Chatbots Are About to Transform Facebook (And the World)

We live in a world where instant gratification has become the norm, where marketers must cater around-the-clock to people’s content consumption and brand interaction habits across multiple channels and devices. As messaging apps become the fastest-growing and most-used apps, marketers need to evolve with the way users are choosing to interact, exploring new and relevant technologies — like chatbots.

So what is a chatbot? Chatbots are programs that simulate human conversation, using response workflows or artificial intelligence to interact with people based on verbal and written cues. One familiar example is Apple’s Siri. Another is Microsoft’s Tay, which famously failed on Twitter earlier this year. Last month, Facebook gave businesses the ability to create their own chatbots to communicate with audiences through Facebook Messenger.

Chatbots hold a number of potential valuable uses for marketers, including lead generation, point of conversion, retention and customer service. This POV will address what chatbots are, how Facebook is implementing them, and the opportunities and considerations for pharma marketers.

BACKGROUND

The concept of chatbots is not new. Back in the days of AOL Instant Messenger, bots like SmarterChild allowed users to have conversations and develop friendships with a machine. At a basic level, they could return sports scores, check the weather and provide movie times.

Since then, chatbots have evolved. Today, you can find chatbots on websites to help with ordering merchandise and answering frequently asked questions. Apple’s Siri is well-versed at responding to queries to provide relevant answers. Facebook’s commitment to chatbots has marketers very excited.

Facebook’s Messenger platform has 900 million users and counting. Facebook-owned messaging apps (Messenger and WhatsApp) send 60 billion messages a day — three times the amount of SMS messages sent globally per day. Clearly, Facebook has the advantage of a strong user base in the chatbot arena already.

Facebook launched chatbots with several brands already signed on. Users can buy flowers from 1-800-Flowers, receive bank notifications from Bank of America and order food from Burger King.

Chatbots currently provide preprogrammed, automated responses, but have the potential to evolve and become smarter with each new interaction. Rest assured, however, that no newly learned, unapproved responses will deploy and all responses will remain compliant due to the pre-approved workflow mechanism borrowed from other pharma social messaging strategies.

As chatbots continue to evolve, it may be harder to tell where the chatbot experience ends and human community managers begin. No chatbot has effectively passed the Turing test, a test designed to tell whether an artificial intelligence is as good at conversation as a human. However, Facebook’s artificial intelligence assistant M, announced last year, is designed to bridge that gap, providing human responses where chatbots leave off. It’s still in testing now but may roll out widely soon, complementing chatbots.

HOW CHATBOTS HELP MARKETERS

Chatbots mirror one-to-one engagements people have within their own social circles. This allows for a more relaxed marketing approach because chatbots can offer information that feels very much like word-of-mouth recommendations from friends.

CUSTOMER/PATIENT SERVICE
The chatbots will complement call centers and interactive voice response systems by reducing some of the volume when human interaction isn’t necessary. For the time being, chatbots will help humans facilitate patient requests, not eliminate them.

MARKETING
In the future, as chatbots become monetized, there will be opportunities for mass distribution of marketing and promotional materials using chatbots, but in the interim, all interactions should be treated as transactional. In other words, the interactions should be user-requested responses that do not require marketing authorization. For now, chatbots will most likely not be used for lead generation or conversion.

Facebook requires that businesses leveraging this technology adhere closely to its policies. Even if users provide a full marketing authorization—or opt-in—they cannot receive advertising of any kind without written consent from Facebook prior to launch of the bot. Chatbots can still be leveraged as a tool to further learn user behavioral tendencies, which allows for a more robust approach to predictive modeling.

WHERE CHATBOTS WILL POP UP IN HEALTHCARE

While some healthcare marketers may be apprehensive about allowing chatbots to converse on their behalf, this new functionality can allow for novel ways of communicating that provide great user experiences. We’ve listed some possible use cases below.

• Diagnosis assistance — Users may be able to ask chatbots personalized questions about their health. The chatbot then finds resources based on keywords from the user. HealthTap has already made content from its physician network available via a Messenger chatbot.

• Treatment reminders (adherence) — After users ask questions and interact with brands, the chatbots can offer to remind users to take their medications or refill their prescriptions when they’re running out. This will help patients adhere to their treatments.
• Appointment scheduling — Chatbots can link directly to portals to aid in scheduling doctors’ appointments. This will make it easier on the patient by eliminating the need to contact their doctor’s office to make an appointment.
• Doctor and patient advocate location — By providing just a zip code, chatbots can accurately link to or provide a patient with a list of appropriate healthcare professionals close to their location. In areas such as rare diseases, there is an opportunity for chatbots to help patients “find someone like me” in a local patient advocate.
• Customized education — Chatbots can also help train and educate users on a variety of topics. Setting up automatic quizzes can teach people how to respond to health scenarios like properly using a device or tracking eating habits. With additional input from patients, marketers can better understand content affinity and behavioral paths.

CONSIDERATIONS FOR PHARMA

To find the rest of this post and more considerations for the healthcare industry, visit the original post here on intouchsol.com.