Sophie Hundertmark interviews Matthias Mehner from messengerpeople in Munich on the subject of messenger marketing (marketing with messenger bots). messengerpeople are one of the pioneers of messenger communication. In the wake of the need to automate communication, messengerpeople started building their chatbot builder.

WhatsApp is almost a must for messenger marketing

Sophie and Matthias talk about how important it is to first be clear about how you want to communicate with your customers and why. If you then decide to use Messenger, there is almost no way around WhatsApp because it is more widespread than the other messenger services. And once you’ve decided to do this, you need a chatbot because otherwise you won’t be able to keep up with the communication.

WhatsApp chatbots are different from classic chatbots

The WhatsApp chatbot has special features, such as the fact that the chatbot is text-based. In other words, there are no buttons like there are with chatbots in other messengers. So the whole thing has to be solved textually. This sometimes leads to problems in communication between customers and the chatbot, which must be taken into account when designing the chatbot. If you do that, communication works very well.
Another special feature is that the customer must first contact the company before communication can take place. So you have to manage to send an impulse from the outside that the customer contacts you and then the chatbot can start and start with first level support, for example.The chatbot on WhatsApp is basically suitable for all companies that decide to communicate with their customers via Messenger. messengerpeople takes the multi-messenger approach. The chatbot is developed for all messenger platforms, placed on all platforms and the customer then decides which channel to use to communicate with the company. Their experience shows that 80% of customers then opt for WhatsApp.

The Apple Business Chat

Sophie and Matthias also talk about other messenger chats, such as Apple Business Chat, and what potential it has. Apple Business Chat can only be used by 20% of cell phone users in Germany because it is linked to iOS. For some customers who have a premium target group, it still makes sense because it is already extremely well developed. Appointment scheduling, product search in Messenger and payment (via ApplePay) are all already integrated, and the entire customer journey can be mapped here.

Finally, Matthias reports on examples of where and how chatbots have been used successfully and how they are accepted by customers.

It’s best to listen to the episode for yourself. Have fun![vc_empty_space height=”40px”]

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