The buzzword of the hour is Facebook Messenger Bots.
Everywhere you see, you read stories about these bots and how big corporations are using them to interact with their customers. Well, if you are still confused about these bots, a simple explanation is on its way.
Facebook Messenger Bots are digital assistants of various big corporations that will interact with you through messenger. Right now, these bots will give you the information you need from these organizations be it ordering flowers, checking your bank account details, getting daily weather updates delivered to your inbox, and so on. The scope for these messenger bots is broad and if programmed correctly, it may replace the social media customer service representative some day.
So how do you interact with these Facebook Messenger Bots?
Right now, there are around 33 participating companies for these bots and of course, many companies will join in soon. A few companies that are a part of these bots are Bank of America, Burger King, HP, HealthTap, and so on. All you need to do to chat with a bot is to tap on the search bar on the Facebook Messenger app and type the name of the company (CNN, for example).
Once the chat window is open, all you have to do is ask your question.
Here is an example of my conversation with Hi Poncho, a weather bot.
Another great option about Facebook Messenger bots is that it gives you the option to block ads and sponsored messages if you want to. If you fear that once you interact with a company, it will soon target you with sponsored messages, put them to rest. See the ‘Block’ option at the top-right corner of the conversation? Just tap on that and you can either block sponsored messages or all messages from the bot. Clean and simple, isn’t it?
The possibilities with these Facebook Messenger bots are endless. Soon you can order food or flowers or anything you want (depending on how creatively different organizations use this), all through Facebook.
