1. You don't have one at all.

2. You're not letting your chatbot do the follow up.

3. It’s not set up in a way that will save you time and money. 

At the least, your bot should be able to answer common questions that your audience has and point them to make a purchase (if that's what they're there for).  

Here's a few things your bot should be able to do: 

✅Answer FAQs

✅Showcase a gallery of best selling products

✅Showcase your best & most helpful content

✅Schedule a strategy call

4. It’s not personalized.

This is taken from the book of Email Marketing 101.  People love themselves and when you personalize your bot, you're letting your audience know you're thinking about them. It's always a great stroke of the ego.

5. It’s boring & has no personality. 

Ok, your bot really is a robot, but it shouldn't sound like one.  Get creative and throw some personality in your copy!

You don't want people to get bored with your bot and unsubscribe before you get to the good stuff. Don't be afraid to be yourself, especially it's really a part of your brand's culture.

6. You’re letting Facebook dictate how your chatbot interacts with your audience. 

Huge no no my friend.  Take a look at this photo:

This is what your bot looks like when you've used Facebook default Messenger settings. Sure, you get the option to customize these questions, but would you care to take a wild guess as to what happened when I tried clicking on one of these questions? 

Yeah... no response.  This is an awesome way to turn warm leads away when they're showing interest in your business.  Do yourself a favor and build your bot in ManyChat so that you have more control over the responses.

7. You’re only using it for the basics and not incorporating growth tools.

You have to take your bot to the next level and use growth tools!  This allows you to capture bot leads on your Facebook Lives, in Facebook Ads, on your website, in your emails... everywhere! 

Growth Tools in ManyChat are the best way to grow your bot list quickly. If you're not familiar with them, log into your account and explore. There are tons of possibilities.

8. You’re not using any integrations to, again, save you time and money.

ManyChat integrates with Zapier, Google Sheets, MailChimp, and Integromat so use them to your advantage. These integrations will connect a number of apps together so that you don't have to do a ton of manual work.  

Take the time out to learn how to do the integrations so that you don't have to spend time on the minute details of your business.

9. You only send promos. 

You already know that email has been declining and a huge reason for this is because companies are sending too many promos!  Promos are ok, but if you have a solid bot strategy, constant promos shouldn't be a part of it. 

It's ok to send a promotion through your bot (as long as you're abiding by the rules) but sending a promo when someone doesn't ask for it or just too many times during the week is sure to get you banned from using Messenger to market to your audience.

10. You send messages at the wrong time.​

Not too long ago, I signed up for a bot because I was signing up for a webinar.  Right after the webinar, I started getting messages at all times of the day. 

6am.

12 midnight.

3am.

What??!!! Make sure that you're setting up messages to coincide with your subscriber's time zone... no one wants to be blown up in the middle of the night.

11. You’re not segmenting people when they interact with your bot.

Your bot strategy should be fairly similar to your email strategy.  

When you email your audience, you don't email everyone the same way because not everyone is on the same customer journey. A great way to segment your audience is to make sure your bot is asking questions and tagging people according to how they interact with your bot. 

For example, if someone messages your bot and wants to schedule an appointment with your business, you might want to use tags to tell you whether or not they actually scheduled the appointment. This way, you'll know to follow up with a hot lead right away! 

12. You’re not using tags for best case scenarios.

Ok, to put it simply: tags must be used!

I use tags

✅to tell me who clicked on certain button or quick reply

✅to segment my audience

✅and to determine who the hot leads are.

Tags are a really powerful tool and it can help you tell a story as to how people are flowing through your bot as opposed to letting them click through and not collecting data on your subscriber.

13. You’re not using keywords. (So when they say something predictably natural, your bot responds with the dreaded default reply… nooooo!) 

If a user types a message to your bot and they use a particular keyword, the bot can respond based on how you've set up your keywords. For example, one of the default keywords in a ManyChat bot is stop.  

When someone types this, the ManyChat bot automatically sends the user a message about unsubscribing (this is automatic). You can set up keywords in your bot that can shoot off automatic messages to answer questions. 

If not, then your user will get the dreaded default reply. And hopefully you've got this set up in ManyChat so that it's in your brand's voice. 

14. You haven’t actually tested your bot before you put it out there. 

This can be a total nightmare. Always test your bot before you publish it. 

Here's a couple of things to look out for: 

✅make sure the proper tags are applied during testing

✅make sure the delays are realistic enough for the reader (not too fast, not too slow)

✅make sure the message actually fires off

✅make sure your images and gifs are optimized for the message

Not testing your bot is a surefire way to look like an amateur.

15. You’re not cleaning your list.

Just like in email marketing, you need to make sure that you're cleaning your list of unengaged subscribers.  They're only clogging up your list and not giving you a true look at how your bot's content is performing. 

You can set up a sequence that will automatically send a message to subscribers who haven't interacted with your bot after a certain period of time... 

If they don't interact, they'll be unsubscribed and they'll be off your list. You should also give them the option to stay on your list so that you can continue to provide them with value and sales (when they're ready).

If your bot is a culprit of any of these 15 things, I urge you to fix it now! 

If you need help, send me an email, I'm happy to help. If you want me to build your bot, send me an email and I'm happy to help and ensure that it doesn't suck.

What are some things that you've seen that suck about chatbots? Let me know below!