Chatbot features in Facebook Messenger

This article details the differences and limitations you may notice when implementing and interacting with a chatbot on Messenger, as well as some general considerations.

The differences - eg in numbers of characters on a button - are because of Messenger's inherent channel limitations. Any application running on that channel would behave in the same way.

Length of button text in Messenger

Long button text will be truncated by Messenger. Try to keep your button text (eg buttons in engagements) under 20 characters, incl spaces.

You can create separate engagements for the Messenger channel to accommodate this, using the "Where" setting:

Engagements & buttons

If your engagement has buttons and no "Engagement message" introducing the buttons, Messenger will display the text "Here are some options:" above the buttons. For example - 

Follow up questions

Follow up questions are displayed differently in Messenger as "Related questions" in carousel format, with the button "Ask"

Video

If you wish to display video in your Messenger bot answers, you need to add a Facebook video link as well as a YouTube link. YouTube videos will not display in Messenger.

Callouts and styling

Callouts and custom styling (colours/CSS) don't display on Messenger.

How to disable your Messenger bot in the Helpfruit portal

You can enable/disable your bot on Messenger, to temporarily prevent your bot sending messages on this channel.

To do this, navigate to the Channel settings tab on Configuration > Main and toggle off the "bot enabled" switch for Facebook. Note this can take up to 15 minutes to take effect.

Segmenting analytics

Helpfruit analytics are segmented by bot source, allowing you to review and analyse conversations on Messenger vs the web channel.