If you use Facebook Messenger bots to automatically greet customers and answer questions automatically, it's very likely you have many back and forths between the customer and the bot. But if you're also using Re:amaze and have your Facebook Messenger connected via social channels, the messages between a customer and a bot can inundate your Re:amaze Inbox.
It is recommended that you set your Facebook Messenger Bot Platform as the a primary receiver for your Facebook page (not Re:amaze). This will allow Facebook to respond to incoming conversations before you handle them on your Re:amaze Inbox. These settings can be found in your Facebook Page Settings > Advanced Messaging > Messenger Receiver.
Supported Facebook Messenger Bot Platforms for Re:amaze
ShopMessage
ShopMessage is a great chatbot platform for eCommerce. If you're already using ShopMessage it'll work with Re:amaze without any customization as long as you connect your Facebook Messenger account to Re:amaze.
When customers are interacting with the ShopMessage chatbot via quick select buttons, these messages do not arrive in Re:amaze as they are bot-driven. As soon as the customer wishes to talk to a human agent and selects this option via a quick select button, the conversation will be escalated to your Re:amaze inbox.
ManyChat
ManyChat is a popular chatbot platform for businesses that rely on Messenger. If you're already using ManyChat it'll work with Re:amaze without any customization as long as you connect your Facebook Messenger account to Re:amaze.
When customers are interacting with the ManyChat chatbot via quick select buttons, these messages do not arrive in Re:amaze as they are bot-driven. As soon as the customer wishes to talk to a human agent and selects this option via a quick select button, the conversation will be escalated to your Re:amaze inbox.
Avoiding Issues with Bots
When you have a bot serving your Messenger channel, Re:amaze will automatically keep conversations resolved if the bot responds with any message. Conversely, Re:amaze will leave the conversation as unresolved if the bot does not respond. Make sure your bots do not send any autoresponder messages that don't drive the conversation to a resolution. This can leave conversations in a resolved state even though the customer is still awaiting a response from a human.
This means you should avoid using a third-party bot as an autoresponder (e.g. "Thanks, we'll get back to you soon"). Instead, you should use Messenger's built-in autoresponder capability, which Re:amaze can detect and leave the conversation in the appropriate state.
Here's an example of bot driven conversations that can come into Re:amaze:
Works with Re:amaze
Customer: question
Bot: something
Customer: Talk to human (via quick reply)
Does not work with Re:amaze
Customer: question
Bot: something
Customer: Talk to human (via quick reply)
Bot: Okay
If the chatbot platform responds after a quick reply button, such as "Okay", Messenger will leave the conversation in a resolved state, preventing it from getting escalated to your Re:amaze support team inbox.