Bot review: LEGO’s Ralph

Today is the Friday after Thanksgiving… Black Friday.

The day when small and big business companies handout bargains on their products and services, sales clerks battle for the lives and people all over go crazy — literally!

A lot of retail businesses thrive during the holidays — the shopping frenzy is exciting though equally stressful — online as much as in stores.

However e-commerce has definitely changed the game and unleveled the playing field by making shopping accessible virtually anywhere and anytime. Now companies, big and small, are learning new ways to compete and leverage consumers including the use of new technologies such as a chatbot.

That being said, we were keen to see which shopping bots we would find that have launched recently and just in time for checking off the family and friends gift list for this year’s holiday season.

Last year, some companies dabbled with their first shopping chatbots around the holidays. US companies like Nordstrom and Kmart and some high-price tag brands like Burberry and London’s Estee Lauder also tested a shopping bot assistant through Messenger.

While most companies have still yet to take the jump this holiday season, a few have.

LEGO, the big toy brand company just released their own bot in time for the holidays. Known as Ralph, this gift bot is interactive but efficient. From our review, we were able to put together a few key learnings.

1/ Conversational size and fit

Capturing the attention of the user is important but learning from the user in order to serve it best is even more crucial.

Conversational size and fit describes a chatbots ability to learn and modify or better, personalize the user’s experience based on what it learns during natural conversational exchange. The bot can save preferences and adapt as a conversation progresses and the bot learns more about the user.

LEGO’s Ralph starts off almost immediately filtering options for the user through the quick reply feature on Messenger. Here it is able to start recording the user’s preferences and what they are looking for.

At first, It asks about location of purchase, age of receiver and budget. From that, the bot is able to start fine tuning its categories and selections which should increase the likelihood of leading the user to their a desirable (product) endpoint.

2/ Personality

Different bots serve different purposes. Some bots are deployed primarily to attract potential consumers to a company’s website or right to the physical store. The bots allow you to search comfortably and interactively, perhaps coming across some things of interest. Even if you don’t see what you like you can still get an idea if you’re in the right ball field.

There are other bots that can attract potential consumers, get them to their interest and complete a transaction, without even leaving the messaging platform. The LEGO bot has this quality.

By adding personality, you can increase engagement and retainment. For LEGO, they keep it simple: an old-fashioned lego robot that has a personality seen through a bit of rich content GIFs and complimented by a few emojis in its responses. It’s enough to delight the user a bit and it brings some color to the interaction.

3/ Time efficiency

Part of the trick of a chatbot is to engage the user long enough to get them to what they need or want. Sometimes that calls for prolonging the conversation and other times, speeding it up. With shopping that can be tricky depending on if the shopper is just browsing or has a targeted interest.

The LEGO bot is built for someone with an interest in mind, a gift for someone or perhaps the shopper himself.

From start to finish, I was not prompted to do anything more than choose from pre-selected options. I shuffled through categories and products using the template feature and when I saw what I liked, we moved on to the next phase. At no point did I have to type anything.

The process is pretty quick if you know what you are looking for. And if not, the bot has some suggestions prepared so you don’t have to waste time guessing. If you make a mistake you can go back and start again. And when you are ready to buy, the bot will send your choice to the LEGO site and put it in your cart so you can go right to checkout.

In all, the whole shopping experience took about 4 minutes. And for people that don’t like to shop or simply don’t have the time, it’s an efficient shopping alternative at their disposal.

Christmas is around the corner and, if you’ve got some LEGO enthusiasts on your list, you should try Ralph on Messenger HERE.