How BotForge Built a Google Business Messages Agent for ecoATM

ecoATM is the market leader in mobile phone recycling and resale, with smart kiosks across UK supermarkets and shopping centres. As a pan-European, multi-location business, it manages a large estate of individual locations on Google Business Profile.

The Challenge

ecoATM and Motif Partners, a marketing analytics and growth consultancy, wanted a proof of concept: a virtual agent that could talk to prospective customers across many Google Business Profile locations and show whether the channel worked for lead generation. The agent had to give price quotes, answer FAQs, explain the business, guide customers through recycling and capture email sign-ups.

The Approach

BotForge designed and built the agent on Google Business Messages, using Dialogflow CX for the conversation and secure Google Cloud Functions middleware for the business logic. The conversation design was prototyped in Voiceflow, so the team could iterate quickly on client feedback.

• Price quotes: instant smartphone valuations in conversation
• FAQs: answers about ecoATM's business and the recycling process
• Kiosk guidance: a step-by-step walkthrough of using an ecoATM kiosk
• Email capture: an opt-in sign-up for marketing
• Rich media: carousels, knowledge cards and suggestion chips inside the conversation
• Multi-location: deployed across selected ecoATM locations on Google Maps

The Outcome

The working proof of concept showed what conversational AI could do in the customer journey for retail locations, reaching customers on Google Maps where they search. It gave ecoATM and Motif Partners a test of Google Business Messages as a new customer acquisition channel.