Chatbots in online marketing

Online bots are every­where: Apple uses them, Facebook has big plans for them, and Microsoft has already made a mighty mistake with them. Global online players have been busying them­selves de­vel­op­ing chatbots for years and working out how they can be used to com­mu­ni­cate with 'real people'. Meanwhile, many projects are already quite developed and have had summaries written on them. This kind of com­mu­ni­ca­tion tech­nol­o­gy also provides smaller companies with a lot of op­por­tu­ni­ties. We explain every­thing you need to know about chatbots and give an overview of the ap­pli­ca­tion areas and future prognosis of them.

The basis for each chatbot program is the database. For every request, the bot accesses the database since that’s where all the answers and recog­ni­tion patterns are stored. The larger and more extensive the database is, the greater the knowledge base.

The system dis­as­sem­bles the questions into their in­di­vid­ual parts before each part can be processed by the pre­de­ter­mined rules. Modern chatbots can detect errors in punc­tu­a­tion, grammar, or spelling, and correct these before answering the question. This is done with the help of a fixed pattern. The process usually takes place through Macros or another built-in scripting language.

A weather app, a car sharing app, a taxi app: there’s an app for anything and every­thing. All the in­for­ma­tion the user obtains through various apps could be delivered all together in the future thanks to online bots – via Messenger. By in­te­grat­ing chatbots into messaging services, the ideal concept is created: to reach users centrally.

Instead of clicking on the weather app, users could easily ask Whatsapp’s weather bot 'Do I need an umbrella today?' and get an answer straight­away. It’s also possible to implement all further services that were pre­vi­ous­ly available as apps or the mobile browser via the same user interface. This is a great op­por­tu­ni­ty for big players in the online com­mu­ni­ca­tion world like Facebook. They obviously want users to stay on their platform and not to lose them to the weather service. If users find all the in­for­ma­tion they need on Facebook messenger, then they have no need to look elsewhere.

The first chatbot dates back as far as the 60s. The German-American computer scientist, Joseph Weizen­baum, developed the program 'Eliza', in order to demon­strate that it was possible for people and computers to com­mu­ni­cate in natural language. The local program without internet access acted as a kind of virtual psy­chother­a­pist. What was sur­pris­ing at the time: Eliza gave such authentic answers that the patients believed they were speaking to a real doctor and this phe­nom­e­non is known today as the 'Eliza effect'. Chatbots evolved further in the decades following. It was dis­cov­ered that the more time the chatbots spent in­ter­act­ing and learning from these in­ter­ac­tions and the more ad­di­tion­al in­for­ma­tion they had at their disposal, the more authentic and accurate were the answers given.

Chatbots have been employed in customer service for some time to enable a faster, in­stan­ta­neous contact. Customer service normally takes place over telephone or e-mail, but limited ability of staff means that this leads to delays. This is due to the users’ changing ex­pec­ta­tions since many now expect answers to their queries in real-time as opposed to waiting hours or even days for them.

In recent years, more and more companies have started using chatbots on their sites. Website visitors can ask an alleged customer service rep­re­sen­ta­tive questions using a small chat window in the browser. What lies behind this isn’t a human, but a program. Chatbots act as advisors and answer questions about the company’s products or services. The relevant in­for­ma­tion and FAQs are stored pre­vi­ous­ly in the database. Many companies use bots to shorten waiting times while at the same time reducing support costs.

In the meantime, marketers have rec­og­nized that there are better places to bring online bots and users together than on their website: chat apps or messaging services. The fore­run­ner in this regard is Kik. 40% of US teens and young adults use Kik Messenger. Kik recently opened its bot platform for companies. Companies can send their own chatbots to com­mu­ni­cate with users and the bots act as rep­re­sen­ta­tives for the brand. When users write to them and ask questions, they usually reply with product in­for­ma­tion or tips. Many bots can also tell jokes and simulate simple con­ver­sa­tions. The chatbot used on Vine (the video platform) sends users suitable films upon request for whatever keyword they’ve entered. The weather bot predicts when it’ll rain and other bots give makeup tips, for example. According to Kik, 1.5 million users au­tho­rized their brand with the service in the first week of the chatbots going live. The reasoning behind it was to create in­de­pen­dent per­son­al­i­ties from 'life­less' brands. By enabling a con­ver­sa­tion, the user is more likely to perceive the brand as a friend. The online bots’ task is to converse with the user and inform them. At the same time, they offer a platform through which marketers can ma­nip­u­late customers without them being aware of it. Kik bots cannot learn in­de­pen­dent­ly, which led to Microsoft having quite a negative ex­pe­ri­ence.

At the beginning of 2016, Microsoft launched Tay, a chatbot with ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence on Twitter as well as other platforms - and they failed spec­tac­u­lar­ly. The con­ver­sa­tion software was meant to expand Twitter users’ knowledge via in­ter­ac­tion. The amount of texts and questions stored was supposed to have trained the bot so well that it would be like talking to a 14-18 year old. Instead, the adaptive chat robot developed into Microsoft’s worse nightmare in less than 24 hours. Tay learnt swear words and delivered racist, in­flam­ma­to­ry language by itself. It even showed sol­i­dar­i­ty with Hitler! It was obvious Tay was using the wrong people as role models since internet trolls had been de­lib­er­ate­ly ma­nip­u­lat­ing the naïve bot. Microsoft stopped the project and deleted lots of tweets. The takeaway from this project was that self-learning software is easy to influence, es­pe­cial­ly if the learning phase doesn’t take place in a closed system. Kik is planning an au­tho­rized employee learning phase. The first step is for employees to com­mu­ni­cate with customers. The chatbot watches this and learns from the con­ver­sa­tion, then the hope is for it to be able to simulate natural con­ver­sa­tions as perfectly as possible.

With a market share of 86%, Facebook is by far the strongest social media site in the world. Marketers rec­og­nized the potential of this channel from early on and therefore have it as their core social media marketing strategy. Facebook Messenger also looks promising for online marketing. New chatbots APIs (in­ter­faces) and the as­so­ci­at­ed message au­toma­tion is intended to help companies continue to reach customers through the chat and generate revenue directly there. On top of com­mu­ni­cat­ing in text form, the bots should also be able to display images and de­scrip­tions of products, and enable customers to make reser­va­tions and purchases via Facebook Messenger. Some companies have already started using Messenger and conduct their customer service, live ticker, or ordering service there. Here are three examples of how companies used Facebook Messenger for marketing purposes:

KLM is one of the first permanent partners of Facebook in terms of Messenger marketing. In 2015 the airline published its 'Business on Mes­sen­ger'. The Facebook chat pre­vi­ous­ly served as a customer service for the airline guests and the idea was to then add ad­di­tion­al service features. With the present service, you can store boarding cards in the chat and receive check-in reminders, flight changes, and delays via Messenger. The live chat feature gives customers the op­por­tu­ni­ty to ask questions and address requests directly.

Uber was founded in 2009 and is very well known in the US. Since 2016 customers have been able to book rides via Facebook Messenger. The service can be used in­de­pen­dent­ly from the Uber app. The booking feature is also available within con­ver­sa­tions of two or more users. The program shows arrival times and estimated driving costs directly in the chat.

Sky­scan­ner is the first travel search engine to of­fi­cial­ly launch a Facebook Messenger bot. By visiting Sky­scan­ner’s Facebook page and sending them a private message, you’re put in contact with the bot. Just type in a des­ti­na­tion or simply write 'any­where' to start searching. You then receive several flight sug­ges­tions depending on your departure airport. Once you’ve found a flight that suits you, the bot will send you a link so you can visit Sky­scan­ner’s website and book your flight from there.

Chatbots are a clear trend in the ad­ver­tis­ing industry and they still have a lot of potential. They allow you to target different groups, es­pe­cial­ly over messenger services which already have millions of users. It’s clear that mobile devices dominate the online market because more and more people are using internet on their mobile devices than on their PCs.

The idea of Messenger bots is to target customers exactly where they can be found on a daily basis – on a tablet or smart­phone in Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp. These instant messaging services could be used as universal service apps in the future. The fast response time and the ability to provide real-time solutions and answers, opens up new revenue op­por­tu­ni­ties for companies.