UK Edition
Estee Lauder offers mascara in 60 minutes with Facebook Messenger bots
The Estee Lauder Companies are to become the first major retailer to launch on Facebook’s Messenger service in the UK.
The beauty company, which counts Kendall Jenner as its ambassador, is launching the mobile service along with a Christmas pop-up shop near its headquarters on Mortimer Street, London.
Estee Lauder says that the Messenger bot - which uses artificial intelligence to communicate with customers - will mean that shoppers can shop for their Christmas gifts and choose an instant courier within 60 minutes delivery across London.
"Today’s changing consumer behaviours mean that we have to adapt to the need for instant access to our products and services" said Chris Good, president of Estee Lauder.
"For the time-poor consumer, convenience is the new luxury", Mr Good added. "We are constantly looking at new ways to provide greater choice and flexibility, trialling new features like Messenger alongside live chat and other existing digital offerings."
Estee Lauder, which was founded in 1946, is looking for ways to revive flatlining sales of its core brands. The beauty brand has been driven by acquisitions of Jo Malone, Mac, La Mer, Too Faced and Smashbox, which are also popular with younger customers.
The company recently created a "millennial advisory board" to inform the beauty business about latest trends and set-up a formal reverse-mentoring programme, where young employees taught senior managers how to use social media, including Snapchat. The UK is the company's second biggest market.
Facebook has been pushing the capabilities of its artificial intelligence Messenger chat bots as a way to make its service more useful than Apple's iMessage, Google's Allo and WhatsApp.
Six months after its initial launch, Facebook recently added a new feature that will make it easy for users to engage with businesses in Messenger. From today, when users click on an advert in their News Feed it could open a conversation in Messenger with the company.
Early uses of the chatbot in the US have included the airline KLM and drinks maker Absolut. KLM has a bot that provides customers with their travel itineraries and boarding passes.