22 Mar
11 Examples of Facebook Messenger Chatbots To Take Inspiration From
With consumers demanding 24X7 assistance in various industries, including retail, banking, health, finance, etc., chatbots and virtual assistants are rapidly gaining traction. Facebook Messenger bots have proven to be one of the most popular and effective ways of engaging with customers.
No wonder there are more than 300,000 active bots on Messenger. By giving personalized recommendations, collecting information, scheduling appointments, and solving simple queries, Messenger bots have helped brands provide interactive and engaging customer experiences at scale at much lower costs than a human counterpart. In fact, research by Business Insider predicts, “By 2024, consumer retail spend via chatbots worldwide will reach $142 billion – up from just $2.8 billion in 2019.”
If you are considering including bots for your marketing or customer experience efforts in 2021, here are a few Facebook Messenger chatbots to take inspiration from.
10 Inspiring Facebook Messenger Bots
1. Enjoy a healthy breakfast with Quaker Oats’ chatbot for Messenger.
Quaker Oats added a Facebook Messenger bot named Otis to its marketing mix. In today’s fast-paced world, when people are hard-pressed for time, the bot guides customers with online shopping, offers delicious recipes, sets reminders for overnight oats, and provides consultation for any queries they may raise.
Users may choose from a range of seasonal recipes, like a smoothie, or type in a food emoji if they know what they want to eat. The bot is an excellent way for the brand to gauge consumer preferences and personalize recommendations, including top recipes, favorite products, the ingredients they like, etc.
Otis has helped Quaker increase engagement by 13% year-on-year without any other marketing or media support.
2. SAL - Your personal skincare assistant by POND’s
In 2019, popular Skincare brand POND’s launched its Facebook Messenger bot called SAL across nine countries. When users upload a selfie, SAL leverages augmented reality to provide immersive customer engagement in the form of personalized skincare recommendations across four significant areas of concern – pimples, wrinkles, uneven skin tone, and spots. While the analysis is generated, which usually takes about 60 seconds, the bot keeps sharing skincare tips to retain the user’s interest.
Once the diagnosis is completed, users are informed about their skin condition, followed by POND’s personalized product recommendations.
SAL for Messenger generated 15 times higher purchase intent, with consumers spending up to 3 times more time on SAL and 98% users citing a positive experience with the bot.
3. Unilever’s All Things Hair Chatbot (Athena bot)
As a part of its All Things Hair initiative, Unilever wanted to deploy a Facebook Messenger chatbot that provides consumers with instant answers to hair queries, personalized hair product recommendations, style suggestions etc. Powered with Augmented Reality (AR), the Athena bot also lets users take selfie photos and try different virtual hairstyles.
4. Sustainable clothing brand, prAna’s chatbot for Messenger
Sustainable clothing company prAna uses a chatbot for Facebook Messenger to help users shop for clothes online. The bot’s choice of words, tone, and emojis lend a friendly, casual feel to the conversation, thus grasping the customer’s attention for a longer duration.
The bot shares information about the clothes shoppers view and helps them navigate through the online store, for example, asking them if they want to “Shop Women’s or “Shop Men’s.”
5. Estee Lauder’s Lip Artist
Estée Lauder’s Lip Artist allows users to try and buy lipstick shades right from the comfort of their homes. The users simply need to click a selfie or upload an image, and the bot will enable them to try on lipstick shades and see immediate results using augmented reality.
The chatbot gives personalized recommendations based on skin type, occasion, and color preferences. Based on the shades they choose, users can click on “Shop Now” and buy the lipsticks from Estée’s website.
6. Dom - Your one-stop-shop for scrumptious Pizzas
Dom, the Domino’s pizza chatbot for Facebook Messenger, brings the entire menu right at your fingertips. Users can then place a fresh order, track recent orders, or chat with customer support.
The bot shows the menu choices and an “add to order” button after each option. If the customer has ordered from the app before, the bot will ask if he/she will like to repeat the same.
7. Schedule your in-store service appointments with Sephora’s chatbot for Messenger
Sephora reservation assistant allows users to book specialized beauty treatments, such as a facial or a makeover, at their nearest Sephora location.
The bot asks a series of questions to understand when and where the customer wants to schedule an appointment. It then throws up a pop-up window to let customers select an available time slot. Finally, the bot picks up the user’s name and email address from Facebook and finalizes the booking.
In Sephora’s own words, implementing the bot led to an 11% higher booking rate.
8. Discovering health with Whole Foods
With its chatbot for Facebook Messenger, Whole Foods helps customers find recipes based on ingredients, dish type, and dietary restrictions, for example, for dinner, gluten-free, vegan, etc. Users may simply use emojis or a combination of text and emojis to discover new meals.
Users can also check if their nearest Whole Foods retail store has the necessary ingredients for a particular recipe in stock.ional’s AI-powered chatbot
9. Book a memorable stay with Marriott
Marriott Rewards members on Messenger can book travel at Marriott International hotels worldwide, handle hospitality-related arrangements, such as business conferences, communicate with guest services, plan their upcoming vacation with the digital magazine Marriott Traveler, and chat with the customer support executives when required.
Additionally, the company uses its chatbot to upsell its customers and encourage them to book the best suites and services.
10. Get the best clothing, accessories, and advice for new moms with Kindred Bravely
Kindred Bravely chatbot for Messenger helps women with infants shop for nursing clothes, pajamas, accessories, and other clothing for postpartum women. With a conversational-driven shopping experience, women are saved from the hassle of navigating multiple menus and filtering items.
They just need to click on “Shop Now” and choose from various items, colors, and sizes. The bot also provides an option to receive an order confirmation and shipping updates via Facebook Messenger.
11. WHO fights COVID-19 misinformation with Facebook Messenger
To curb the spread of rumors and misinformation regarding the global COVID-19 pandemic, WHO has launched its Health Alert interactive chatbot via Facebook Messenger.
The bot can potentially reach out to 4.2 billion people in languages, including English, French, Spanish, and Arabic, and help them gauge the facts about the disease and how to prevent its spread.
How can Acuvate help?
At Acuvate, we help clients build AI-enabled chatbots for Facebook Messenger with our intuitive, low-code, enterprise bot-builder platform called BotCore. With minimalistic coding requirements, it is quick and easy to deploy chatbots with channel-specific design elements. Our bots support several languages, including French, German, Italian, etc. Moreover, they can be easily trained to understand the context and simulate highly complex conversations.
To know more about BotCore, please feel free to schedule a personalized consultation with our chatbot experts.
Abhishek is the AI & Automation Practice Head at Acuvate and brings with him 17+ years of strong expertise across the Microsoft stack. He has consulted with clients globally to provide solutions on technologies such as Cognitive Services, Azure, RPA, SharePoint & Office 365. He has worked with clients across multiple industry domains including Retail & FMCG, Government, BFSI, Manufacturing and Telecom.
Abhishek Shanbhag