Data integrations happen in the sub-five minute chatbot setup and deployment process. Consumers can then immediately interact with the chatbots on Messenger, with all interaction data logging to a backend system. Services make analytics available directly within Messenger.

Without BotBot, the effort and expense to build a chatbot is prohibitive for all but the most resource-rich and more progressive companies. By tidily packaging all the technical complexity and experience strategy as a complete backend system, the once daunting endeavor of building a chatbot is reduced to a simple, conversational interface.

The idea of making chatbots accessible is basic, but packaging their development process into a bot was a breakthrough. The half-joking, meta notion of building a bot with a bot, was able to be formed into an actual product and brand, “BotBot”.

The data is the journey in its entirety. A chatbot template is launched and a small business owner customizes the experience through manual data input, integration of third party services and associated data edits. The consumer views this business data as a conversation in Messenger to do things like ascertain answers to common questions, order food, or book a fitness class.

All collected data is implanted into the Messenger flows, be it supporting initial chatbot setup by the small business owner or facilitating conversations with consumers.

Data integration happens between three systems, notably:

1. A backend system that captures and delivers data for the full experience

2. Third party data services already in use by the business

3. Facebook Messenger, which captures data from the small business owner during setup, delivers data for consumer interactions, and captures consumer responses back into the backend system.

All consumer BotBot interactions on Messenger are captured and analyzed, allowing businesses to optimize the experience on an ongoing basis.

Interaction data that reveals a degraded experience, e.g. requests for fitness classes that are consistently booked, provides an insight to drive behavior change: a user could be prompted to book classes farther in advance, before they’re fully booked.

All small businesses who build a chatbot have the potential to increase their brand value through improved customer service, while also reducing service costs and growing revenue.

Extensive integrations facilitate a complex exchange of data. For end users – businesses building bots and their users – the interface is a simple conversational exchange on Facebook Messenger, requiring no technical expertise and mere minutes to build or use.

Building atop a small business' Facebook page, BotBot utilizes a Messenger interaction to collect data from the business to customize their chatbot. The customization process includes integrations with third party services to surface data from external platforms. The data can then be edited in Messenger, or via a dedicated website, that also serves analytics to enable experience optimization.

Customization of the chosen BotBot template happens within Facebook Messenger, with manual data input and integration of third party services. Once deployed, consumer interaction data is also captured from the Messenger experience.

The data extracted from third party services has to be simplified for accessibility in a Messenger interface. A reductive processing is applied, so summaries of what will be presented to end consumers can be understood, without looking at a fully granular form of the data. This is especially important for those business users to build their experience from a mobile device, as opposed to a desktop.

After deploying a newly-built chatbot to Facebook Messenger for consumer interaction, the last step is promotion. The BotBot experience includes guidance for small business owners to conduct targeted promotion, by either creating content for their owned Facebook business page, or creating a paid Facebook ad.

Chatbots allow companies to improve customer service and increase sales. But, however simple they appear, building chatbots requires considerable creative and technical expertise, time, and money. These restraints make chatbots inaccessible to most small businesses.

BotBot enables small businesses to build chatbots in minutes, not months, without assistance, following these easy steps. First, utilize Facebook Messenger to build a chatbot experience, satisfying common consumer interactions like ordering food, asking common questions of a business, and booking fitness classes. Second, serve the chatbot experience itself, also on Messenger, so consumers have easy access to these high utility interactions.

In this manner, BotBot makes chatbots accessible to all small businesses, not just enterprises with the extensive resources required to build one from scratch. The chatbots deliver meaningful experiences that help serve common small business needs, enhancing customer service and growing sales.