The Power of Chatbots in Retail with Mel Eilers

Catherine Erdly: If you’ve ever commented on a post of mine and got a link sent to you in your DMs, then chances are you’ve interacted with my Resilient Retail Club Instabot. But what is an Instabot and how can it be useful, particularly how can it be useful for a product based business?

Hi, I’m Catherine Erdly. I’m the host Of the resilient retail game plan.

I’m also a small business and retail expert and the founder of the resilient retail club, which is my membership group and mastermind for product businesses. You can find out more about everything I offer at resilient retail club. com.

Today, I’m talking to Mel Eilers, who’s going to be talking to us about the use cases for chatbots and how they can help grow your sales.

Welcome to the Resilient Retail Game Plan, a podcast for anyone wanting to start, grow or scale a profitable creative product business with me, Catherine Erdly. The Resilient Retail Game Plan is a podcast dedicated to one thing, breaking down the concepts and tools that I’ve gathered from 20 years in the retail industry and showing you how you can use them in your business.

This is the real nuts and bolts of running a successful product business, broken down in an easy, accessible way. This is not a podcast about learning how to make your business look good. It’s the tools and techniques that will make you and your business feel good. Confidently plan, launch, and manage your products, and feel in control of your sales numbers and cash flow to help you build a resilient retail business.

Meet Mel Eilers: Chatbot Expert

Catherine Erdly: Mel, thank you so much for joining me today on the podcast. Do you want to kick off by telling everyone about you and what you do? Welcome back to the podcast, I should say.

Mel Eilers: Yes, thanks for having me again. So my name is Mel Eilers and I essentially, help brands to personalize their connection with followers through many chat automations helping them to increase their organic reach and engagement, leading to higher conversion rates through a more seamless customer journey.

Catherine Erdly: Amazing. So we’re going to come into delve into that in a lot more detail, what that actually means, but just to give us a bit of background. So what was it that kind of got you interested in?

Understanding Chatbots and Their Benefits for Retailers

Catherine Erdly: So we talked about many chat, we’re talking about chatbots. So also known as conversational marketing.

So what was it that really got you into this or interested in this area? Hmm.

Mel Eilers: I’ve working on the Meta platforms for quite some time now. I started out in organic social media marketing, which is obviously quite conversational, the social media side. And then I retrained into Facebook ads for e commerce businesses. But what actually got me interested in was actually myself commenting on somebody else’s Facebook post, and this was now probably about four years ago, and it was to get a guide a free guide, a free PDF on something that I was interested in, and I didn’t really know that these things existed on the meta platforms. Obviously they have quite some time, and I commented the keyword on a post, and then the message came into my messenger, I gave my name and my email, and then the guide that I’d requested was literally in my email within 20 seconds. And I was like, wow, what is this wizardry? And then I went down a bit of a rabbit hole with it, discovered many chats.

And that was just, the pivitol moment for me. And I was like my God, this is so easy for brands to increase their recent engagement through their organic platforms. To deliver whatever it is, whether it’s a lead magnet, whether it’s a discount code, it’s so simple and it’s fun as well because the conversational side of the chat bot is really fun to interact with and that was what got me first into it and I was like, this is so for me.

So that’s when I introduced it to the business, which is a three, about three years ago now.

Catherine Erdly: Absolutely. Yes. You have worked with me on my many chart automations, which is great.

Implementing Chatbots in E-commerce

Catherine Erdly: But let’s talk about specifically e commerce.

So e commerce chatbots, if someone’s listening to this and they’re thinking, okay, this sounds interesting, or maybe they’ve commented on my post or somebody else’s post and had that some sort of interaction with the bot. But maybe they’re thinking, okay, but I can’t quite see how it works for my business.

Do you want to talk us through some e commerce examples?

Mel Eilers: Sure, yeah, no problem. So essentially, whenever you are building out a chatbot strategy, it’s the same with your marketing, chat marketing is there to compliment your existing marketing funnels. It’s not there to replace anything. It’s very much a a complimentary channel and especially on Instagram where they’re getting, leads and sales through saying link in bio. gives the customer an incredibly convoluted journey that does, take a while to go to your link in bio to find the right link, click on the right link where they then go to a landing page. They may or may not take your intended action. You’re actually asking the consumer to do quite a lot.

So when you are planning your strategy, Really think about what it is you need your business to do. So for e-commerce that is to either get more eyes onto their website, to their shop or it’s to increase their email list, for example.

Building Effective Chatbot Strategies

Mel Eilers: So what I always say to e-commerce retailers is the one flow you should definitely set up would be very reminiscent of the flow that they have probably got on their website anyway, where it’s sign up to my email list and get, a 10 percent discount code or something off your first order.

And that, that exists as a pop up on many e-commerce websites. So that is one flow that I would definitely say, is worth doing.

Another one that I think works really well for e commerce businesses especially if you are a brand where you get tagged a lot in stories, unboxing videos, user generated content of them doing a quick review or something. And if your DMS are absolutely full of people mentioning you in their story, you can automate a reply to that.

That just quite simply can say something like, thank you, just thank you for the mention, appreciate it, which then for you as a brand saves the time for you to go into the DMs because you know that anyone sometimes any time that someone is mentioning you in your story, They are automatically getting some recognition and a note of thanks, which can help to build loyalty.

But equally, you as the brand are not in the DMs all the time, searching for people who have mentioned you to try and say thank you, or at least give them acknowledgement of the tag that they’ve given you.

Yeah, so really, yeah, there’s a few things there is think of what flows will actually complement your business and there are a few back end flows like the story tag mentioned reply, which can easily help you to save time in the DMS as well.

Catherine Erdly: Yeah. Okay. That’s really interesting. Yeah. So coming back to the email signup, that’s a really fascinating one because one of the things that I’m always conscious of and I often talk to clients about is this idea about, we don’t own our social audiences. We’re building our house on borrowed ground type thing.

Whereas if you’ve got their email address, then that is much easier to communicate directly with them. And if your Instagram went down tomorrow, or who knows, I don’t know, Elon Musk buys it or something. Doesn’t mean crazy with it, think about all those businesses that were built on Twitter and like you would then have that ability to talk directly to your customers.

So one thing is that, relationship between the size of your email list and the size of your social following. And it always working to convert social followers to email list subscribers. So it’s interesting what you’re saying about using the chat bot for that purpose, almost to automate, like comment, whatever, and get a welcome code or sign up to our list or something along those lines.

Mel Eilers: Yeah, definitely. Especially at this time of year where for, we’re into Q4 now. And, if those retailers are thinking about running any offers, et cetera, et cetera, audience building ahead of that is something that, is really important. Because once the emails go out alongside the, complimentary organic strategy, it’s, if your list is bigger in theory, you know, you’ve got more opportunity for those sales to come in. And so by, promoting your list building flows on your organic stories or posts and your reels during Q4 time can only help to build the audience for when your offers are ready later in the month or Christmas or whenever that time will be. So I think it’s one of those and it’s so easy to do through Instagram.

Rather than relying on them to come to your website, or, it’s easy to get them to comment a word on a post, or to DM you a word, or to reply to a story with a word, that then brings them into the bot, gathers their name and their email, and that connects into your CRM, and then they’re delivered, whatever it is that they have signed up for, and it does make it, such a fun thing as well, because for them, for the consumer, it’s a one to one interaction with the brand.

Yet for the brand it’s still one to many. So it’s very much playing to the personalization of the customer journey, which a lot of consumers are looking for. Now, we’re looking for that personal touch with our brands and the people that we buy from. But equally for the brand, it’s not massively difficult to set up, and once it’s set up once it’s still catering to the one to many audience, but for the consumer, the experience is a little bit different.

Catherine Erdly: I see. Yeah, very interesting.

Expanding Chatbot Use Beyond Instagram

Catherine Erdly: And when you talk about platforms, so Instagram and Facebook, for sure, for many chat, does it work on any other platforms?

Mel Eilers: So Instagram and Facebook are the two main meta channels. If you bring them in via Instagram or Facebook, you can then, depending on how you build your flows, and the information that you want to gather, you can then ask for a phone number, which then opens up the ability to use WhatsApp within the ManyChat platform, or SMS, as well.

Many chat does have a native email system. I always recommend as marketers that we shift that out to, so for e commerce, that, there might be Clavio, Shopify, et cetera onto another email marketing platform, but depending on the information that you are gathering within that bot, if you do get that phone number, yes, you can use WhatsApp and you can use SMS as well within the ManyChat platform.

Catherine Erdly: Okay. But TikTok, for example you can’t.

Mel Eilers: No, sadly not. One day, hopefully, that would be nice.

Catherine Erdly: I’m sure that’d be coming. So what kind of results then do people see when you’ve seen people implement this? What were some of the impacts?

Success Stories and Case Studies

Mel Eilers: I can tell you about one of my core students on the last cohort was a fashion stylist, but she also sells the clothes through her Shopify store. And she was doing like a 30 days of style challenge where every day she was doing a real showing off an outfit and giving them a keyword to comment. And they would comment the keyword they would come into the DMS and it gathered their name and their email address. It gave them the links to that specific outfit directing them straight to her website, and she gave them a discount code as well, like a time limited discount code, so they would view the reel, they would comment the keyword, they’d come into the DMs, they would see those clothes again, be able to directly link into her website, and then they got the discount code, I think it was 10% for use that day.

And she has seen phenomenal success with that. I was so pleased for her because she was so happy as well. But I think, one of her first comments, one of her first reels that she did had two, 200 comments on it and growing, and obviously that’s all that’s on the organic platform as well.

Knowing how the algorithm works when, you get the more engagement on your ads, you get more reach as well. So it was very much. ticking a lot of boxes for her. So yes, you can see some phenomenal results with chatbots.

Catherine Erdly: Yeah, that’s really fun. Yeah I mean I definitely see that as well with the chatbot when it pops off and people are commenting Because Instagram likes comments and they like you to not be linking outside the platform. They like You’d be keeping people on the platform. So the fact that, we’ve now switched it so that I was sending people an external link, which obviously with a shop, then it’s useful to do that.

But, in this case, we’re now able to gather their email directly. And also many chat also should say it’s a, as an approved partner of Instagram. of Meta. So it’s not like you’re doing anything that Meta is not happy with. This is something that they approve this tool.

You’re getting comments which the algorithm likes. And it can be that fun interaction. That’s a brilliant idea. So she was, she did that across 30 days. And so she had these very specific targeted It’s something really nice, isn’t it? Because it’s almost like your hand selecting it and delivering it to these people.

Whereas, as you said, that feels like a one to one interaction from the business owner.

Mel Eilers: Yes, very much so.

Catherine Erdly: yeah. What’s your view on, I know we’ve talked about this before, but I’d love to just hear you say making it clear when it’s the bot . Yeah.

Mel Eilers: I think you do need to make it clear that it is an automated conversation. I think if you’re in the digital marketing world, you’re well aware of automation and the things that can be done with automation. But if you’ve not experienced it before it can feel a bit weird and a bit disjointed if you’re not expecting it. So I always say to make it clear in the actual posts comment this keyword To receive this or to sign up for this and then invariably for most people, I would recommend that in that first message that they receive in the DMs, it says, Hello, I am, you know, for you, it’s it will say Catherine’s instabot, you know, and then they know that they are talking to an automation, but equally as well to keep those flows relatively short and to the point. Chatbots can, you can design these flows to talk about anything and for everything for a long time, but essentially from Instagram, you want to get them from A to B quite quickly and quite succinctly. And in a fun way, a fun and easy way for the consumer to enjoy and for you to reach your intended objective and for them to get what they want out of view without having to go around the house.

It’s for, you know, sit there thinking, okay, yeah, no, yeah, and taking ages throughout the bot because that is not such a good experience.

Catherine Erdly: No. But that is fun though, to see something and comment a word. I’m just thinking about, I don’t think I’ve actually seen that. But yeah, I think I’d like that. You see a nice outfit and you comment a word and you get sent a link that says, Hey, here’s the outfit. Look at this. And blah, blah, blah.

And you can be like, Ooh.

Mel Eilers: And that goes for anything in retail, doesn’t it? It’s not only fashion, it could be your new skincare range, or it could be, a complementary range of homewares that complements a particular colour of a room or something like that. It’s, it was, she was very specific in what she had.

It was like, skirt, jacket, shoes. Here are the links. Here’s your code. Go and buy it. Yeah. Yeah, so simple, but yet so effective.

Catherine Erdly: Yeah. Yeah, that is really fun. And then also you mentioned about things like reaching out to people with a flow, but say to get people onto your email list. So is that you can automate things like, for example, when you get a new follower, right? So if someone follows you.

Oh, you

Compliance and Best Practices

Mel Eilers: can’t actually, no, you can’t actually, that is actually against Meta’s terms and conditions. So just actually to briefly touch on compliance and this kind of ties in with the fact that ManyChat is an approved Facebook business partner. And as we know, whenever you work through Facebook’s platforms, there are compliance issues, which are there to protect not only us as brands, but also consumers as well, rightly and so when you do build many chat automations, it’s important to note that they are permission based. So if someone just becomes a follower, you can’t automate a reply to you because they haven’t given you their permission. They haven’t opted in for anything. They’ve literally decided to follow you. So it’s only by someone commenting a keyword or by someone replying to a story or mentioning your story that you can then send them an automation.

And that’s and. With regards to the posts and the reels and the live trigger because you can also in trigger it from a, from an Instagram live, that first comment is sent by Meta as well. So there are that first comment has to be quite specific in the way this is set up as well. But it’s important to, to know that you can only send flows if people have opted in and once they have opted in, you’re only able to send them automations for a period of 24 hours from the moment of their last touch in the bot. If they have opted into a flow and signed up for, a webinar, a discount code, a lead magnet, whatever it is.

And then more than 24 hours has passed. They’ve not been seen in your DMS. And a few days later you think, Oh, I’d really like to send them that flow. You can’t because they’re out of that 24 hour window. And the only way that you can get them back in is if they then opt in to another automation, which is why it’s important to use these flows to build your email list, or to gather their numbers so you can retarget them via, WhatsApp and SMS because you own your own email list, you can send them as many emails as you want, whether you should or not obviously that has to be, consideration for your marketing objectives. But yes, that 24 hour window is super important. And once it’s over, you can’t retarget them.

Catherine Erdly: Yeah, that’s really interesting. I think that’s a good thing, to be honest, because it means that it keeps you on the straight and narrow and it means that you’re not going to be spamming people who don’t want it. And for a consumer, it means you’re not going to get constantly bombarded.

Future of Chatbots in Retail

Catherine Erdly: Do you think that, are we seeing big retail business issues conversational marketing chatbots? Yes.

Mel Eilers: Yes, I think it’s starting to, I think. Yes. I think there is an awful lot of potential there for some of them, for retail in general, but also for bigger retailers, people who have the huge followings to really, I’ve seen them done really well on Instagram lives. So Instagram live is a trigger.

So I’ve watched fashion brands do a half an hour Instagram live of their latest autumn winter collection, spring summer collection. And they have shown off the looks with the models on the live. And within a few minutes of the live, they have given a keyword, which has given them a discount code towards again, very similar to the strategy I spoke about previously, where it’s then given them the links.

To those products and like a discount code that’s valid for 24 hours. And the keyword is pinned at the top of the live. So even if you can’t stay for the whole half an hour, within a few minutes, that keyword, you’ve seen some of the outfits that they are launching and because you have been on that live and you’ve seen the keyword you’ve opted in and you’ve received a keyword that small segment of people is getting first dibs on the new collection. So yeah, depending on how you work it with your intended objectives, but essentially only people that had seen that live had that keyword, therefore had that discount code. Yeah, I’ve seen that they have worked really well. You can literally see the comments just going and going, which is amazing to watch.

Getting Started with Chatbots

Catherine Erdly: So, when it comes to the kinds of conversations that chatbot can have, how would you kind of look at that in terms of when you’re setting up a flow? What are kinds of things are you thinking that they should try and handle and they shouldn’t try and handle?

Mel Eilers: You can use it in many ways. You can use it, for marketing, you can use it for sales and you can use it for support. So I would imagine, retails as well, obviously get a lot of people coming into their Facebook and Instagram DMs. Now looking for help with order numbers.

I would imagine where is my order? What are your shipping details? How long is my order going to take to arrive? So there are various things that you can do. Essentially, you need to look at your DMs and decide what out of all of this can we automate and what actually needs a personal touch. Because there is within many chat there is a live chat system as well. So if someone does come in to the bot and they have a more personal question, like Where is my order? I need to chase it up. You can set the flows up so they know what that kind of help word is. It might be help or it might be. I have a question and that can automate a quick automated reply saying what is your question?

And then in the back end of many chat, you can set it up so it can be sent to a live. Chat agent and you can have several live chat agents onto your account and so they then know that the this person is waiting in the DMs for a response to the question and that can all be organized within the many chat platform.

How the live chat works, you don’t have to have all your employees sitting there DMs going through them one by one, they will receive a notification within the within many chat. To deal with that more personalized question. With regards to what kind of conversations that you can have, AI is starting to be a thing within chatbots. If you upload the whole load of information about your business, people can be a lot more flexible on the questions that they ask and AI responds, whether that is something that brands want to set up will probably depend on, their feelings about AI and the kind of the touch that they want to have with their consumers.

But yeah, there are many things that they can do. And if anyone was thinking about getting started with many chat or using the chatbots within their Instagram DMs, I would say, look at your marketing objectives and work with those first before you expand. into, the whole realm of other stuff that can be done.

Catherine Erdly: So start by thinking like, what’s your key thing right here? You want to grow sales is your number one for most people.

Mel Eilers: Organic reach and engagement through your stories and your posts, whether that’s to deliver discount codes or, to send people a gallery of products, um, think about it that way. And then, look at the results that you’re getting and see how you can expand it as well.

And if you are getting, if you are getting a lot of questions in the DMS about shipping, about delivery, about all the kind of the backend stuff of sales, then build out an automation, like a frequently asked questions flow, which is easily accessible within the menus of many chat, because you can see menus, if you’re coming into the DMs and you have many chat attached there are two kind of menu options that consumers would see. If they are completely new to your DMs, i. e. they have never messaged you before, you can have your conversation starters on that first DM page. Instead of seeing like a blank screen with a profile picture at the top, you can have four conversation starters here and one of them could be frequently asked questions.

So that’s an easy way to do that. If they ask somebody who has been in your DMs quite a bit, there is a main menu choice that they can access on the top right hand side. It looks like a little hamburger. That’s the main menu. I think that’s not specifically not massively visible. So I do try to end flows with saying, if we can help you at any other time, do click on the main menu above.

And ask us a question. So there are various ways that it can be set up to encompass your needs, whether that is sales, whether that is marketing or whether that is more support.

Catherine Erdly: Okay. Yeah. So don’t try and run before you can walk.

Mel Eilers: I think so. I think so. Yeah. Start off with your main objectives and see how you feel about that. And then it can be absolutely expanded and grown into whatever you, whatever task you need it to be.

Catherine Erdly: Yeah. And I suppose what we’re really talking about, if you think about the question, Small business owners always ask is, why is this worth my time or money?

It’s something you’ve got to weigh up. I suppose because going through DMs and customer service and interacting is tricky, then if you’ve got this, it just is a bit of a peace of mind that if somebody’s looking for an answer, there’s a chat bot there that’s could at least give them a steer. So they’re not have a customer hanging.

Mel Eilers: it’s exactly that, especially for small businesses as well, but they’re putting the time and and the creativity into creating that organic content.

You want to get traction from that organic content rather than just letting it sit there and hoping that people will go to your link in bio in order to get whatever it is.

If there is simple ways that small businesses can use chatbots in order to get them more sales and leads directly from their content, that content is then working harder for them than it is by just doing that. Just putting the content out there and hoping that, that somebody, takes action on something and remembers to go to their website or remembers to go to their link in bio, it’s very direct call to action, do this and, take this action to sign up for my email list to get this, product gallery into your DMS to get the direct links to my website.

Catherine Erdly: Do you think this is an opportunity to almost get ahead of the curve a little bit? I know it’s hard to say, but like, how many people do you think are using this kind of technology at the moment?

Mel Eilers: It’s interesting, actually, because many chat had their annual conference last month, I think. And I think in 2023, there was something like 100, 000 Instagram accounts attached to many chat. And when you consider that’s on a global scale, that’s not that many. By 2024 that figure was up to 500, 000.

So they’ve had 5x growth in the last year. And I certainly as someone who managed managers, managing automations, I have seen a lot more people start to use it. And even when they start to use it, I would say 90 percent of them are bringing them into the DMS only to send them a link, which then sends them out off the platform.

Again, there are actually very few brands Considering the amount of Instagram accounts there are, who are bringing people into the DMs and getting people to take action within the DMs. So therefore effectively increasing their reach and engagement on platform that, they’re the ones getting the sales and the leads on platform rather than either, doing nothing with automations or just bringing them in and then sending them out to the link.

So many chat is seeing phenomenal growth and I can only at the moment see this Getting bigger. So at the moment, I would say there is a lot of space in the DMS for people to be marketed to. And if you think about it, I have got, goodness knows how many unread emails. I don’t have any unread DMS because not many people at the moment will ignore a message in the DMS, especially if it’s from a brand that they follow and they’re interested in.

Yeah, there is thinking about it that way. You think there is so much opportunity there. And even if you just start to use it in a really simple way you should start to see the benefits from it as

Catherine Erdly: Yeah. Yeah. And that was so interesting. It’s really, it’s funny because I actually first started using many chat in 2019 when I was running a free challenge, plan your year challenge and I now run inside the membership, but it was more to engage people with the challenge to say, Oh, I’m going to go live now.

And so it was sending people Facebook messenger, me messages, and it’s just really interesting. So that was what, five years ago now? And I’ve been using it in Instagram, probably, I don’t know, on a basic way, like two or three years. But interesting to that, it’s grown so fast. I’m always a big fan of technology that just makes things a bit easier and simpler and quicker for small business owners.

Mel Eilers: Exactly the same. And actually I was just thinking about another e commerce example that wasn’t one of mine, but it was used as a case study, I think on

Catherine Erdly: Yeah.

Mel Eilers: like a ManyChat. The lady in question, I think, was a fashion brand again, and she had wanted to reduce her reliance on ads during Q4 because they’re expensive.

Costs and competition can go through the roof. And so she set about two months before primetime Q4 for her, and I think she was in the States, so she was looking more about Thanksgiving time. Definitely around that period. And she basically used the two months before, to build her list and she did it consistently.

And maybe there was a little discount code, et cetera, et cetera. And then when it came to the black Friday weekend, obviously the email list was nurtured with whatever the offer was. I don’t know the specifics of that, but in that email, it also said, keep an eye on our stories. Over this weekend, because on one story this weekend, there will be an extra incentive to buy whatever the end product was so that meant everybody was on the email list, then went back onto Instagram was watching the stories waiting for this one story, because you can attach an alteration just to one specific story.

It doesn’t have to be. And once they saw that one specific story, they opted in and got the extra incentive a discount code or whatever it was to help to enhance the original offer that they had been delivered in the emails. So it was almost like a full circle. Marketing strategy. And apart from building the DMs the many chat flow, she didn’t spend any money on Facebook ads.

But it’s, I was like, wow, that is a phenomenal strategy, really to do so well out of something. Theory it’s quite simple to, yeah, completely organic. She had put the time into her organic content, which is, we all should be doing. And, but she, the way that she brought them into the organic content, got them onto the email list and then told the email list to go back to Instagram to get the extra incentive.

I was like, wow, that’s really quite cool.

Catherine Erdly: Yeah. Love it.

C

Catherine Erdly: Oh thank you so much, Mel. This has been a really fascinating conversation. Really enjoyed delving into this. And if people want to know more about you and about your ManyChat teaching course et cetera, then where can they find you?

Mel Eilers: So they can find me on Instagram, which is a socially underscore sound. So socially sound on Instagram. You can also find me on my website, socially sound. co. uk. And if they are interested in training, the next cohort is in January. Do get in touch more than happy to chat through what what that is.

And yeah, so just come into my DINs and I will be happy to chat to you there. Either,

Catherine Erdly: there.

Mel Eilers: either, yeah.

Catherine Erdly: Thanks so much for tuning in. Why not head over to Apple Podcasts and write us a review. If you haven’t done so already, it makes such a huge difference in getting the podcast out in front of more people. And of course, if you like and subscribe, you’ll be the first to know about every new episode, which comes out on a Thursday morning, see you next week.

​