More Affordable Pricing, Free Plan Changes

Chatfuel Team, June 13, 2018

Today we’re excited to announce an important update that will take effect in the coming weeks. 

We’re grateful for all the invaluable feedback you’ve provided over the past couple months.

Your input is the foundation for all the changes we’re announcing today. These changes will help us keep our promise of providing the best, most affordable chatbot platform your business can rely on in the long term.

More Affordable PRO Plan

Our mission is to help businesses all over the world use chatbots to build long-term relationships with their customers on a powerful and personal channel. 

Today we’re taking another step in this direction by making our pricing more affordable.

New pricing starts at only $15/month and increases at a much slower rate. For example, a bot with 10K users will now be 4X more affordable than the old plan! This new pricing goes into effect on June 20.

Free Plan Changes

On August 1, we’re rolling out these changes to the Free Plan:

• Chatfuel branding in Welcome Message
• Maximum of 5,000 reachable users 

No product can be free and unlimited forever. Based on your feedback, we came up with a balanced Free Plan that allows you to exercise full creativity with unlimited broadcasts, sequences, and blocks. 

At the same time, these changes will give allow us to deliver even better on our commitment of providing an excellent and reliable product to all of you.

Click here to see how the changes may affect your bots.

To Sum it Up…

We hope the new pricing will make it even easier for you to upgrade and enjoy white labeling, priority support, and the power of the People Tab. Upgrading to PRO also means you’re contributing to the platform’s scalability, excellent performance, and faster roll-out of new features.

We know you might have questions, so register for my live Q&A tomorrow (2pm PST).

Thanks for making Chatfuel the #1 bot platform and community in the world.

Dmitry Dumik, CEO

Cosmetic Startup Sells $250,000+ Per Month with Chatfuel Bot

Chatfuel Team, June 1, 2018

The Brand

Beauty Player is a cosmetic startup in Taiwan whose mission is to enhance the skin’s natural beauty. Their most popular product is a facial mask, which prevents breakouts by absorbing oil and dirt buildup. The brand helps customers restore their skin’s glow and their confidence.

Beauty Player’s most popular facial mask

The Problem

Most startups endure growing pains and Beauty Player is no exception. Orders were flooding in from around the world, but their support team couldn’t answer customers’ questions fast enough.

Packing and shipping orders in December 2017

The Solution

So they built a Messenger bot to automate FAQs about shipping, discounts, and affiliate opportunities. Chatfuel “helps Beauty Player solve the problem of not having customer support 24/7,” says Fash Chang (Marketing Director @ GoSky AI) who built the chatbot.

Onboarding sequence in Beauty Player’s chat experience

Increasing brand awareness through education is another component of the chatbot. The bot asks users whether their skin is dry, oily, or sensitive then offers relevant skin care tips. Beauty Player also recommends an appropriate facial mask (and coupon code) from their product line.

The Results

Approximately 40% ($250,000) of Beauty Player’s total monthly revenue in May 2018 was attributed to their bot powered by Chatfuel.

The brand ran Messenger ad campaigns that reduced their CPC (“Cost Per Conversion”) by more than half — from $8.30 to $4.06 — and achieved a healthy 10X ROAS (“Return on Ad Spend”).

Facebook video ad using Chatfuel’s “Acquire Users from Comments” feature

Beauty Player’s AOV (“Average Order Value”) also grew 10% because “users learned more about the brand” through the bot’s educational content and “added greater quantity of product per user,” says Chang.

“We believe that when we bring the top-level digital marketing strategy (Facebook ads + Chatfuel bots) to all the traditional SMEs and startups, we can help make their dream come true. And this is our dream.”
— Fash Chang, GoSky AI

Beauty Player’s overall strategy was simple, yet brilliant:

1. Bot distributes coupon codes to users
2. Humans match users who redeemed a coupon and purchased mask on website
3. People Tab exports matching users (most likely to purchase) for Lookalike Audience sample

Example of user data segments available in the People Tab

The Recipe

Beauty Player achieved epic results using these Chatfuel features:

• User Attributes: The bot greets users by their first name for an added touch of personalization. Beauty Player also uses attributes to segment subscribers based on their skin type, which is saved for later use in retargeting campaigns.

Skin types (dry, oily, sensitive, etc.) are populated as quick reply buttons. The user’s choice is saved to an attribute.

• People Tab: This PRO feature let Beauty Player export a CSV file of subscribers who placed an order on their website. The brand uploaded this customer data to Ads Manager to create a Lookalike Audience of its most valuable customers. This allows Facebook to extrapolate the data (finding new users who share characteristics similar to existing customers) and significantly decrease CPC while increasing ROAS.
• Facebook Ads: They combined Facebook’s impressive data targeting with Chatfuel’s rich set of customizable tools. It’s easy to connect Messenger ads to Chatfuel blocks using “block name: Welcome message” as your payload in Ads Manager. No need to decipher confusing code!

Comparison of Chatfuel’s simple Ads Manager payload configuration versus custom-coded JSON response

• JSON API: Beauty Player uses this plugin to gain insights about when users are interacting with the bot. It helps the brand re-engage users who have recently dropped off and retarget those who have not redeemed their soon-to-expire coupons.
• AI Tab: Users can freely type “my skin is dry/oily/sensitive” at any point in the chat experience to browse recommended products and skin care tips. This gives users greater freedom because they can bypass the bot’s menus and buttons.

If the user’s message matches an AI rule, the bot will redirect them to corresponding content.

Join the Chatfuel Community on Facebook for the latest tips, tricks, tutorials, and success stories! If you’re stuck or confused, check out our help docs or connect directly via team@chatfuel.com.

Chatfuel Launches Template Marketplace for Building Better Bots Faster

Chatfuel Team, May 26, 2018

Templates have arrived!

We launched Chatfuel with the goal of democratizing bot building. Non-technical people wanted the opportunity to design meaningful experiences without coding; we empowered them to do it.

Over time, we added more features that made Chatfuel the most flexible tool on the market. We provided the building blocks to everyone from celebrities and global publishers to freelancers and local restaurants so they could create powerful experiences that positively impacted their audiences.

The hard work was worth it. People inspired us by creating things we had never imagined. These generous people went above and beyond by sharing what they built with our Community.

Today we’re proud to officially call these individuals Chatfuel Creators. We’re thrilled to finally pull back the curtain and launch a dedicated space for sharing templates!

Because when it comes to Messenger marketing, we’re all in the same boat. If bots are spammy or poorly designed, the industry will suffer. Our marketplace is a gateway for sharing experiences that lift up the industry as a whole.

If you’d like to help shape the future, please submit your template.

Most importantly, let us know what templates you’d like to see!

This Baby Brand is Generating 80% of Total Sales from its Messenger Bot

Chatfuel Team, May 5, 2018

DECEN Muebles Infantiles is a small, children’s furniture business in Mexico that crafts cribs and cradles by hand from the highest quality woods available. The company’s mission is to design furniture that is safe for babies, robust for parents, and environmentally sustainable. Their bot was awarded the “Grand Prize” title in Chatfuel’s 2017 bot competition. 

The Bot

Overwhelmed by an overflowing Messenger inbox, the brand built a Chatfuel bot with the goal of reducing time spent responding to customer inquiries. They did just that by designing a sales funnel that delights users with timely and relevant information, while simultaneously optimizing the business’ resources by deciding which users require 1-on-1 assistance from a human agent.

The Results

According to Omar Cortes, founder of DECEN Muebles Infantiles, the benefits of Messenger automation extend far beyond customer support alone. Previously he would only sell at expo shows throughout the year, but now he uses Chatfuel as a 24/7/365 e-commerce solution. “At my last expo, I used Facebook Ads and Chatfuel’s broadcasting tool to double my average sales,” he says. “Today 80% of total sales come from the bot.”

Cortes mentions that an unexpected advantage of deploying the Messenger experience for his business has been increased social proof and customer loyalty. “More users have started reviewing my Facebook page as an excellent service,” he says, “which was made possible by the chatbot.”

DECEN Muebles Infantiles’ most successful Messenger strategy involved a comment acquisition campaign asking soon-to-be mothers what month their baby is expected to arrive. Facebook users who commented on the post became bot subscribers that were entered into a giveaway for a high-ticket crib. The Messenger campaign doubled monthly sales, generated nearly 4,000 qualified leads, and — harnessing the power of the JSON API plugin — added another thousand subscribers to the brand’s MailChimp list.

The Recipe

DECEN Muebles Infantiles used the following Chatfuel tools to achieve these impressive results:

• Sequences: Users who entered the crib giveaway received a follow-up message encouraging them to review the brand’s Facebook page. The result? Over 100 glowing reviews that “allowed me to sell easily,” says Cortes. 
• Gallery Cards: Showing off your products in Chatfuel is a piece of cake! Display a list of your best sellers with text, photos, and buttons (for buying, learning more, or sharing with friends).

• Disable User Input: A little-known feature of Chatfuel is the ability to disable the composer, which will restrict users from sending free text inputs. It is extremely useful if your bot does not use AI or the User Input plugin because users will not be able to trigger the Default Answer message (which may distract them). Therefore, subscribers should convert more quickly.

So, what’s holding you back?! Start building your first Messenger bot and getting results like DECEN Muebles Infantiles! (Just promise you’ll let us feature you here… 😉)

Join the Chatfuel Community on Facebook for the latest tips, tricks, tutorials, and success stories!

If you’re stuck or confused, check out our help docs or connect directly via team@chatfuel.com.

Slovenia Olympic Team Replaces Official App with Chatfuel Bot

Chatfuel Team, April 27, 2018

This year’s 2018 Olympic Winter Games in Pyeongchang went down in history for debuting sports like Snowboarding big air and Alpine skiing team event. But these events were not the only “firsts” that viewers saw. Slovenia’s Olympic Team presented a Messenger chatbot under Foksi (Foxie) persona. Designed and built by the agency team at fbchatbot.si, the bot was unveiled a couple of months prior to Pyeongchang 2018 and landed in the spotlight during the Olympics.

The Bot

The Olympic Committee of Slovenia is one of the “youngest” Olympic Committees in the world but already has a rich history of great Olympic stories. Chatbot Foksi, of course, can tell users all those stories. In addition, using the bot people can find general information about Pyeongchang 2018 and the history of Slovenian Olympic medalists or take an Olympic quiz, browse the merchandise e-shop, and get support.

The Results

Foksi was the central channel for real-time communications with the Slovenia Olympic Team. During the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympics, Messenger chatbot was the leading source of information about the Slovenian athletes, game schedules, results and more. More than 3.5K subscribed fans and supporters were the first to find out about the Slovenian medalists, and they received a daily event schedule with a link to past competition rankings. The open rate of the broadcast messages was 93% on average during the 2018 Olympic Games.

Foksi captivated users from the very beginning. It was clear that more users were active on the Team Slovenia chatbot than its official iPhone or Android apps. A couple hundred downloads of the official app was small compared to over 6,700 total bot users (over 50% of whom subscribed to receive regular updates).

As far as the user acquisition costs go, Team Slovenia ended up acquiring 33 times more users in the bot compared to the app downloads for the same promotion budget.

The decision was clear: Team Slovenia dropped its app, making Foksi the #1 source of information for the Slovenian athletes at the 2018 Olympics.

The Recipe

• Text, Images, & Quick Replies: Olympic Quiz was one of the most popular features of the chatbot. The fun, lighthearted quiz asked 5 trivia questions by using text, images, GIFs and quick replies. Users could access it in two ways: either through the bot menu or by clicking on a Facebook Ad. The quiz was a big part of the strategy for acquiring chatbot users and subscribers.
• Comment Acquisition: The most efficient, organic technique for user acquisition was offering prizes to users who commented on our Facebook posts. One comment acquisition campaign just before the Olympics brought nearly 1.2K subscribers to Team Slovenia’s chatbot in one week, without spending any money on advertising.
• Paid advertising: The cost effectiveness of acquiring users in a Messenger bot proved worthy of the team’s efforts, especially in comparison to the mobile app promotion. Ongoing Facebook advertising helped maintain steady growth of approximately 1K users per month. The team also produced chatbot-exclusive content for these users, including interviews and Q&As.

Slovenia Olympic Team’s Chatbot was built and designed by the agency team at fbchatbot.si. Check out the rest of their chatbots at fbchatbot.si or contact their CEO Jure Doler at jd@fbchatbot.si

Important GDPR Updates for Chatfuel

Chatfuel Team, April 24, 2018

On 25 May 2018, the most significant piece of European data protection legislation to be introduced in 20 years — EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) — will come into force.

While Chatfuel is a company headquartered in the United States and does not have any physical locations in the European Union, we recognize that many of our users will be directly affected by the GDPR.

We’ve taken all the necessary steps to comply with both the legal and technical requirements, so we will issue an update to our Terms of Use (in the form of a GDPR-compliant Data Processing Agreement) before 25 May 2018.

Chatfuel will offer all its users subject to GDPR or contractual obligations to comply with the principles under GDPR to enter into GDPR-compliant data processing agreements. Such agreements are an important requirement for both our users as well as Chatfuel to comply with GDPR.

For more information, you can review Chatfuel’s GDPR White Paper.

Our team is also hosting an educational webinar this Thursday (4/26) at 11:15am PST (2:15pm EST). Click here to register for the Zoom webinar and get your questions answered.

Argomall: Bringing Conversational Commerce to the Philippines

Chatfuel Team, April 18, 2018

The Results

HelloFresh Reduces Customer Support Wait Time with Chatfuel Messenger Bot

Chatfuel Team, February 28, 2018

HelloFresh is a weekly subscription box service that delivers fresh, locally-sourced ingredients to your doorstep. Subscribers enjoy all the benefits of healthy, home-cooked meals without the hassle of meal planning and grocery shopping.

The Bot

The company built a Messenger experience with the goal of reducing average customer care response time. Freddy (HelloFresh’s chat persona) can answer frequently asked questions and respond to common customer service inquiries, acting as the first line of defense before involving human agents.

 

Another key feature of FreshBot is its ability to deliver seasonal content. During the Thanksgiving season, users took a fun quiz — built with user attributes — that matched them with personalized recipes or products. Results were based on whether the user was a host or guest, preferred to cook or not, and the number of guests attending.

People Tab – the ultimate tool for segmenting and managing your audience

Chatfuel Team, February 14, 2018

Everyone, please meet People Tab! ?

This new feature gives bot admins an overhead view of your subscriber list, allows you to create user segments, and also enables editing of individual users’ attributes. Most importantly, with the help of People tab, you can create custom lookalike audiences in the Facebook Ads Manager for precise user targeting.

Want to keep track of how many users come from a specific country, entered the bot from your website, and liked your latest product collection? Create dynamic segments and re-use them in other parts of your bot structure and broadcasting to increase conversions through personalization.

Looking for new users who will be more likely to convert to paying customers? Use the export functionality to create custom lookalike audiences in the Facebook Ads Manager for ultimate user targeting and to dramatically reduce your customer acquisition costs.

Have a special offer for a specific group of users and need to add a few people by hand? Add, delete, or edit attributes manually for ultimate flexibility. Then subscribe the entire group to a drip sequence of messages to ensure that your value proposition is delivered in the most efficient way.

Full functionality of People tab is available on all bots subscribed to the PRO Plan.

For a quick overview of all the main features of People tab, please refer to the short video below, as well as our help article. Then log in the dashboard and activate your PRO subscription to get unlimited access to People Tab.

Why every business should embed a Messenger bot on their website

Chatfuel Team, November 7, 2017

People have been asking us for “Messenger-on-website” functionality for a while. Today, we’re proud to say that we are supporting the Customer Chat plugin in our dashboard the moment Facebook officially announces this feature. This means that our users can take advantage of this function out-of-the-box!

So… What is Customer Chat?

Now, let’s explore some ways you can benefit from this new feature!

The reality is: most people don’t open emails or click on links. That’s why the Gmails of the world create separate “Promotion” tabs so users don’t have to sift through messages that feel like spam:

Email’s high acquisition costs and low conversion rates have forced businesses to bombard their audiences with more frequent and less personal messages. Unfortunately, this kind of behavior does not build meaningful relationships between businesses and their customers. We don’t like that, and neither does anyone else.

Chatfuel is the largest bot platform out there, powering over 300,000 live Messenger bots. So we feel compelled to step up and help shape the future of digital marketing and the ways in which businesses communicate with their customers. We want to see less of the messy, impersonal mass mailings and more of marketers listening to their audiences, getting to know them, and then re-engaging in a personal, meaningful, and respectful way. This is why the Customer Chat plugin is an integral step in shaping this future. Here’s how it works…

There is a better way

Here are 5 reasons why Customer Chat changes the game...

1. You don’t need to ask for an email on your website. If people want to engage with you, they can just press one button, and boom – you’ve established a conversation thread in Messenger. It will never expire (unlike cookies), so you can reach back to these people with an answer, an offer, a shipment tracking update, or even a simple post-purchase survey – right in the Messenger app on their phone.
   
2. Remember that kitty1973@yahoo.com thing? Once a visitor presses the Chat Now button on your Messenger bot, you immediately get their full name, language preference, profile photo, time zone, and gender from Facebook. 

    Utilize your users’ details to engage them in a personalized manner right from the very first message.
3. It doesn’t stop there! When the conversation begins, you should start learning more about each user. Something important we’ve realized while building Chatfuel is that people LOVE answering questions in Messenger! Design the conversational flow, add Quick Reply buttons (those blue, rounded buttons with suggested replies), and now you have the power to easily qualify each visitor into a specific segment by saving and storing their responses.Utilize buttons, images, videos, free-form text inputs, and much more using Chatfuel’s drag-n-drop editor. The best part? You don’t need any programming skills to build a user-friendly experience!
    
4. When a user has become a warm lead by progressing significantly down your bot’s funnel, you can hand over the conversation to a human for the ultimate personal touch. Chatfuel features an easy-to-use Live Chat plugin that can integrate with Intercom, Zendesk, or any other CRM or customer service platform that supports Facebook handover protocol. 

    Live Chat is among the most used plugins on Chatfuel

5. Once you’ve learned about each of your customers with the help of your bot, you can add different customer segments to specific sequences of messages and re-engage with them using all the data points you’ve collected:

   Compare these results with the email newsletter numbers above
   

    

   Holy moly! Can you see this? You easily get 85% open rates and 35% CTRs in Messenger! People simply prefer Messenger as a communication channel over anything else. If they don’t call or email their friends, then why on earth would they want to do that with your business?