With more than 1 million followers across the Washington Capitals’ social channels, the team’s digital media staffers often found it difficult to quickly interact with every fan who contacted them.
To change that, James Heuser, the Capitals’ director of digital media, took inspiration from Facebook’s move earlier this year to open its Messenger platform and allow developers to build branded chatbots, which use a mix of artificial intelligence and human oversight to communicate with people.
“I saw it as a really interesting opportunity that could work for a larger brand in sports,” said Heuser, who had interacted with the technology on CNN’s Facebook page, among others. “Facebook has double the audience of any other channel we have, so this could provide us a unique way to interact with them, without us even having to really interact with them.”
The team worked with Washington, D.C.-based iStrategyLabs to develop its own bot, which launched at the start of this season. Other sports teams, including the Dallas Mavericks, Denver Broncos, Sacramento Kings and Manchester City of the Premier League, have added bots since Facebook opened the possibility in May. The Capitals are the first NHL team to do so.
The Capitals’ digital staff previously manually answered questions asked on its Facebook page or via Messenger. Now, if someone contacts the page, the following message appears: “Hi I’m Capsbot! The hockey loving messenger bot, here to answer all of your questions about the Washington Capitals. Ask me a question or just type ‘trivia,’ ‘FAQ,’ or ‘help’ at any time #RockTheRed.”
The Capitals staff identified what sort of information people generally seek out, settling on 10 “buckets of intent,” as Heuser puts it. Each request is funneled down one of those paths, ranging from questions about the schedule to player statistics or general inquiries about the Verizon Center. The bot responds automatically once it detects what’s being asked. Capitals staffers still monitor Facebook as well.
D.J. Saul, iStrategyLabs chief marketing officer and managing director, said he sees more uses as the technology behind it becomes more sophisticated, such as e-commerce applications selling either tickets or merchandise, or providing sponsorable elements. Saul declined to comment specifically on the cost of building the bot, but said it’s well below six figures.
The Capitals added responses to questions that rival fans might pose to stump or mess with the bot. “We wanted to give it a bit of an attitude,” Heuser said. “While it’s a great customer service resource and it’s usable as just that, it’s still sports and we want to make sure it’s still fun.”
