Chatbot Store on Facebook Messenger – SHOPLINE Help Center

2.SHOPLINE_Support_Social-Commerce.png As your business grows, so does the time spent on customer service. Many inquiries — particularly from first-time shoppers asking about things such as product details and delivery options — are routine enough to be dealt with using automated responses.

With the Chatbot Store feature merchants can create bots to respond to customers via Facebook Messenger using automated scripts. Chatbot Store allows merchants to maintain a 24/7 customer service presence, send out promotional links, as well as let customers browse a products directly in Facebook Messenger.

Before you begin
Set up Chatbot Store
On Facebook Messenger for Shoppers
Default Script - Exploring Products

1. Before you begin

To use the Chatbot Store feature, merchants need to first connect their store to a Facebook Page in SHOPLINE Admin. For detailed instructions on how to do this, please see: Connecting to Facebook Pages | Channel Integration. If your store is already connected to a Facebook Page, please skip ahead to next section.

2. Chatbot Store setup

Chatbot Store scripts can be used to respond to commonly encountered customer queries. Examples include: frequently asked questions, popular product overviews, information on discounts and links to redirect customer traffic to your store.

When a customer sends a message containing a keyword, Chatbot Store will reply automatically according to a pre-saved script. This means that customers don't need to wait for a member of staff to answer their question in person, allowing them to check out quicker.

Chatbot Store settings in SHOPLINE Admin

Go to [Social Commerce] > [Chatbot Store] to find a full list of previously created chatbot scripts.

You can perform the following actions on this page:

Create new scripts
Add Quick Templates
Edit scripts
Delete scripts
Rename scripts

You can also view the following information about already created scripts:

Script name
Script status
Channels a script is published on
Last date edited/most recent editor
(Coming soon) Check if a draft script has not yet been published. These scripts will be marked with a yellow indicator.

Edit a custom script

Click on [+ New Script] in the top right-hand corner of the window to enter the chatbot script editor.

The left-hand side of the window provides a step-by-step overview of the script. You can add new script elements using the menu in the center of the window. Below is a detailed overview of each section of the script editor:

1. See how to call this script: All of the script trigger conditions are displayed here. There are currently two methods for triggering a script:

Matching keyword

On the edit page, you will see two main panels:

(i) left panel, showing the overview of this script:

The "How to call the script" section lists all the trigger conditions for this script. There are two ways to trigger the script that you have edited before.

Matching keywords

The script will be triggered and shown to the customer when the customer enters a message that (i) contains any, (ii) all keywords, or (iii) exactly matches one of them. It is recommended that merchants use keywords based on frequently asked customer questions commonly or products SEO keywords to ensure that customers can get the exact response they are looking for.

First initiate conversation

This script can be triggered if the customer is sending a message to your page for the first time.

2. First step: When a customer triggers a script by using a keyword, this is the first message they will receive in reply.

3. Attached Steps: A list of the additional steps contained within the script. When adding a "Send new message" button, or "link to other scripts" button, all of the newly added steps will appear here.

4. Step name: You can edit the name of each step to help you distinguish between them. When you edit the step name it will be updated at the same time in the list of steps in the menu on the left-hand side.

5. Templates: You can, according to your requirements, use different types of templates. Each template can have a maximum of three new buttons. When users click on the buttons, you can get them to perform different actions.

Text Template

You can use the text template to add a text-based message.

Image Template

In the Image Template you can add images, plus up to three buttons.
Maximum image dimensions/file size: 4096 x 4096 pixels or 1 MB.

Card Template

A card template can contain an image, title, subtitle and up to three buttons.
Please use images with a 1:1 width-to-height ratio.

Carousel Template

A carousel template allows you to create an image carousel of up to 10 cards. Each card can contain an image, title, subtitle and up to three buttons.
Press the "+" button below the carousel template to add more card templates.
Please use images that have a 1:1.91 height-to-width ratio.

Products Template

You can add a maximum of ten products to a product template.

Please note: Each step can contain a maximum of three templates.

Button

As shown in the image below, there are three types of action a button can perform: "send message", "open website", and "start another script".

Send message

When shoppers click on a "send message" button, they will trigger the messages in the linked step.

You can create and name a new step by clicking the ”Create New Message“ area.
You can also choose to link the button to an existing step from the list below. (E.g. “Welcome Message” in the image above).

Open website

When users click on the button-embedded URL inside Facebook Messenger they will be taken to the linked site.
You can also choose an in-app viewing size that best suits the content contained within the URL: Compact 50%, Medium 70%, and Tall 90% (supported by Android models).

Start another script

These types of buttons link to an existing script that shoppers can enter to get more detailed information about other topics.

Quick Reply

There is a choice of two actions for a Quick Reply template (see image below): "Send message" and "Start another script".

Send message

When shoppers click on a Quick Reply button this will trigger the messages in the linked step.

You can create a new step by clicking the "Create New Message" area and naming the step.
You can also choose to link a "Quick Reply" template to an existing step from the list below.

Start another script

You can also choose to link "Quick Reply" to an existing script so that shoppers can enter into another script for more details about certain information.

3. Publishing a Custom Script

1. (Coming soon) Save & Draft

Before publishing a script, please make sure there are no error icons. Error icons will appear when a required field has not been filled in correctly.

Script draft: Clicking on [Save] when editing the content of a script before you have clicked [Publish] will automatically save your script as a draft. Customers will not be able to see these drafts, and the content of the published script will remain unaffected until you click [Publish].

2. Publishing custom scripts

Publish a script: Once you are happy with the content of your custom script click [Publish] in the top right-hand corner. After clicking [Publish], the script will be triggered when a customer uses the correct keyword(s) on Facebook Messenger.
- A "Publish" status indicator will be shown next to the [Publish] after a script has been successfully published.
Unpublish a script: When your script is published, there will be a "tool" icon next to the script title. Clicking tool icon will bring up the [Unpublish] option, which you can use to unpublish/republish a script.

On Facebook Messenger for shoppers

When shoppers message the correct keyword(s) via Facebook Messenger to your store's Facebook Page, they will successfully trigger the first step of the script.

Image Template:

Carousel Template:

Product Template:

Quick Reply:

Default script

Other than the custom script, we also provide several default scripts that you can start using with just a few clicks. To find out more, visit the links below:

Notes:

Please note that once you publish a draft script it will replace the original. It is not possible to restore a previous version once a draft has been published
Unpublishing a script may result in previously programmed responses not being triggered by new enquiries. It may also render links and other functions in older messages unusable.