Aston Villa shoots for industry leading chatbot

Aston Villa has launched a new Facebook Messenger chatbot, Billy Bot, named after the football club’s founder, William McGregor.

This will answer all enquiries about team news, match day news and Aston Villa. When fans open Billy Bot, they will be presented with a list of click through options, offering instant access to the latest news, the AVFC match centre and ticket news. Those who want to delve further can start up a conversation with the chatbot to learn more about top scorers, the club’s history and various other topics. Bill Bot is also loaded with gifs, quips and other content, often at the expense of local rivals.

Will Radford, Head of Digital, Aston Villa Football Club, says: “As football embraces digital, we are developing a deep understanding of what it is that fans want and need from our social channels for them to be successful and impactful. Our understanding of the necessity to be led by the fan is what has inspired us to approach the development of our chatbot through a uniquely organic process."

"Everything we do at Villa keeps the fan at the heart of the experience and the development of Billy Bot is no different. We believe that this approach will allow us to create a truly industry leading and unique chatbot, with the customer experience informing the features that need to be added or removed. It is vital that what we develop with Billy Bot is a useful tool but we also want to inspire creativity and be first movers, bringing unique feature sets to market as we receive the user feedback.”