you need to make.

5. Overview of how your customers see and use your products

The way you present your services influences the type of people who decide to use them and should be tracked in order to ensure that your services and products are of the highest possible value to your customer. When you analyze how your customers use your products and services, you can see how your customers’ use of your services changes with time, and how you should react to these changes. In other words, your business offerings shift to better meet your customer’s needs.

Also, don’t forget that your brand should be able to change to match the needs and interests of your customers as time moves on and trends or habits change.

Next stop: Personalization

Customer profiling is a way to create personalized customer experiences and improve your service. Through our tips, your company will be well on its way to having this customer profile that will be a great help as your organization grows and evolves.

Once you have created one, be sure to share it with your business partners, employees, sales and marketing teams. This way you will give them a better idea of the types of strategies they should adopt. In addition, they will be able to use them to guide their buyer personas and create even better marketing campaigns.

Any business can save time and money when it knows who its customers are. Customer profiles are the best way to do this and you can create them by following some simple steps. Increase sales and run successful campaigns starting today! And don’t forget personalization is key! Use your customer’s profiles to provide them with unique services and get extraordinary results.

WhatsApp is the world’s most popular messaging platform. In 2020, its audience has grown to 2 billion monthly active users . This marketing channel is essential for businesses that want to connect with audiences worldwide. Over half of WhatsApp users check the app every day.

Even better, you can be sure they’ll receive your offers, as text messages have a 98% open rate. Also, with such a large user base and availability in more than 50 languages, WhatsApp is a great platform for marketers to reach an attractive audience. It is a low-cost alternative to sending text messages via SMS and allows users to share texts, images, voice messages, and supports video calls.

The final point is that your customers love this communication channel. Most of the clients say they would buy easier from businesses they can reach via chat.

What can Whatsapp do for your business?

Increase conversion rates

Choosing the right channel for your primary contact with customers is crucial. People may be unhappy with phone calls while remaining unreachable via email or social media. This is where WhatsApp comes in handy to push your prospects towards the market. Businesses say that customers responded to 40% of their WhatsApp messages.

Even better, messaging leads to conversions. Messaging after the initial contact with a prospect can significantly increase the conversion rate.

Boost your sales

The simple trick of adding a WhatsApp phone number to your website can lead directly to more sales. It seems that having the choice to reach a brand through any messaging app alone makes customers feel secure. People nowadays feel more confident to buy from a company if it is active in messengers. You can also consider WhatsApp a standalone sales channel for your business. It is feasible with the growing trend of people buying through messaging apps.

Get more personal

WhatsApp provides businesses with a powerful set of opportunities for personalization. For example, you can send personalized welcome messages, special offers, birthday congratulations, and so on. Consumers today engage only with personalized marketing messages.

Provide upgraded customer service and support

It has never been more important for businesses to be available and accessible to customers to communicate with them in a comfortable and familiar way. WhatsApp Business messaging meets all the requirements. It offers ubiquitous messaging that is fast, efficient, and reliable on a platform used by many.

With WhatsApp, notifications and updates can be received in real-time. Most importantly, any urgent questions can be answered in a timely and immediate manner, without intermediaries slowing down the process.

Marketing via WhatsApp leads to more conversions, increases sales and allows you to build personalised relationships with customers, which is extremely cost-effective.

Below you can find some tips to start your WhatsApp strategy today.

Tips to begin with for a successful Whatsapp strategy

1. Keep the interest high

Engage with customers and entertain them by creating teasers of upcoming campaigns, sharing videos, etc. The key idea is to leave customers wanting more from you.

2. Use your data

Discover when your target audience is using more WhatsApp. This way you increase the likelihood of them opening your message or status.

3. Make conversation

Consumers today want businesses to have real conversations instead of just sending them messages. WhatsApp is a great channel for communicating directly with customers, with end-to-end encryption and features like chat, voice, or video calls. Additionally, is a trusted channel for engagement globally and businesses can send delivery notifications, purchase confirmation and generate customer support through the app.

4. Link forwarding

Short WhatsApp messages with the website link has a high click-through rate. Remember to avoid bombarding your customers with the same repetitive messages.

5. Show your customers you care

Make your customers feel unique and valued. Send personalized messages on special occasions and holidays.

6. Stay relevant

Make sure you update your WhatsApp status regularly with relevant and engaging content. The status text should be short and catchy.

7. Take advantage of the group chats

Group chats allow members to see each other and share their views with the whole group. So, group chats can be useful if you want to encourage conversations among your customers. For example, you can create a group to warm up participants before an offline event or webinar.

Another situation is when your customers make purchasing decisions in groups. This is a common practice for businesses with complex and expensive products, such as IT solutions, industrial equipment, and so on.

Create experiences that matter for your customers

Routee’s WhatsApp business messaging API is a powerful and far-reaching communication platform that can help you make meaningful connections with your customers. This is why a WhatsApp marketing strategy is important and can help you create unique customer experiences for your audience.

Let your business be a part of the messaging apps marketing revolution and stand out from the competition today. Discover everything you need to know about WhatsApp and how you can use it to drive more sales to your business.