The recent update in the EU Electronic Privacy Directive (ePrivacy Directive) has forced Facebook to turn off some functions. The change is to prevent companies like Facebook from “digging up” message contents and metadata for advertising purposes.
It’s important to know who would be affected by this change. They are:
· Facebook pages with admins located in Europe
· Facebook pages that are located in Europe
· Chat users are from Europe
(Europe means all 27 European Union member states, Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein and the United Kingdom).
So, what would change for chatbots due to these new privacy rules? Some of you guys may know about this. But it’s better to check them again one by one. So, you could know how to build a chatbot to adapt to the new situation.
What do we lose?
No typing indicator
To make the bot friendly and human-like, the typing bot or typing indicator would help a lot. But the feature will not show up anymore. The typing bot seems not a big deal. It’s just a thing which is worth notice.
No Bot Menu
It is not possible anymore to have a Bot Menu. Usually, there is a persistent menu on the bottom-right of Facebook Messenger
But this is not showing up since Dec 16, 2020. This is such a big drawback, because it is used to allow chat users to easily navigate to different chatbot flows.
Not able to send/receive audio, videos and attachments
This is just plain and harsh: you cannot send or receive audio, videos and attachments through the Facebook Messenger. How can we build a chatbot to deal with this?
The new rule only allows text and image blocks to be sent ot by bots. At BotStar, there is no more Horizontal list block, Audio block, or Video blocks. Besides, the button list blocks will be transferred to the quick reply form. There is no button anymore but at least, we do have the quick reply:
You cannot use the One-Time Notification
Oughhh, this is a big one!
The One-Time Notification or OTN was a new feature which was released in 2020. It is used to reach to chat users outside of the 24-hour window. But, due to these new changes, it isn’t possible to have One-Time Notification in Europe. We haven’t celebrated this feature enough, and now it’s gone.
How to adapt?
Then, the question at the moment is how can we comply with these new Facebook Messenger rules?
1, Remove the Facebook page admins who are from Europe.
2, Edit the flow and replace all the Horizontal list, Audio, Video blocks with the quick reply and image blocks.
3, Instead of OTN, asking chat users their phone and email.
4, Use keywords for smarter chatbots.
5, Free chatbot template made for EU users.
Let go deeply into these points:
Remove the European Facebook page admins:
If there is an admin of your page located in the EU, you have to remove him from the Facebook page settings. This is such an unfortunate situation in case you don’t have another admin who is based somewhere else in the world.
So, how can we remove an admin?
Go to your page > Page Settings > Page Roles > scroll down to Admin who is in the EU area > click on the Remove button > Save. Now, you’ve got the first step done.
Edit the flow:
The first thing to do in the editing flow process is that you have to remove all the audio, video blocks.
Horizontal list blocks could be transferred to the Text block with quick replies and Image blocks. Since Dec 16, 2020 only text blocks and image blocks are allowed to use.
Besides, enabling the Fallback block is such a great way to get out of a dead-end conversation. This could help a lot where the bot doesn’t know what to respond to. Thanks to the Fallback block, users may choose one of the quick replies to continue the chat.
Go to Bot builder > Settings > Behaviors > enable the Default Fallback block > choose one of the block > Publish — Update.
Ask for chat users’ info.
Before, your chat bot could collect customers’ name, gender, email, time-zone automatically (If the Facebookers leave these data publicly). But recently, you have to put more effort into getting this information. There is no other way than asking your chat users directly.
Thanks to the emails, you could use some Omnichannel marketing tools, such as Mailchimp to reach out to customers.
Keywords for a smarter bot.
If you are wondering about how to build a chatbot which is smart. Then keywords will be a great answer. At BotStar chatbots, you may choose one from five options of the message types. This will help you to save more time when it comes to setting up keywords.
You know, chat users could leave a question or a message out of the designed flow. In these situations, keyword sets would bring a normal conversation to customers. It also helps to avoid waiting time when chat users have to wait for a live agent.
You are able to edit and update more answers easily by clicking in the keyword section in your bot. After times, the bot will sound more natural.
Free template for EU users.
With more than 75 free templates, BotStar is a pound of our resources to support valued customers in the best way. Recently, to deal with the change from Facebook, our team has prepared 02 free templates for EU-based chatbots. You may check them at Food & Beverage EU Compatible chatbot and Fashion Store EU Compatible chatbot
You may take a look to have a better understanding about how chatbots would look and function after the change. Or you could save a lot of time by clicking on the link and cloning the bot.
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These are all the changes and how you could adjust the bot. Hope this article could help you to gain some insights and adapt to the new situation better. I know that it’s hard but at the moment, these solutions are the best to stay compliant.
Let’s stay tuned and be willing to take new challenges ahead!
