ExpandCart & Facebook Are Partners in Supporting Conversational Commerce
We’re thrilled to announce a new partnership between ExpandCart and Facebook. A new step towards conversational commerce to ease the selling success-base for our merchants. This partnership brings you a ton of new features to ease your business management flow.
One of the main benefits is enabling our merchants the ability to automate replies on both their social media posts and ads. By doing so, they’ll be able to trigger the sales funnel through FB Messenger.
Keep reading on to learn more about the amazing new things you can do now!
What Can This Partnership Enable You to Do?
Let’s dig deep into the new actions you can take as a result of the Facebook and ExpandCart partnership.
Several benefits and new features are added to your eCommerce stores that will allow you to do the following:
#1 Auto Comment Reply Through FB Messenger 💬
You’ll get to add customized replies based on:
- The post or the ad’s ID
- The comment’s account language.
What type of FB Messenger replies can I set?
- Store link to start shopping: It can be a generic message or a CTA button template (Ex: Shop Now).
- Free text where you can include links, emojis, etc.
- Images and/or videos, using a media template.
- Product widget including (image, title, price) from the product templates.
- Direct product checkout link using both a button template and a product template.
- Carousel of a specific category of products.
Click here to find out more about the available templates you can use to enrich your conversational commerce journey.
How to set auto comment reply on your ExpandCart Store?
- First of all, click on “Apps & Services” on the left panel then install the FB Messenger plugin on your ExpandCart store.
- After installing, click on “App Setup” to link your store with your Facebook page and to be able to see all your Facebook page posts and ads on your store dashboard.
- Click on “Page’s Auto Reply” to create and manage auto replies.
Note: You can assign replies to all or specific posts or ad (also can assign reply to all or multiple posts)
- When customers comment on page posts, Messenger would then check the below conditions to send replies:
- Post ID as listed for auto-reply assigned reply.
- Replier’s account language is supported in reply languages.
- Facebook Messenger should now send the reply depending on the previously set criteria.
For more details about setting Messenger Chatbot on your online store, click here
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#2 Instantly Answer Order Status Inquiries
Save time and effort, and receive no complaints about late replies or not answered inquiries.
You can give your customers the ability to find out their order status in an instant without human intervention just by typing their order number in the chat.
How?
By implementing “where’s my order” as a part of the persistent menu in Messenger when customers enter their order number.
⚠️ Please note that this feature is going to be activated very soon.
#3 Promotional Sponsored Campaigns
You can now push promotional messages to your contacts list on Messenger using two campaign types, which goes as follows:
- Sending a text message with promo codes to incentivize customers to the purchasing step.
- Special offers for a specific product, category, or brand.
Sponsored messages give you the opportunity to target customers who have previously communicated in the chatbox with your brand.
You get to send targeted promotions directly outside the 24H standard messaging window. Such texts will be labeled as sponsored so your customers can differentiate between ads and generic messages.
💡 Read also: Promo Codes: Expert Tips to Drive Sales with Promotions
#4 Automatic Orders Updates
In case a customer uses the direct checkout link “Buy Now” action, the store will automatically send notifications for him on Messenger with the following customizable updates:
- Order confirmation using a receipt template, you can include the order summary with payment details and shipping information.
- Order status updates with a generic message
You’ll be able to automate order updates using a receipt template that sends order confirmations in structured messages like you can see in the below image:
You’ll be able to set which order status should trigger notifications (or if it will be triggered for all status updates or for specific statuses), and also a custom message or comment for each update.
⚠️ Please note that this feature is going to be activated very soon.
#5 Abandoned Cart Recovery
In addition to our abandoned cart integration with text messages and Whatsapp, you’ll now be able to schedule messages not only via text or Whatsapp but through messenger as well.
- Send abandoned cart summaries via FB Messenger to ease the process for customers to return and complete their purchases.
- Schedule continuous reminders with different types of messages (abandoned cart link, cart link with promo code, or incentivizing discounts) using sponsored messages.
⚠️ Please note that this feature is going to be activated very soon.
Interested in recovering abandoned carts? Read this: 13 Must-Have Features on Shopping Cart Pages
#6 Additional Updates You Can Send and Customize
- Send back-in-stock updates
Let your shoppers know that the products they were looking for are restocked directly through Messenger. Use the one-time notification to do so.
Here’s an example of setting the one-time notification from the Facebook page manager:
- Highlight recent products or categories
Promote your latest products through Messenger. Let customers know as new products are added to your online store by adding the “what’s new?” trigger on the persistent menu.
- Get to know your customers by sending product quizzes
Create interactive quizzes to help customers quickly and easily find the right products for them.
Like “clothes for men” or “clothes for women” also using the persistent menu, add “products for you” to be consistent with the remaining options you provide.
- Request rating and reviews after deliveries
Ask the customer for a product rating or rating your store after order delivery.
- Automated FAQs in the persistent menu
You can save and add the FAQ answers to the most common pre-sales questions about your products, shipping details, and return & refund policies to your persistent menu too in case a customer would like to know all the details without human intervention.
- Ordering returns & exchanges with ease
Let customers start the returns or exchange process immediately by entering their order details.
Expand Bot: A New Messenger Bot for Customers’ Automated Responses
Many retailers and business owners, especially those who primarily use it for selling, suffer from a tremendous number of sales losses due to the late response to customer inquiries.
This comes for several reasons, either because of the large number of messages on their commercial page, or the lack of customer service staff they have, or the arrival of customer messages and inquiries at times outside the official working hours.
So, Facebook business pages need to use chatbots to respond to customers instantly, thus increasing conversion rates and closing more deals!
According to a recent statistic, business owners on social media platforms can save more than 439 million dollars when using a chatbot application, especially if they used it to respond instantly to customer messages in 2023.
Therefore, ExpandCart has developed a smart and free chatbot application, the “ExpandBot” Messenger Bot. In partnership with Facebook Messenger, it will be connected to different Facebook stores or businesses to take over the task of automated response to customer messages as soon as they send their inquiries.
ExpandBot handles other tasks, including:
- Chatting with customers in Messenger messages about product details,
- Responding to comments in posts and the ability to customize comments as well,
- Collecting data and information of customers in the ExpandBot database, and interacting with Facebook business pages,
- Automatically welcoming new visitors to your page,
- Sending new offers and discounts to existing customers,
- Replying instantly with a pre-prepared reply on specific keywords.
ExpandBot is offering its professional package completely free to the first 1,000 merchants in the Arab world for a limited time.
Integrate your FB page to take advantage of the application’s advanced features for FREE.
Final Thoughts
The move toward conversational commerce is taking a major leap. We’re proud to be one of the leading eCommerce platforms that support its benefits and features to our merchants aiming to set the base of their success.
The foremost final thought we need to mention today is to remind you of the most recent partnership with WhatsApp that also enables you some similar benefits like tracking order status and sending order notifications and abandoned carts, by other means, communicating with your customers on a more personal level.
Facebook’s partnership with ExpandCart today is no different, but it also adds a ton more customization and personalization to your relationship with your customers.
It enables you to be with them every step of the way and lessen the time gap it takes to reply to their comments or answer their questions instantly while also saving time and effort.
By automating a huge part of updating them, sponsoring messages to them, or replying to their comments or questions, you leave yourself space to do a lot more development in other areas of your business.
Interested in communicating with your customers in a deeper level?
Create a free store on ExpandCart and use our exclusive integrations and partnerships in your favor.Free for life. No credit card required.
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