Chatbots: Your Secret to Vetting Customers and Collecting Key Information

March 1, 2019

Let’s be honest, most businesses would love a turnkey process when it comes to vetting customers and collecting key information, right?

Maybe you’re searching for new ways to create conversations and remarket to highly relevant, prospective customers?

Here is the reality, chances are your audience is already on Facebook. Now the question is, how do we meet them where they are and take them to where we want them to be? This week on the podcast, I sit down with Agency Advisor and author, Jason Swenk, and we discuss why businesses of any size should be leveraging Messenger Marketing (aka Chatbots) plus tips for quickly and conveniently collecting key information and vetting prospective customers through Chatbots.

About the show:

The Casual Fridays Podcast is a show for marketers and businesses looking to get on the social media fast track. The podcast is an interview format, where each week I get up close and personal with top brands and leading experts to talk about digital marketing, social media marketing, influencer marketing, and more. The Casual Fridays Podcast is sponsored by Tack – a tool that helps brands and businesses acquire and manage digital rights to user-generated content (UGC).

About Jason Swenk:

  • Coach to Advertising, Digital, Media & PR Agencies
  • Author of ‘Accelerating Your Agency’
  • The host of the Swenk Agency Master Class Podcast and SwenkToday

Key Quotes from Jason on Vetting Customers and Collecting Key Information:

  • (Speaking about Chatbots) “I could connect with people on a different level. I could physically chat with them and direct them to what they needed.”
  • “The cool thing about Messenger … is that I can go back hours or even days later and ring (the customers) phone and we can have a conversation.”
  • “You can send files, schedule appointments, take payment (through your Chatbot).”
  • “On Messenger, I’m getting a 99% open rate and a 70% click-through rate.”
  • “I’ll ask (the subscribers) even more questions and get their email address and get them into my CRM.”
  • “We’re tying the whole ecosystem together.”
  • “No programming knowledge is needed (to start with Chatbots), whatsoever.”
  • “Ask lots of questions. Think about the checklist of things that you need.”
  • “The two biggest mistakes that I made were that: everything was bolted on to the ‘Welcome Message’ … and I was only linking people to ‘buttons’.”
  • “I made a ton of mistakes but it still worked very, very well.”
  • “You’re having a conversation with your perfect prospect. What do you want to ask? You’re using Messenger Marketing just to get that conversation started.”
  • “You’re losing connections that will turn into revenue if you’re not doing this.”
  • “Messenger Marketing is better than automated phone calls (from hotels).”

Key Takeaways on Vetting Customers and Collecting Key Information:

  • 4:01 Jason dives deeper into his introduction to Messenger Marketing and Chatbots
  • 6:02 Tyler and Jason discuss the different tools to build Chatbots and leverage Messenger Marketing
  • 6:50 Behind the scenes of building out a Chatbot
  • 8:01 Jason discusses how to personalize your Chatbot messaging to segment audiences
  • 9:15 Reaching out to leads directly once they’re captured through your Chatbot
  • 11:35 Remarketing to Chatbot subscribers
  • 12:20 Messenger Marketing vs. Email Marketing
  • 13:25 Redirecting prospective customers to your CRM through your Chatbot
  • 14:32 Utilizing Chatbots for small businesses
  • 15:18 Tips for getting started with your Chatbot
  • 15:55 What to avoid when building your Chatbot
  • 17:10 Creating custom flows for your Chatbot
  • 17:45 Jason’s top two mistakes when creating his Chatbot
  • 20:14 Finding success with follow up sequences
  • 21:59 Benchmarking open and click-through rates
  • 23:01 How Facebook is opening its API and consolidating platforms for Messenger
  • 25:20 Leveraging Messenger Marketing for the hospitality industry

Items mentioned in the show:

Enjoy the podcast?