How to Make a Gift Finder Chatbot that Increases Sales Using MobileMonkey
The holidays are quickly approaching, which means businesses are activating a host of strategies and tools to help shoppers find great products and deals for themselves and their loved ones.
One of the most powerful tools a business can develop for its customers is the gift finder.
Today I’m going to show you how to create a gift finder chatbot like this one using MobileMonkey that will bring jolly unicorn benefits to any online retailer:
- A gift finder chatbot tool gives customers confidence that they’re buying the right gift.
- A gift finder chatbot can result in higher AOV (average order value) aka more sales for the business!
- A MobileMonkey gift finder bot is easy to program.
Don’t let your customers get frustrated finding the right gift on your site.
Help lead them to the perfect purchase for their friends and family with a simple-to-program bot that we’ll create together here.
And see how other businesses using chatbots to drive more sales in the gift finder chatbot examples shared here.
What is a gift finder chatbot?
A gift finder is an incredibly useful digital sales tool that allows online sellers to inspire gift purchases by showcasing products that meet qualifications, like the shopper’s budget and the gift recipient’s tastes.
With gift finder chatbots, the gift finder tool is executed in a conversational chat interface that becomes an even more personalized shopping experience that makes it easy for customers to find and purchase the best possible gift for their friends and loved ones by answering a few questions in a chat app or via webchat.
Chatbots are often used for sales and, as an offshoot of the sales functionality, product recommendations.
Many brands and businesses use chatbots to recommend products to customers.
Sometimes the product recommendation is done based off of a customer’s past purchases, and sometimes it is done by leading the customer through a dialogue in which they provide certain parameters such as price range, product category, etc.
Product recommendation is a great feature for ecommerce chatbots and customer service chatbots .
Check out this great example of product recommendation through an SMS blast chatbot:
Gary Vaynerchuk, entrepreneur extraordinaire and marketing legend, created this bot as a sort of opt-in, text message-based wine club.
The bot sends texts that recommend different bottles of wine to people who sign up, with the option to purchase any number of bottles for super offers.
Since wine is such a timeless gift to bring to dinner parties, holiday parties, and more, what’s better than an SMS-based gift finder chatbot recommending different wines?
If you’re interested in learning more about or creating a gift finder chatbot this holiday season, keep reading for a few examples and a thorough, step-by-step chatbot tutorial of how to make one for yourself using MobileMonkey.
3 Examples of Gift Finder Chatbots
1. LEVI’S VIRTUAL STYLIST BOT
Just over two years ago, legendary denim brand Levi’s announced an artificial intelligence-based chatbot that they called Virtual Stylist.
The purpose of this bot is to recommend products to shoppers who might not know what they’re looking for or who don’t want to browse the entire Levi’s catalogue.
As it turns out, this product recommendation bot can be repurposed as a gift finder chatbot!
The Levi’s gift finder chatbot can be used through the website or through Facebook Messenger, making it mobile-friendly and easy-to-use from anywhere.
I tested out this gift finder chatbot to understand it’s functionality, and was truly impressed with the user-friendliness and genuine helpfulness of its features.
Levi’s gift finder chatbot begins by asking what you want to do, giving a number of options, from “Find Products” to “Track Order” and “Customer Service.”
I chose to find products.
The bot gives me several different options of products to search for, but in the spirit of the company, I chose to go with jeans.
Next up, the bot asked me if I was seeking men’s or women’s jeans.
Since I prefer a tight fit, I went with women’s.
Now, if I wanted, I could have stopped my search here, because the bot immediately pulled up some recommended products based on the best sellers in the women’s jeans department.
It did, however, continue to ask questions, in case I was looking for something a little more specific.
After selecting the fit that I prefer, the bot came up with another list of recommended products, this time narrowing the options down to the best sellers in women’s skinny jeans.
But it wasn’t done just yet!
Next up, the chatbot asked me to specify what type of rise I was searching for.
I made my selection and the bot gave me its final list of recommended products, taking into account all of the parameters I provided through the dialogue.
And the final result was a selection of stylish pants!
Finally, the chatbot gives me two options: to be redirected to the Levi’s website (while still in the Facebook Messenger window) or to find the product I want in a store near me.
Jeans are incredibly personal to each individual wearing them. There are a lot of factors to consider when buying a pair of jeans.
So if you’re considering buying a friend or loved one clothing as a gift this holiday season, you might want to try out a gift finder chatbot like Virtual Stylist from Levi’s.
2. AURATE TEXT BLASTING CHATBOT
Other gift finder chatbots utilize text messaging to push sales, promos, ads, and recommendations.
One such gift finder chatbot is the Aurate SMS text blasting bot.
Notice how it sends several messages with various marketing tactics, from contest entry to new product recommendation:
Using a gift finder chatbot like this to help you find things for the gift recipients in your life might be more useful if you share common interests or know them a little better.
This chatbot works by sending advertisements via text message, and it’s up to the individual to follow through with seeking out the product after getting the text recommendation.
For example, in the screenshot above, you can see the bot sent as message about the new XL Diamond Bezel, featuring an image of the beautiful necklace.
It then gives a call to action, telling the recipient to shop three brand new pieces, complete with a link.
This is a great way to get ideas for people in your life that you might want to purchase gifts for!
3. LEGO GIFT FINDER CHATBOT
Finally, as one of the most popular toys for generations, LEGO makes an appearance at the holiday gatherings of families everywhere.
But these days, there are so many different LEGO sets that it can be hard to decide which one you should purchase for your friend or loved one.
Especially since people of all ages enjoy LEGO products!
Luckily, there’s Ralph, the LEGO gift finder chatbot, to help you narrow down your many options.
Ralph likes to open up the conversation by asking the most basic identifying question: how old is the person that will be enjoying the lego set?
Next comes the next most important question: budget.
As many of us know, LEGO sets can vary dramatically in price, from just a couple dollars to hundreds, depending on the size and complexity of the set.
I decided to go somewhere in the middle to make sure I got some good options.
But, as Ralph says, enough of these human matters — time to get on to the good stuff!
The next question is about interests.
Since there are so many LEGO sets to choose from, it is best to narrow down your options based on the recipient’s main interests.
Ralph the LEGO gift finder chatbot gives several options, such as movies and sci fi, Star Wars, superheroes, and more complex categories like design, coding, and exclusive sets.
As an avid Star Wars fan (fanatic might be a better word), I of course decided to check out the Star Wars product recommendations.
Now, Ralph the LEGO gift finder chatbot gives me the option of answering more questions to specify and narrow down my product recommendations even further, or to see some ideas with the information I gave.
I decided to just check out what the bot would recommend based on the general info I provided.
After letting Ralph think for a moment…
…the gift finder chatbot provided me with a list of recommended product options!
Then I had the option to purchase one of the products by being redirected to the LEGO website, learning more about each product suggestion, or going back and changing my choices for a different set of recommended products.
Talk about a handy gift finder chatbot for the holiday season!
Time to Build Your Own Gift Finder Chatbot
Excited to make your own product recommendation or gift finder chatbot?
If you are a business that sells a product, implement a free chatbot for the holiday season.
Keep reading for a step-by-step tutorial and learn to build a chatbot that gives gift suggestions yourself.
You’ll use MobileMonkey for this — you can get it for free !
Step 1: Design the conversation, knowing what qualifying questions will help shoppers find the right gift.
The first thing to do is consider what your chatbot will ask to help your shopper find the right gift. Some examples are questions related to their budget and the recipient’s tastes as well as use cases and occasions.
Here’s the gift finder flow we’ll create for our imaginary gift company:
What’s your budget:
- $10-$30
- $31-$50
- $51–75
What’s the occasion?
- Birthday
- Winter holidays
- Something else
$10-$30 birthday
- Product 1
- Product 2
- Product 3
$31-$50 birthday
- Product 4
- Product 5
- Product 6
$51–75 birthday
- Product 7
- Product 8
- Product 9
$10-$30 winter holidays
- Product 10
- Product 11
- Product 12
$31-$50 winter holidays
- Product 13
- Product 14
- Product 15
$51–75 winter holidays
- Product 16
- Product 17
- Product 18
$10-$30 something else
- Product 19
- Product 20
- Product 21
$31-$50 something else
- Product 22
- Product 23
- Product 24
$51–75 something else
- Product 25
- Product 26
- Product 27
Step 2: Create a new folder that will contain your gift finder bot dialogues.
Next go to MobileMonkey > Chatbots > Dialogues and create a folder that will contain all the questions and conversational components for the gift finder chatbot.
Step 3: Create the dialogues to ask them the questions and gift suggestions you designed in Step 1.
A dialogue is a self-contained element of a bot conversation. Here you can see the list of different dialogues I created for my gift finder chatbot.
I created a separate dialogue for each price range and occasion, totaling 9 product recommendation dialogues.
In order to create the conversational flow in each dialogue, I used the widgets menu to add different pieces to the conversation, such as text with buttons and animated GIFs.
With this widget menu, you get to set up the conversational and personalized aspect of your gift finder chatbot.
I like to include the typing widget in mine to make the chatbot appear more human, like it’s really working hard to help!
Then I like to use the text widget to allow the bot to speak to the user.
In order to give a visual layout with pictures and descriptions — in this case gift ideas — I select the gallery widget.
This is where you include the title, description, and image of the product.
I include the name of the product as the gallery element “title” and the price of the product in the description box
When creating your gift finder chatbot dialogues, start from the end of the conversation flow and work backwards to the beginning, being sure to connect each possible response with the follow-up dialogue.
This makes it far easier to see what goes where, instead of having to create dialogues to connect to as you go along.
Once you’ve finished a product recommendation dialogue, give the user the option to start over from the beginning in case they didn’t find a product they liked or want to interact with the gift finder chatbot again.
Once you’ve completed each of the product recommendation dialogues (in this case, the first 9 dialogues you see listed on the toolbar), it’s time to start working on the opening segments of your gift finder chatbot.
Keep working backwards.
Since I decided to start by asking users the occasion they are shopping for, I moved on to creating my various budget dialogues so that I could lead to them in my starting dialogues.
Remember, you have several different dialogues for each budget and occasion, so keep that in mind when setting up your budget dialogues.
You’ll see I created a budget dialogue for birthdays, winter holidays, and “other” occasions.
There are a couple different ways to help the user select their budget, but I decided to use a text widget with a button feature.
In order to do this, click “Add Button” underneath the text box.
You’ll find several options of buttons to create — choose dialogue.
This way, you can customize the button text to match up with the dialogue that it will lead the user to.
Next, in the drop-down menu where it says “Take Users To A New Dialogue,” select the dialogue you want the button to take them to.
In this case, I am making a button for people searching for birthday gifts in the $10-$30 range.
So, once they click that button, I want to bring them to the $10-$30 birthday gift recommendation dialogue.
Here’s an example of what this will look like in action:
First, the gift finder chatbot asks my budget.
Then, it shows me gift recommendations based on my choices!
Now, in the next step, you’ll want to set up the dialogue that will lead to the budget dialogues.
In terms of a gift finder chatbot, this might be age of recipient (such as in the case of the LEGO bot), product category (such as in the case of the Levi’s bot), or more.
I chose to use “occasion” as my first qualifying question.
This requires creating a new dialogue, which you can see I’ve done here using a text widget and 3 added buttons.
Each of the occasion buttons brings the user to the specific occasion’s budget options.
Here’s what this will look like in action:
First, the gift finder chatbot asks me the occasion, with 3 button options.
After I select “Winter Holidays” for my occasion, the bot brings me to the Winter Holidays Budget dialogue.
I select my budget, and the bot recommends me the products from that specific product dialogue.
Finally, we reach the last portion of the gift finder chatbot building process: the welcome dialogue.
Since you have all of your product dialogues done, the budget dialogues complete, and the dialogue that leads to those options all set up, you get to create what gets the user started.
This part is simple: all you need is a greeting, and a call to action to get the conversation started.
Keep in mind, this is the perfect time to personalize and humanize your bot as much as you see fit.
You can give it a name, a personality — whatever you want!
Then include your greeting, letting the user know the purpose of your bot.
Next, include your call to action.
As you can see here, my call to action is a text box that reads “Are you ready to find the perfect gift?” with a button that says “Let’s get started!”
The button leads to the Occasion Dialogue.
And there you have it!
As you can see, we’ve worked backwards to build our gift finder chatbot from bottom to top.
Now that everything’s written, built, and connected, you can test your bot using the “Test Dialogue” button in the top right corner.
This will bring you to a Facebook Messenger window where you can interact with your chatbot, making sure everything works smoothly!
Step 4: Embed the bot on your website to help shoppers on your site.
Now that your gift finder chatbot is all ready to recommend products to your customers, it’s time to do a little chatbot integration so you can set it up on your website to start helping shoppers.
Embedding a Facebook Messenger chat widget on your website allows for 24/7 instant response for your customers, it’s always mobile friendly, it creates lasting contacts, and it saves you money by eliminating the need for a massive on-call live staff.
To embed your gift finder chatbot into your website, all you have to do is install Google Tag Manager on your website and then use that to create a new tag for your chatbot.
Go to your Google Tag Manager account (or create one) and copy the 10-digit ID from your Tag Manager dashboard.
Use this ID code to integrate Google Tag Manager with your CMS of choice.
You can find specific instructions on how to integrate Google Tag Manager with your CMS on the CMS provider’s website or on YouTube.
Next, move to your MobileMonkey gift finder chatbot.
Make sure to white list all the domains that you want your chatbot to appear on.
Next, copy the code for your chatbot widget.
Back in Google Tag Manager, click “Add A New Tag,” and select “Custom HTML.”
Paste the code you copied from MobileMonkey into the box that appears.
Customize the trigger settings to match what pages you want your gift finder chatbot to pop up on.
Once you click “Save,” your bot will be live on your website!
For a more in-depth tutorial on how to integrate your chatbot with your website, see this video tutorial:
Step 5: Run Facebook ads to the bot.
Your gift finder bot is ready to help shoppers. You can drive some serious traffic to it with Facebook ads that send shoppers right to the bot.
The more people that use your bot, the higher your ROI.
And there’s some clever ways to get people interacting with your gift finder chatbot, the best of which being Facebook click-to-Messenger ads.
Click-to-Messenger ads are a great Facebook tool that allows you to drive traffic to your Facebook Messenger window; in this case, the chatbot you’ve created.
They’re just like typical Facebook ads that you see on the Newsfeed, except the call to action button brings a user into a chat window with your chatbot instead of to your website like Facebook ads often do.
The results are higher engagement and reducing your CPA at least 30–40 times over.
Another great aspect of click-to-Messenger ads is that anybody who clicks the ad and interacts with your bot will immediately be added to your Facebook Messenger contact list.
If you set up your gift finder chatbot to ask for a user’s email address, you can also add them to your business’s email lists!
Automating Gift Finding Using Product Recommendation Chatbots Saves Time, Money, and Stress at the Holidays
Holiday shopping can be a stressful time, especially when you’re purchasing without any concrete ideas of what the recipient might want, need, or enjoy.
Luckily, there’s an exciting and easy-to-use tool to find the right gift for anyone in your life.
Using a gift finder chatbot, or a product recommendation chatbot, to help find the perfect gift will put a lot of ease into your shopping endeavors!
And if you’re a business that sells products, implementing a gift finder chatbot can increase your sales while delighting your customers.
You’ll be selling products in your sleep!
Now, quick, before the winter holidays really kick into gear — start making chatbots today!
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About the Author
Larry Kim is the CEO of MobileMonkey — provider of the World’s Best Facebook Messenger Marketing Platform. He’s also the founder of WordStream.
You can connect with him on Facebook Messenger, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram.
Do you want a Free Facebook Chatbot builder for your Facebook page? Check out MobileMonkey!
Originally Published on Mobilemonkey.com
