Interniser Version 2: Productivity
With version 1 of my Interniser bot deployed to live for the ATBA-UK, I decided to build version 2 to answer my questions about using bots to help with productivity.
For my MVP Productivity Bot I integrated with ToDoIst, Trello and Freshdesk. I use ToDoIst for task management, Trello for managing the progress and status of projects, and Freshdesk for customer service enquiries so being able to interact with them over Messenger showed me that a bot could be used as a single interface for all of these different systems.
As this was a quick MVP I only built the integration to add to these systems, but the API between the chatbot and ToDoIst, Trello and Freshdesk allows for much more control.
The next bot I’m thinking of (Version 3) will be a helper bot and test how bots can be a bit more human and have a long term conversation.
An awful email from my bank
I received an email from my bank. It’s the same email I get every month. That’s the only reason I know it isn’t spam, because looking at it, it sure looks a lot like spam.
“Dear Customer”! What do you mean,” Dear Customer”? Don’t you even know my name? When it comes to email personalisation, that’s day one stuff. You have so much data about me that could be used to personalise the emails I receive and yet you’re not even capable of putting my name in an email.
“Your latest statement is ready for you online now” – But if I want to see it I’m going to have to open a browser, search for your website, click on the result to load your website, navigate to login page, then find this month’s statement, when all you had to do to make it easier for me was to include a link. It’s almost like you don’t want me to look at my statement.
“It will be ready to download as a pdf two days after the statement date” – Does it really take two days to generate a pdf? And what makes you think I even want a pdf, you haven’t asked me? What if I want a .csv? What if I want to connect my account with Google Drive or an Expenses Tracking system and have my statement exported to either of them? It’s the twenty first century. This is not complicated stuff.
“Log in to Online Banking to see more information on your account.” – I could probably do that a little bit more easily if you bothered to include a link to the login page on your website. If you are trying to encourage your customers to use Online Banking rather than high street branches, why make it difficult for them?
“Remember,within Online Banking” – When I went to school commas had spaces after them. A major high street bank sending emails to hundreds of thousands of customers with grammatical errors like this doesn’t exactly inspire confidence that they’ll be correct and accurate with my money.
Was this email really worth sending?
Weeknotes #25
What happened this week…
- Created an improved Sales Reporting Dashboard.
- Had a meeting with our email service provider to look at improving our email communications to customers.
- Had a very interesting visit the the warehouse to look at optimising stock.
- Discovery work for Print-on-demand and Ecards.
- Signed-up for a BHF cycling event to better understand the customer journey.
- Improved Cycling and Dechox category pages and links to the pages.
- Signed up for Magento 2 training.
- Attended the RMSP Programme Board Meeting
Read this week…
- 13 Chatbots on Facebook Messenger, for Merchants
- Post-Purchase Emails: How to Boost Retention and LTV
- Five essential skills for every charity digital role
- Examples of 4 Automated Email Campaigns Every Online Retailer Should Send in 2017
- Product Photography Tips: How to Take In-Context Photos
- The First App That Got Fully Replaced By A Bot
Doing next week…
- Measuring lots of clothing to create new sizing guides.
- Meeting with the Schools Marketing Team to discuss Dodgeballs and Skipping Ropes.
- Lifestyle photo shoot with our new product range.
- Organising a low-impact stock take.
- Trustpilot Trial Final Report.
- Finalising the Customer Satisfaction Survey and start sending it to customers.
- Investigating alternative ways of developing a print-on-demand and ecards business.
Interesting stat of the week…
- 14.9% of our orders have a total value between £20 and £25, whilst orders with a value between £30 and £35 are 11.5% of the total.
In the not too distant future….
More emails, more coordination, more conversion.
ButlerBot for Trello
I like bots. I like the automation that can be achieved with bots. It appeals to my desire for short cuts and optimised productivity.
And recently I’ve started using Trello more for maintaining an up-to-date status for all of my projects.
Cue Butler Bot for Trello. A very cool bot that automates tasks you might perform regularly like assigning members or labels to a card, and making changes to a card when you move it from one list to another. Check out the ButlerBot Trello board for examples of how to use.
