{"id":41841,"date":"2020-07-06T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-07-06T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.clearvoice.com\/resources\/build-facebook-chatbot-10-minutes\/"},"modified":"2025-09-21T10:23:40","modified_gmt":"2025-09-21T17:23:40","slug":"build-facebook-chatbot-10-minutes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clearvoice.com\/resources\/build-facebook-chatbot-10-minutes\/","title":{"rendered":"Facebook Chatbot: How to Build Your Own in About 10 Minutes"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article was originally published in March 2017. It has been updated to reflect new information and application features available related to chatbots.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What if you had a medical problem and need to talk to a doctor in minutes instead of hours.<\/p>\n

With chatbots<\/a>, you can.<\/p>\n

A number of medical chatbot applications are available \u2014 you install one on your phone, and you can get self-help diagnostic information for your ailments. Powered by artificial intelligence, you can have a conversation with a chatbot and get answers to your medical questions. It can even connect you with healthcare providers in real-time.<\/p>\n

This article will break down how companies are applying the power of chatbots to marketing. We’ll cover how companies are using them, the best chatbots for lead generation, and how to start building one.<\/p>\n

\"How<\/p>\n

How are companies using chatbots in marketing?<\/h2>\n

Dozens of brands with large marketing budgets and initiatives, such as\u00a0Disney<\/a>,\u00a0Uber<\/a>, and\u00a0Kayak<\/a>, are using chatbots to connect with their customers and sell more products and services.<\/p>\n

Disney, the enormous media and entertainment conglomerate, helped promote their \u2018Zootopia\u2019 movie with a Facebook Messenger chatbot that interacted with children. The chatbot led the child through a conversation with the movie\u2019s main character, Officer Judy Hopps, as they worked together to catch bad guys.<\/p>\n

\"Using<\/p>\n

Kayak, one of the most popular air and hotel booking platforms, allows you to interact with its chatbots via Facebook Messenger, Slack or Amazon Alexa. Kayak\u2019s main website provides tools for searching airlines and hotels and then booking them directly. With their chatbots, they are taking their service even further: You can receive budget-driven recommendations, get updates on your already-planned trips, or evaluate the best time to travel to certain hotspots.<\/p>\n

Chatbots are meant to be more interactive ways to communicate with potential customers, not merely a way to help close a sale. As such, Kayak has introduced more conversational functionality beyond simply booking travel.<\/p>\n

Likewise, chatbots can be leveraged in more creative fashions to generate leads.<\/p>\n

Using chatbots to generate leads:<\/h2>\n

Traditional lead generation<\/a> for both B2C and B2B marketing involves a lot of advertising and calls-to-action, such as \u201cdownload this ebook,\u201d to capture the lead for a sales follow-up.<\/p>\n

Enter chatbots.<\/p>\n

\"Using<\/p>\n

With 68 percent of online adults in the United States on Facebook,\u00a0according to Pew Research<\/a>, you can likely get your chatbot in front of your target demographic if you create a chatbot for Facebook. While Facebook Messenger is the leading platform for chatbots, there are also a number of other platforms available today. You can build chatbots using HubSpot, Slack, Skype, PureChat, Drift, and many others.<\/p>\n

Any product or service that has a high level of pre-purchase decision-making, such as auto sales, real estate or enterprise software, can gain immense value from a chatbot. Because your prospective customer is likely doing a fair amount of online research into which product to buy, it makes sense to build a chatbot that helps answer questions for them, in a smart and conversational way.<\/p>\n

Somewhere in the conversation your chatbot can offer a downloadable guide \u2014 all the prospective customer needs to do is provide some contact information, and the guide will be sent to them. Assuming your chatbot provides value to the consumer when your salesperson reaches out to discuss the sale, they will have already had a favorable interaction with your brand.<\/p>\n

7 examples of chatbots for lead generation:<\/h2>\n

Despite chatbots having been around for some time now, lead generation via chatbots is still a very new technique. Not many people are leveraging them, and so there is still very much an early adopter advantage that you can get from launching a chatbot for lead generation.<\/p>\n

To help you get a better idea of how you can leverage chatbots for this purpose, we\u2019ve made a list of chatbots we\u2019ve either built for clients or dreamed up and intended to build.<\/p>\n

\"Real<\/p>\n

1. Real estate agent bots<\/h3>\n

Real estate agents rank among some of the most lead-hungry professionals out there. It is amazing what real estate agents will pay for a strong lead.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve done several bot-building training sessions with this real estate agent bot example. If you\u2019re interested in seeing more on this, be sure to read through to the end of this article, where we share an actual template you can copy and use for your own clients.<\/p>\n

2. Loan calculator bots<\/h3>\n

Financial institutions that provide consumers or businesses with loans are always looking for ways to get more applications. Why not offer a loan calculator? After running the calculation in the chatbot, open up a dialog and offer a piece of free content, such as a guide on the \u201cTen things to ask a lender,\u201d in exchange for a contact\u2019s email address.<\/p>\n

3. Life coach bots<\/h3>\n

A chatbot can be used to provide or offer free advice in the areas of coaching, psychology, or other forms of personal development and mental health.<\/p>\n

4. Politician bots<\/h3>\n

What about politicians that need to reach thousands of constituents in their district, some that they can’t reach? In steps a bot that updates their voters in real-time via Facebook Messenger. And the great thing about Facebook is that it allows you to draw tight geographic fences around areas you want to advertise in. A politician can set targets around her district, buy ads, get people into her chatbot, and can take a more proactive approach and voice with her constituents, all of which can increase her chances of getting re-elected.<\/p>\n

5. Investment advice bots<\/h3>\n

The financial planning industry is very competitive for new business. Advertise a guide on Facebook that is sure to whet the whistle for potential investors. Then, when they click your ad, it will take them into a chatbot. From there, capture their email addresses, and you\u2019re gold!<\/p>\n

6. Home services bots<\/h3>\n

Regardless of the type of home service you offer (or that your client offers), you can help automate quotes and lead generation for potential new customers. You can also provide home improvement advice through a chatbot to help you increase the number of new leads.<\/p>\n

7. Appointment-setting bots<\/h3>\n

If you are involved in an appointment-heavy industry (hair salons, medical or dental offices, law firms, and so on), then you can leverage a chatbot as a method for current customers to book spots on your calendar. Simply opening up a dialog with your customers via Facebook Messenger will allow you to proactively reach out to them to follow up, solicit reviews and feedback, and to run \u201crefer a friend\u201d promotions.<\/p>\n

How to start building a chatbot:<\/h2>\n

Years ago, chatbot-building was quite the task. It used to require coding knowledge, which often involved working with a skilled developer. By using Facebook Messenger, for example, you used to have to work directly with Facebook\u2019s developer console to build a chatbot. However, over the years as chatbot functionality has become more widely used and available, building them has become significantly easier.<\/p>\n

There are dozens of chatbot-building solutions out there, with three of the most popular for Facebook Messenger chatbots being\u00a0Chatfuel<\/a>,\u00a0ManyChat<\/a>, and\u00a0Dialogflow\u00a0(formerly called API.ai). Each of these solutions provides point-and-click, no-coding-necessary options for creating an interactive chatbot on the Facebook Messenger platform.<\/p>\n

The big difference between ManyChat, Chatfuel, and Dialogflow:<\/h3>\n