Facebook chatbots for business

Billions of people around the world use Facebook every month to connect with their friends and favorite brands, keep up with news, and receive convenient customer service. As individuals continue to use the social media platform, it makes sense for brands to optimize the user experience through Facebook chatbots, which provide quick answers to sales and support questions.

With their 24/7 accessibility, self-serve model, and social media-friendly interface, FB chatbots provide the fast and personalized experiences modern buyers want.

When integrated with Zendesk, the messaging app can be a full-fledged customer service tool because our bots are pre-trained in customer experience and can understand industry-specific customer issues without hours of manual setup. Zendesk also ensures your agents can manage Messenger conversations alongside all your other support channels—and that Messenger bots can seamlessly pass questions to agents when a human is needed.

More in this guide:

• What are Facebook chatbots?
• What do FB chatbots do?
• How to create a Facebook chatbot with Zendesk
• 5 benefits of using Facebook chatbots
• Features of Messenger for Business chatbots
• Messenger for Business bot best practices
• Frequently asked questions
• Try using Zendesk AI agents for free

A Facebook chatbot is an automated computer program that interacts with users via Messenger and answers customer questions.

Facebook bots function like website chatbots, but users can only access them by messaging companies with Facebook business pages. The bots are highly customizable, offering several templates for customers to use.

What is Messenger?

Messenger is one of Meta’s private instant messaging apps. As the number of users and businesses using Facebook increases, this social media hub has rapidly become a gold mine of customer interaction.

The free messaging platform has its own mobile app where users can:

• Connect with businesses
• Make payments
• Securely store past conversations
• Send rich media like photos and videos
• Receive self-service recommendations and tutorials

FB Messenger can also integrate with WhatsApp and other Metaverse applications like Instagram to streamline messaging across popular platforms.

Facebook chatbots interact with users in real time to provide information, answer questions, and assist with tasks. They can handle various functions, such as customer support, product recommendations, booking appointments, processing orders, and delivering personalized content. These chatbots are powered by natural language processing (NLP), meaning they can understand user intent, engage in conversational interactions, and escalate issues to human agents when necessary.

Once installed, customer service chatbots become your 24/7 frontline agents, taking on a wide range of customer conversations. Bots provide customers with instant, accurate responses to day-to-day questions, freeing your human agents to address more complex matters.

Businesses benefit from using Zendesk to build a Messenger bot for a few reasons. For example, businesses can:

• Track, manage, and prioritize all FB chatbot conversations in the same workspace alongside messages from other support channels, such as email, live chat, phone, and other social messaging apps.
  
• Create an FB bot in minutes with a no-code bot builder instead of relying on complicated tools that require extensive developer resources and a large budget.
  
• Rely on pre-trained bots that understand the top customer issues in your industry immediately and save hours on manual setup.

There are two key ways to create a Facebook chatbot with Zendesk:

1. Use Messenger as a live chat integration on your website. You can either use the built-in Facebook bot or set up another more advanced bot with Sunshine Conversations, a messaging platform for chatbots..
2. Set up Zendesk messaging and use Zendesk bots to create a more integrated experience across all channels.

Facebook chatbots offer businesses a range of benefits, from improving customer interactions to streamlining operations. FB chatbots can increase efficiency between sales and support by:

• Updating customers on shipment statuses
• Capturing customer conversation history
• Supporting lead generation efforts by identifying potential customers
• Routing customers to the most relevant department

But better productivity is far from the only benefit of using a Messenger bot. Check out our five favorite benefits of using AI-powered chatbots from a provider like Zendesk to see what we mean.

Creates opportunities for agents to provide conversational experiences

Meta’s Messenger bot's ultimate goal is to allow customers to self-serve without needing an agent. However, there are times when users require support from a real person.

When human agents are needed, the Messenger bot uses keywords from the customers’ messages to route them to the appropriate department. Once redirected, customers can connect with a support agent to discuss possible solutions.

Serve your customers on their preferred channels

Providing customer service over Messenger leverages a familiar and user-friendly interface that many customers already use to communicate with friends and family. This eliminates the learning curve associated with new platforms, making interactions intuitive and effortless. Since users are already comfortable with Messenger's features, such as text, images, and quick replies, they can engage with businesses seamlessly, reducing friction and enhancing convenience.

Additionally, with an omnichannel customer service approach, FB chatbots can easily collect data and store it in a central location, allowing agents to access relevant context, help the customer, and close out the open ticket quickly.

Ensures consistent brand voice and messaging across interactions

Unlike human agents, a chatbot won't deviate from the pre-defined scripts and tone guidelines, ensuring every interaction reflects the brand's values and personality. Additionally, you can train the chatbot using NLP to understand and respond to user queries in a way that feels authentic and on-brand.

Centralizing communication through the chatbot ensures a uniform customer experience across all interactions, reinforcing brand consistency and building user trust.

Makes informational resources accessible after hours

Chatbots help customers find relevant information easily while enjoying a conversational customer experience—even when agents aren’t available.

There are several reasons why someone might not reach out for support during regular operating hours, such as living in different time zones, having busy work schedules, or experiencing family obligations. As a business, you must create alternative service options for your customers.

Use Facebook chatbots to guarantee users have 24/7 access to customer service and the resources they need through an application most people already have downloaded on their phones.

Supports multilingual customer interactions for a global audience

A Facebook chatbot enhances customer service accessibility and inclusivity by communicating with a global audience in their preferred language. By leveraging NLP and translation capabilities, the chatbot can understand and respond to queries in various languages, breaking down language barriers.

This ensures that customers from different regions and cultural backgrounds can receive timely and accurate support, regardless of time zones or language differences. Additionally, the chatbot's 24/7 availability ensures that users worldwide can access assistance whenever needed, making customer service more equitable and inclusive for a diverse, global audience.

The core functionality of Messenger for business facilitates conversations between brands and their customers. The Messenger platform comes with a robust set of features that aid support teams in creating better customer experiences.

• Messaging: Receive customer messages, including rich media, and let the Messenger chatbot reply with pre-written templates.
  
• Chat extensions: Use chat plugins so customers can converse with agents or your chatbot via your website.
  
• ID matching: Identify users across all Facebook messaging products with ID matching to personalize conversations and ensure a unified customer experience.
  
• NLP: Use natural language processing with Meta to parse text and understand the context of customer messages so the bot can reply.

But that’s not all. Here are eight additional top bot features your business can benefit from when you use Zendesk as your FB bot partner.

• AI agents: AI agents, the next generation of AI-powered bots, are pre-trained on real customer service interactions and can solve complex requests like appointment scheduling and order tracking from start to finish.
• Intent detection and sentiment analysis: Advanced bots can automatically classify requests by intent–whether it’s a refund, password reset, or a billing issue–for more accurate answers. The AI can also share this context with agents to help them provide the best solution for the customer.
• Routing: Businesses can use this type of routing to direct customer queries from different channels to the most appropriate agent. Bots can route conversations based on agent availability, skills, conversation priority, and more.
• No-code deployment: Our bot-building experience is easy with a set of drag-and-drop options to put your flow together—no code required.
• Human handover: For conversations that require a human touch, the bot provides an option to hand off to an agent.
• Integrations: Integrate with additional tools, like customer intelligence platforms, to increase productivity and visibility into customer issues.
• Context capture: Collect customer details like time zone, language, and contact preferences.
• APIs to call external systems: Customers who are looking for information available on third-party systems, such as order status or delivery timelines, can easily surface that through a conversation with the bot.

Bots are extremely useful, but only if implemented correctly. Here are a few proven tips, tricks, and messaging best practices to help you hit the ground running.

Be honest about the AI bots

When customers know they are interacting with a bot, they have realistic expectations about the type of assistance they will receive. Attempting to pass bots off as humans can break trust with your customers.

Additionally, being upfront about using conversational AI aligns with ethical business practices, demonstrating respect for customers and their preferences.

Make it easy for customers to speak with an agent

Not all situations call for a chatbot. If a customer requests an agent, don’t try to persuade them to keep chatting with the bot; route the user to a support representative to avoid unnecessary frustration.

When these situations arise, Zendesk makes it easy for your Facebook chatbot to pass the conversation to an agent, complete with context, so the customer doesn’t have to repeat themselves. Better yet, routing rules ensure the conversation gets handed to the right agent for the task and is prioritized as needed. And since AI chatbots can direct people to self-service articles, customers can still get some support when agents are off the clock.

Allow your Messenger bot to deflect FAQs

Basic Messenger bots can be integrated with your company's FAQ database to automatically answer simple questions, such as store hours, return policies, or product details. By deflecting these routine inquiries, the bot reduces the workload on human agents and provides instant responses to customers.

For more complex requests, you’ll need advanced AI agents like those that Zendesk offers. These sophisticated systems use natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning to understand nuanced queries, provide detailed solutions, and draw answers from your AI-powered knowledge base.

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Use AI chatbots to prep your CX team

If a bot escalates a ticket, the user may have already explained their problem in detail to the bot. Make sure your customer service software forwards the chat text to your reps. Otherwise, your customer will have to start all over again and may become (justifiably) irritated.

But FB chatbots can go beyond simply forwarding chat text to agents. Collecting and storing valuable customer data in a centralized system, such as a CRM or help desk, lets them access conversation history, customer preferences, purchase behavior, and issue details.

When customers escalate a conversation, agents can quickly access this information and understand the customer's needs without requiring them to repeat themselves. This streamlined process improves customer satisfaction and enables agents to close tickets faster.

Use FB Messenger bot data to make informed decisions

Like any other sales data, bot data is crucial for understanding where your weak points lie.

Use conversational intelligence software to review your Facebook chatbot data and ask yourself a few questions:

• When does the chatbot fail to answer the user’s question?
• How often does it route customers to agents, and is it necessary?
• How often do customers walk away unsatisfied?
• What questions do customers ask the most?
• How many questions does the average customer ask in a single session?

Understanding the answers to these questions will allow you to improve your bot and customer experience. The results may even prompt you to edit or update information on your website, knowledge base, or user instructions.

Still have questions? Here are a few Messenger chatbot questions we hear all the time.