How to build resilience in chatbot strategies

On the 16th of December Facebook pages in Europe will lose some of their functionalities due to a change in local privacy regulations. The change will affect all European pages as well as all pages with European admins and any chats with users in Europe.

There are, of course, plenty of pages discussing the technical details of the change and how to work around them, including a very detailed post made by Facebook itself, but we’d like to look at the issue from a different angle: resilience building.

Why resilience matters

This is not the first policy change of this kind, and certainly won’t be the last. Looking at the details of it might be a necessity in the short term, but we believe companies should also be looking at the bigger picture and ensure their communication strategy is built to handle and adapt to change.

As a general rule single-channel strategies and, by extension, chatbots, work well for short-term initiatives. For example, if the company wants to boost traffic to its Facebook page a chatbot based on this system could be great, and the same would be true if it wants to engage a specific segment of users in a marketing campaign or product launch.

However, for long-term purposes, using only one channel can represent a liability. On one hand, users often like to use different communication tools at different times or in different stages of their lifecycle, on the other, specific platforms may lose relevance over time or be disrupted by regulatory changes and financial issues.

Managing externalities through diversification

To achieve channel diversification through chatbots there are a number of options, and identifying the best one will depend largely on each company’s unique situation. For example, both a multi-channel and an omnichannel chatbot strategy could be useful to achieve diversification, but as we have discussed in a previous article, each one has its own strengths and weaknesses.

Creative use of chatbot networks could also be a possible solution, with dedicated chatbots for each platform that obtain information from a centralized bot that acts as an interface with the company’s systems. The possibilities are endless and to navigate them you may need expert support.
To help you make the best choices, we have put together a great team of experts that will be more than happy to take a look at your company and help you identify the best solution. You can reach out to them using the contact link below.