Increase Your Business's Conversion Rates Using Facebook Messenger Chatbots

Chatbot essentials | BotSurfer Blogger
Messenger chatbots can take on time-consuming tasks. Because of this, businesses have started incorporating chatbots into their marketing strategy. Today, there are huge benefits of adding a Messenger chatbot to your Facebook page, like providing quality customer service with less manpower and costs. One of the most important benefits is the Messenger chatbot's ability to boost conversions. If you'd like to know how to use bots to create conversions, and get tips for writing messages that convert, read on.


How to Create Conversions - Nine Ways 

Bots on Facebook can be instrumental in boosting conversions for your business. Here’s how:

1. Build Brand Awareness 

Your bot can inform people of your company’s services or products. This is useful for people who recently discovered your company or brand. You can use the bot to capture interest. Conveying your brand in a genuine way can turn people from cold prospects to warm leads while guiding them along the sales journey. Add a greeting message that tells people more about your business before they start a conversation. 

The second option is to add a short menu in your Messenger window's bottom corner. People can learn more about what your brand is, what you offer, and other relevant information by clicking on it. Brand awareness can be a direct part of your bot conversation. Let people know about business events or interesting projects to engage them. 

2. Improve Customer Service 

Automated messaging lets you give people an immediate response when they ask a question or look for information. Providing around-the-clock customer service is essential to standing apart from your competition and boosting your conversion rates. Take FAQs and their answers into consideration when you build your Messenger bot so people can find quick answers. The easiest way to help your customers is to offer multiple-choice responses that slowly narrow down the questions the customer chooses. By having your bot give quality answers, customers can decide if they want to buy your services or products.

Providing precise and accurate information with an immediate response time reduces the chances that they'll go to your competition or someone who has around-the-clock live support. Your response rate will go on your Facebook page on the right side for customers to see. As a bonus, a bot will also pre-qualify your potential customers for a human agent without the agent spending time getting all of the small details like their name, what they want, and their location.

3. Send Subscribers Broadcasts

Send your subscribers ad hoc broadcasts. There are several ways to use these broadcasts to increase customer lifetime value and pull attention to your brand. For example, these broadcasts can point out content that might interest people like a blog, fill your customers in on important business news, or promote product launches. ﻿Send them out sparingly and make sure they're not too sales-oriented.

Don't bombard people with information, but do use it to start conversations. Try adding a few questions to see if they want to continue or if they're interested. There should be several different opportunities to stop the conversation if they don't want to go on. 

4. Encourage People to Look at Your Products

Once your bots on Facebook warm your customers up, you can start pushing them toward your product pages. The trick is making this seem conversational and natural rather than like a sales pitch. If you don't want to seem too pushy yet still direct people to your products, you can add a shop button to your Messenger menu. A well-organized conversation tends to flow toward sales, though, and works just as well. 

Implement a quiz-style product locator into your chatbot. The customers will ask questions regarding what they want, and it can pull up relevant products. As the query gets more specific, so will the products. When they pick the product, the chatbot can direct them to the checkout. 

5. Consider Augmented Reality 

Victoria Beckham embraces augmented reality as part of her brand's chatbot experience. She uses augmented reality to let anyone use their camera to try on a virtual pair of sunglasses. They can see if they like the glasses by seeing how they look on their face before they purchase them. 

6. Create a Chatbot Subscription List 

A growing email list is the lifeline of your business. You can use Messenger chatbots to build an email list and continue to update it with every person who engages the chatbot. Many platforms give you a feature where it automatically saves everyone to a chat subscriber list. You can send them short messages once a week with the opportunity to opt-out. A chat subscription list's biggest advantages are: 

  • Higher click-through and open rates
  • Messages look more relaxed and informal
  • Content is easier to engage with and shorter

7. Prevent Abandoned Shopping Carts 

Did you know people abandon their virtual shopping carts at a rate of 75.4%? For your brand, every time someone abandons a cart, you lose out on a potential sale. Say your average transaction is $40 and you get 50,000 visitors a month. Increasing your conversion rate by 0.25% gives you an additional $5,000 every month. This totals out to an additional $60,000 annually. 

One study found that Facebook chatbots that send out reminders about abandoned carts recover between 13% and 20% of them. This is a huge amount of potential sales you can retain for your business. 

8. Conduct Customer Satisfaction Surveys 

Set your chatbot up to conduct customer satisfaction surveys. The chatbot can automatically send your customers a survey after they register, download, or make a purchase. You could double or even triple your conversions compared to an email survey or pop-up survey. Chatbots make surveys easy; customers can tap a few times and complete the survey on their smartphones, tablets, or PCs. 

9. Send Out Small Content Snippets 

Along with sending customer surveys, your Messenger chatbot can send out smaller content snippets. Wellness companies can send out inspirational quotes or little health tips regarding different foods. A humane society could send out tips for animal care. These small content snippets keep your brand relevant and on your customers' minds while delivering practical information they can use. 

How Often to Optimize Your Chatbot for Conversions 

How often you optimize for conversions depends on your business. You want to optimize your chatbot for conversions if you: 

  • Add New Products - When you add new products, you want to take another look at your chatbot. Add any new products to the list that the chatbot can suggest based on customer queries.
  • Run New Promotions - If your chatbot focuses on promotions or product launches, go back and optimize it when you have sales, promotions, coupons, or product launches.
  • Add New Content - Putting out new content means you should update your chatbot to be able to include the new content in questions and responses. You can set up a schedule so you're not constantly updating your chatbot.
  • Rebrand Your Business - Changing the name of your products or services spreads to every part of your business. You don't want your chatbot greeting potential customers with the wrong name or showcasing incorrect products.

Messenger Chatbots - Writing Tips

Knowing how to use chatbots to create conversions is half of the equation. Writing messages that catch people's attention can increase conversions for your business, too. We've added a few tips below to keep in mind when you write. 

Tip One - Break up Your Text 

Break up your walls of text with small, manageable chunks. Avoid using big sections of text or sending several messages, one right after the next. Text breaks make your chatbot much more manageable for readers. Consider putting two or three-second pauses between messages. These short breaks mimic the flow of a normal conversation. 

Tip Two - Don't Spam the Chatbot Window  

Going along with tip one, your chatbot should never send more than two or three messages in a row without providing options or asking a question. Messenger chatbots should mimic natural conversations, so make sure you put just a few sentences in every message. It's not an email where you go on and on. 

Tip Three - Include Emojis, GIFs or Images 

Adding emojis in your script adds a fun and friendly element to your chat. Including GIFs and images makes your chatbot feel more authentic. You can add humor too, but be cautious about it because people have different senses of humor. You don't want to accidentally offend someone or confuse them. 

Tip Four - Give the Option to Unsubscribe 

Give people the option to unsubscribe from your chatbot. It's important to build your business following, but you don't want to annoy people or keep people around who aren't interested. Sending messages when people don't want them builds resentment, especially when they're not sure how to get rid of them. Add an unsubscribe button in the bot settings options on your menu. Make it easy to see and find. 

Tip Five - Use the Flesch-Kincaid Readability Score to Guide You

Potential customers and customers will come from different areas of society. These people include highly educated workers as well as people who didn't complete high school. Making your chatbot script as simple as possible will yield the highest engagement levels. Use the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level tool in Microsoft Word to check your readability score. You can also use the Hemingway App, which will give you a suggested grade level for your chatbot messages. Aim for a grade level between 6 and 8 to engage with a wide audience.

Tip Six - Update Regularly 

One big problem with a lot of chatbots is that they are designed to work around campaigns. Businesses launch the bots for certain purposes and let them fade away. A chatbot should be a lasting investment. You don't build up an email list to send a single email and never use it again. Applying this logic to your chatbot is key. It gives customers a reason to come back again and again. 

Tip Seven - Catchy Names

Consider your chatbot as an extension of your business. Giving it a catchy name and personality makes it more relatable. Make it sound like a real name and try to relate the chatbot's name to your business's products or mission. Use three words or less for the name to help make it as memorable as possible. Any longer and the name won't be as easy for your customers to remember or recall during conversations. 

Tip Eight - Use Natural Language 

Avoid jargon. The days of the hard-selling script are over and people want friendly, personable, and fun encounters. Using natural, conversational language is key to connecting to people and retaining interest. Conversational tones reduce the chance of confusing potential customers with technical terms that they might not understand. You should: 

  • Greet the person by name
  • Speak one-on-one
  • Every sentence should have a friendly, conversational tone
  • Come up with an original error message instead of using generic phrases because they can drive people away
  • Write several prompt variations
  • Ask the user to rephrase or repeat their question in simple terms

Tip Nine - Limit Open-End Questions 

Open-ended questions require the person to provide a descriptive answer with more than one word. Avoid this with your chatbot and ask simple yes or no questions. Combining this with multiple-choice answers helps narrow down your customer's queries. 

Try Botsurfer Today! 

If you're wondering how to create conversions and use bots on Facebook to your advantage, try Botsurfer today. Our team will be happy to assist you in building you very first Messenger Chatbot.

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