A Beauty-Ful Demo
A demo chatbot designed for the hair & beauty sector
The beauty is in the design
Writing blog posts about chatbots feels, at times, like I’m trying to explain quantum physics to my two toddlers. You can’t grasp the concept of chatbots and how they can help a business without seeing one in action.
So, I decided to make a short series of demo bots that help to showcase the power of the bots.
The first demo bot is for a fictional hair and beauty salon called Salonius. The concept behind this demo bot is to show how a chatbot can help you both provide information to customers and also help them book an appointment.
Try our demo bot now: https://m.me/tinybluerocket?ref=hair-beauty-demo
Welcome to Salonius
When you first open the Salonius chatbot you’re greeted by a welcome from Maria. Whilst she is fictional for this demo, it’s highly recommended that if you are using your chatbot alongside a receptionist, you reflect that with your chatbot.
In essence, if your chatbot is an extension of your receptionist it should reflect that. If a customer books an appointment or requests a callback, if Maria will do these tasks, then the customers should meet Maria in the chatbot!
Segment, separate & tag
As much as possible a chatbot should replicate human conversations. When I write a chatbot I read it through like an actual conversation (not out loud — I’m not totally mad!).
Imagine you’re ringing to book an appointment for a hair salon. The receptionist will ask you questions. When do you want an appointment? What sort of treatment do you need? What’s your name?
It’s perfectly normal to ask people loads of questions when you’re having a conversation, so your chatbot must do this too. The difference between a human and a bot is tagging — after every answer your chatbot needs to create a tag about the customer. If they want a hair colouring treatment you need to tag their profile in the bot to reflect that they get their hair coloured. This is useful when you have a 25% off for hair colouring promotion as you can target people who use that treatment.
Tagging and segmenting customers helps you build up a really detailed set of information about what your customers want or like. All tagging is recorded and stored, something you can’t do with a real-life conversation.
Contact details are gold!
Once a customer starts using your chatbot they are opting into you communicating with them. In the post-GDPR world, getting people’s express permission for you and your business to communicate with them is vital.
It’s very important to also routinely offer customers the chance to unsubscribe from your bot. That’s a legal expectation, but they won’t opt out if your chatbot is offer value to their life.
Having a customer subscribed to your chatbot is great because our chatbots work within Facebook Messenger, so you can continue to communicate with them through Messenger. You’ve always got that open communication as long as they are subscribed.
However, when it comes to booking appointments you need to talk directly with customers. The in-built date and time selector helps customers tell you when they would ideally like an appointment. Then it’s up to you and your receptionists to follow up this ‘booking’ by either confirming the time and date they requested is available or offer alternative dates and/or times.
The chatbot helps customers express their intention to get an appointment and give you an idea of when. Then it’s up to you to confirm and complete the booking. This system can be extremely useful for customers who want to book an appointment while your business is closed. Offer 24/7 booking is quite special!
In summary
If you are struggling to understand what a chatbot is and how it can help your business, please try out our demo bots. Whether or not you run a salon, our first demo bot is a great example of how you can help and communicate with customers.
Try our demo bot now: https://m.me/tinybluerocket?ref=hair-beauty-demo
