It’s highly likely that you’re already running ads for your restaurant, club bar or café on Facebook and/or Instagram. What you’re probably not doing is using social messaging platforms to generate new customers as well as retain them. Social messaging channels are more popular than social media channels, yet businesses often overlook these private communication channels when its comes to marketing.
Once you build a Facebook Messenger bot or a Instagram Direct bot, you can design ads that will drive users to it. The correct ad format to use is click-to-Messenger ads, this ad format will appear on Facebook and/or Instagram and send users to your bot.
When users engage with your bot they become subscribers of your bot, similar to email subscribers, this means you can market to them more on this channel in the future as well as collect additional touch points such as mobile number and email – omnichannel marketing is key.
Let’s take a look at some of most popular features and benefits of social chatbots.
Re-engagement
Want to get lapsed customers in the door again? Reengage inactive bot users with new offers. You could send a message announcing a new food item, a new event, or a unique promotion, like a special Christmas dinner or a “buy one get one free” deal.
Capture leads
Does your establishment offer other services, like conferences, music concerts, event spaces or catering? You can have your chatbot capture lead information from users looking for more information on these topics.
Of course, you want customers to be satisfied in every interaction they have with your business—not just at the restaurant, but online too. You can use a chatbot to do this, making sure prospects and patrons have the information they need about your business at their fingertips. Plus, you can use a bot to personalize each interaction to help build trust, credibility, and positive customer relationships.
Ryan Dearlove, the founder of Chit Chat, a leading chatbot development company for restaurants said, “The interaction with a restaurant starts long before they walk through your doors. Businesses can use chatbots to ensure every interaction pre-visit and post-visit is personalized and handled with care that help build up trust and credibility. Messenger bots are the best-kept secret in restaurant marketing.”
Automated knowledgebase
A well-designed chatbot can answer up to 80% of routine questions, just think of all the time your staff will save from answering repetitive questions. It’s fairly straight forward to design a bot that can answer FAQs about your restaurant, bar, coffee shop, food truck, or food-delivery business. You can even integrate AI which allows you to train the bot ongoing based on the queries people ask.
It will allow potential customers and patrons to get the details they need about your restaurant (hours, menus, dietary requirements, address, etc.) on their own time, 24/7/365—and without any of your staff having to lift a finger. The easier and friendlier you make the process of learning about your business, the better the customer experience will be. It frees up time for your staff to focus on other more important tasks.
Feedback
Messenger chatbots aren’t just great for acquiring new customers, they can help turn customers into advocates. For example, you can collect customer feedback directly within Messenger and ask for reviews from specific groups of people based on their actions and behavior within your Messenger bot. Businesses can also create a loyalty scheme directly within Facebook Messenger that tracks everything in real-time.
Multi-lingual
Is your restaurant visited by tourists, or other patrons who speak multiple languages? You can have your Messenger bot converse to users in their chosen language.
Personalized promos
Sending a coupon, birthday discount, or some other kind of promotion to your subscribers? Set up your bot to automatically generate a personalized image for each one.
If you’re ready to boost sales, improve customer service, and bring in more diners to your restaurant, a chatbot is the tool for you.