{"version":"1.0","provider_name":"123 Reg Blog: Small business tips, insight and advice","provider_url":"https:\/\/www.123-reg.co.uk\/blog","author_name":"123 Reg","author_url":"https:\/\/www.123-reg.co.uk\/blog\/author\/123-reg\/","title":"How to create a Facebook Messenger chatbot for your small business (and why you should) | 123 Reg Blog","type":"rich","width":600,"height":338,"html":"<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"gm8i3sOWsR\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.123-reg.co.uk\/blog\/social-media\/create-facebook-messenger-chatbot-small-business\/\">How to create a Facebook Messenger chatbot for your small business (and why you should)<\/a><\/blockquote><iframe sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" src=\"https:\/\/www.123-reg.co.uk\/blog\/social-media\/create-facebook-messenger-chatbot-small-business\/embed\/#?secret=gm8i3sOWsR\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" title=\"&#8220;How to create a Facebook Messenger chatbot for your small business (and why you should)&#8221; &#8212; 123 Reg Blog: Small business tips, insight and advice\" data-secret=\"gm8i3sOWsR\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\"><\/iframe><script>\n\/*! This file is auto-generated *\/\n!function(d,l){\"use strict\";l.querySelector&&d.addEventListener&&\"undefined\"!=typeof URL&&(d.wp=d.wp||{},d.wp.receiveEmbedMessage||(d.wp.receiveEmbedMessage=function(e){var t=e.data;if((t||t.secret||t.message||t.value)&&!\/[^a-zA-Z0-9]\/.test(t.secret)){for(var s,r,n,a=l.querySelectorAll('iframe[data-secret=\"'+t.secret+'\"]'),o=l.querySelectorAll('blockquote[data-secret=\"'+t.secret+'\"]'),c=new RegExp(\"^https?:$\",\"i\"),i=0;i<o.length;i++)o[i].style.display=\"none\";for(i=0;i<a.length;i++)s=a[i],e.source===s.contentWindow&&(s.removeAttribute(\"style\"),\"height\"===t.message?(1e3<(r=parseInt(t.value,10))?r=1e3:~~r<200&&(r=200),s.height=r):\"link\"===t.message&&(r=new URL(s.getAttribute(\"src\")),n=new URL(t.value),c.test(n.protocol))&&n.host===r.host&&l.activeElement===s&&(d.top.location.href=t.value))}},d.addEventListener(\"message\",d.wp.receiveEmbedMessage,!1),l.addEventListener(\"DOMContentLoaded\",function(){for(var e,t,s=l.querySelectorAll(\"iframe.wp-embedded-content\"),r=0;r<s.length;r++)(t=(e=s[r]).getAttribute(\"data-secret\"))||(t=Math.random().toString(36).substring(2,12),e.src+=\"#?secret=\"+t,e.setAttribute(\"data-secret\",t)),e.contentWindow.postMessage({message:\"ready\",secret:t},\"*\")},!1)))}(window,document);\n\/\/# sourceURL=https:\/\/www.123-reg.co.uk\/blog\/wp-includes\/js\/wp-embed.min.js\n<\/script>\n","thumbnail_url":"https:\/\/www.123-reg.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/facebook-715811_1280square.jpg","thumbnail_width":701,"thumbnail_height":701,"description":"Offering customer service at busy times can be overwhelming for a small business \u2013 enter chatbots. The use of artificial intelligence is on the rise, especially now that digital assistants like Siri and Cortana have become part of everyday life. Now you can use it to enhance your customer\u2019s experience when dealing with your business. With the rise in popularity of messenger apps in recent years \u2013 especially Facebook messenger, which has a billion monthly users as of 2016, it\u2019s the perfect time to get acquainted with chatbots. Read on to find out how! What is a Facebook chatbot? A chatbot is a service that allows customers to interact with your business through a messaging interface. People who click on your businesses\u2019 Facebook Messenger will be able to have an automated conversation with your chatbot. It can respond to your customer queries and guess what they are looking for by using triggers and rules that you set. A mobile-ready site is essential to give your customers the best chatbot experience. How can you use a chatbot? The great thing about chatbots is that they can be used for almost anything, from scheduling meetings or helping a customer find a specific product, to offering advice, news and weather reports. But we\u2019ll be focusing on how you can use a Facebook chatbot to help enhance your customer service and marketing for your small business. You can use a chatbot to provide your customers with immediate answers to the most frequently asked questions, leaving you with more time to focus on other areas of your business rather than answering the same questions over and over again. You can push newsletter sign ups and other customised marketing content through your chatbot, such as links to articles and products your customers would like. You can also use a chatbot to streamline more advanced tasks like order and payment processing. For more hints and tips on how you could use a chatbot for your business, check out this article. How a chatbot can help your small business Unlike you, a chatbot can work for your business 24 hours a day, 7 days a week \u2013 allowing you to offer customer service around the clock, to people all over the globe. There are endless possibilities of ways to use a chatbot, making it easy to consistently engage your customers and build strong relationships with them. Remember \u2013 there will always be customers who prefer human interaction, so you should always include an option within the chatbot dialogue for a user to contact a person in customer service if the chatbot has not been able to successfully deal with their query. It\u2019s also important to make sure the customer is aware that they are not speaking to a human. Fashion brand ASOS made the news last year after a series of comical responses to customer queries on Facebook left their customers demanding proof that they weren\u2019t speaking to bots. In this case, it hasn\u2019t been confirmed if the responses were generated by bots or not \u2013 but to avoid any confusion for your own customers, it\u2019s highly recommended that you let them know when they are speaking to a bot. When crafting your chatbot dialogue, remember that you should be trying to create a personal experience for the user. Think warm, friendly and human-like replies \u2013 you want them to actually enjoy speaking to your chatbot rather than leave the conversation feeling frustrated. How to create a chatbot Despite the advanced nature of the technology, chatbots are surprisingly easy to create. I\u2019ve created a very simple chatbot to walk you through the basics. There are a few free tools you can use to create chatbots. I went for Chatfuel, which is very beginner-friendly \u2013 perfect for me! To get started, you\u2019ll need to create a Chatfuel account by logging into your Facebook, and then connect the Facebook business page you\u2019ll be using the bot for. Step 1 \u2013 Edit your welcome message This is your Chatfuel dashboard. From here, you can edit the first message your customers will see when they start a conversation with your bot. I\u2019ve written a very basic message as an example \u2013 it lets the customer know they are speaking to a bot (I decided to call him Reggie, any guesses why?), and also pushes marketing content and offers to help. Step 2 \u2013 Creating links and buttons The welcome message should provide the user with clear options of what they can do next. You can do this by creating links for them to click. The first link I\u2019ve created will allow the customer to sign up for the newsletter, should they wish to do so. To create this link I simply edited the \u2018Main menu\u2019 link and changed the text to say \u2018Sign me up\u2019. Then I selected URL \u2013 this will link the text to your newsletter. Click \u2018Add Button\u2019 to create another link. I named the second link \u2018Something else\u2019 \u2013 users who don\u2019t want the newsletter can click this. You\u2019ll need to link this button to a \u2018block\u2019, to determine what the chatbot says when a user clicks \u2018something else\u2019. There is a pre-made block named \u2018Default answer\u2019 in the dashboard, which this button is already linked to in the above screenshot. Click on the \u2018Default answer\u2019 block to edit the text. I\u2019ve added some text, but I also want to add some buttons to this text to further direct the user. Everything needs to link together to create a dialogue, which can be done by creating more blocks. Leave the \u2018Default answer\u2019 text as it is for now and click \u2018Add block\u2019. \u00a0 Step 3- Adding blocks This is what you\u2019ll see when you choose to create a new block. Choose the \u2018text\u2019 card as right now you are creating dialogue for the chatbot. I want the chatbot to ask customers if they\u2019d like to see a product list, so I\u2019ve named the block \u2018Product List\u2019 and"}