What Happened
The chatbots on Facebook Messenger are getting a little bit smarter. The social network announced on Friday a slew of new chatbot features and tools in the latest update of Messenger Platform. The stand-out additions include quick replies for guiding consumer-bot conversations, a persistent menu for easier navigation and selecting commands, account linking that users can opt into to link their Messenger accounts with their customer accounts, and support for more content types such as GIFs, audio, video, and other files. Also, users will be able to mute bots and rate the chatbots as private feedback for developers. You can click here to read more details about each of these new features.
What Brands Need To Do
With these additions, Facebook is making it easier for brands and developers to create more focused and functional chatbots. The new quick replies and persistent menus, for example, can help guide user-bot conversations and keep the interface streamlined and more user-friendly. The added support for more content types grants brands a good opportunity to spice up conversations with fun GIFs and add a touch of personality to their bots. Account linking should also help branded bots offer users that opted in a more personalized experience and optimize the conversation based on their customer profiles. Therefore, brands building chatbots for Messenger should definitely incorporate these new features into their bots when necessary.
The Lab has extensive knowledge about building chatbots. If you’re interested in reaching your audience on messaging apps and better serving them with a chatbot, please contact our Client Services Director Samantha Holland (samantha@ipglab.com) for more information or to schedule a visit to the Lab.
Source: Marketing Land
Header image courtesy of Facebook