E-commerce, banking, healthcare, education, entertainment, payment services… it might be easier to list industries that don’t benefit from chatbots than those that do. Today, chatbots can act as the best brand ambassadors, representing the values and personality of companies. They can be an expert tour guide recommending must-see places in your destination, or a patient teacher who answers your questions about the products or services you’re interested in. They can even be the best personal assistant who helps you schedule appointments and manage your calendar. Recently, Botmaker announced the appointment of Christian Martinez to its leadership team as Country Director and Head of U.S. Sales. Martinez’s experience in technology, sales, and partnerships will be a key piece in meeting expansion goals in the US market, after consolidating in the business market throughout Latin America.
Botmaker is of the most successful chatbot developers, with alliances with companies such as Microsoft, Google Cloud, Amazon Web Services, Telefónica, AT&T, Movistar, BBVA, Santander, and Walmart, to name a few.
Martinez, a former Head of Multicultural U.S. Sales and Country Director at Facebook, tells Portada about the 4 pillars of Botmaker’s offering:
Pillar Number 1: Customer Service
“What we do with the platform is give our customers the opportunity to automate their customer service, the interaction they have with their users, with their customers. And we do this through multiple channels. Botmaker is an omnichannel platform, so we can connect our chatbots to multiple channels of text-based or audio-based conversations, because we also have voice chatbots. Companies can automate their customer service by phone, through platforms like email, web chat, and channels like WhatsApp, SMS, and Facebook Messenger. So there are multiple channels where we can help them automate their customer contact.”
“Basically, what it helps them do is two things: Minimize the dependence on human agents who are pending on all those interactions, reducing the cost by automating part of that process. But the platform is also designed to incorporate a human agent depending on how the customer process works. So, the process can start with an automated chatbot using artificial intelligence, and then switch to an agent.”
“The process can start with an automated chatbot using artificial intelligence, and then switch to an agent.”
“We have a tool called Copilot. Basically, it allows the human agent, once they take over the conversation from the chatbot, to use the same artificial intelligence that the chatbot is using to answer questions that a user may have.” For example, if a user asks a question that is not necessarily related to the product they are selling, the agent can use the information that the chatbot has learned. The tool gives them three or four options based on that artificial intelligence so that the human agent can respond. So that is also a big benefit for customers because it potentially helps them lower their cost of training human agents.”
Botmaker Pillar Number 2: Sales and Marketing
“Any company that sells services and products can use our chatbots in various ways to move a customer down the sales funnel. It can help you find a product or service on a website. For example, if the customer responds that they are looking for sports shoes, the chatbot starts a conversation with that customer explaining the options they have for sports shoes on an e-commerce platform, for example; it can ask what size shoe they wear. That is, it can ask questions and offer options within the catalog of sports shoes that the company has. It can even finalize the purchase within the chatbot. Payments can be processed, the product can be shipped, all of that can be automated.”
“In the marketing area, customers can use push notifications through platforms like WhatsApp. If they have a database of customers who have purchased before, they can use our platform to automate notifications, to send them via WhatsApp or SMS or email, they can use our platform within what is called the marketing engine to send those promotions, offers, which is basically a promotion, it’s like advertising, telling them what the offers of the month or week are or whatever. And there that process can also be automated.”
“If they have a database of customers who have purchased before, they can use our platform to automate notifications, to send them via WhatsApp or SMS or email, they can use our platform within what is called the marketing engine to send those promotions.”
“Many of our clients buy advertising on Facebook and Instagram, for example, and they buy advertising called click to. In this case, we are going to click to WhatsApp, where there is an offer that they see on Facebook, the user clicks on that ad and enters a customer chatbot with Botmaker handling the process. There, that customer can also help lower the sales funnel by asking questions, offering options, or taking any action that the advertiser wants them to take.”
A New Feature for Advertisers: Integration with Meta’s Conversion API
“We just launched a tool with Meta that utilizes Meta’s Conversions API within our chatbots. Now, advertisers can run click-to-WhatsApp ads. Users can enter a chatbot, and once a sale is finalized within the chatbot, we are fully connected to Meta’s Ads Manager platform. This means that the conversion and sale are reported back to Meta Ads Manager, helping to optimize ad campaigns and find people more likely to take the desired action. This is crucial for advertisers who purchase performance-based advertising, where they want customers to take action or make a purchase.”
“It’s an incredibly powerful tool for advertisers in this category because it automates and scales this process efficiently.”
Pillar Number 3: Human Resources
“Human resources is another pillar of ours, working with companies to automate contact with their own employees. We collaborate with HR departments to offer our platform for internal purposes. Companies can use our chatbots to automate the process with an employee seeking internal resources, such as when payroll is processed, whether it’s weekly or bi-weekly, or how internal insurance benefits work. This can also be automated, with the chatbot pointing to various internal resources to provide the user with that information. This helps companies reduce the number of human agents involved in the process, allowing HR departments to scale different processes to be more efficient in what they do and not have to answer the same questions repeatedly.”
“We can also integrate our chatbots into internal tools like Workplace or Microsoft Teams. If these are the channels companies use internally to communicate with their employees, we can integrate chatbots there to handle those employee conversations in an automated way.”
“We can also integrate our chatbots into internal tools like Workplace or Microsoft Teams.”
Botmaker Pillar Number 4: Education Sector
“We’ve had the opportunity to work with several universities, automating processes for them, such as interacting with prospective students seeking information on how to enroll. This is a process we can help them automate through various channels like WhatsApp, SMS, and their website with Webchat. It’s also for students who are already enrolled in the university and need to find resources to register for the classes they want to take in the next semester. These are processes we’ve worked with several universities to automate, both for their students and for prospective students seeking information on how to enter or apply to the university.”
For Small Businesses and Major Corporations
Toward the end of our conversation, Christian Martinez told us that Botmaker is a platform with an intuitive and accessible interface for any business size. Anyone can access the platform and start using it.
“It’s a very flexible platform. We work with clients who are very small, as well as with huge global companies. So we have solutions for everyone, at every end of the spectrum and in between. Obviously, it’s a self-service platform. Any company or individual can enter the platform, open an account, and start using it. We even give them 300 free conversations so they can learn how to use the platform and try it out before they have to start paying the monthly fee.” “But we have very basic plans that start at $149 per month, which includes 3,000 conversations. And for a client who is generating millions of conversations per month, we have options for a client of that size, and depending on the volume, we can scale their plan and discount the cost per conversation. So there are solutions and options for all clients depending on the volume of conversations they handle per month.”
