Aston Villa launches Billy Bot chatbot to engage with and amuse supporters

Aston Villa Football Club has launched Billy Bot, a chatbot that it says will be organically developed through user feedback. The club said it has developed the chatbot as the face of football is changing, undergoing a digital revolution, which means that fans expect constant interaction with their club.

Villa has overhauled its social media channels to reflect the character of the club and its supporters, unified behind the hashtag #PartOfThePride. Billy Bot consolidates that effort into one tool that allows fans to have an instant conversation with the club.

In 2016, when Villa were relegated to the Championship, the club’s international social media following decreased significantly. Since then, the club has been working hard to engage with its fans and restore the following. Through the overhaul of the team’s social media persona – becoming true to the sense of humour of the fans and the club – Villa said it has reinvigorated it’s international social following. Billy Bot represents another step in the club’s ongoing push to lead the industry in digital communications strategy.

The chatbot will stay in a continual beta development stage, allowing it to develop organically, shaped by the feedback and needs of the user. It provides a convenient and entertaining touch point for fans but, importantly, it also provides a service. Villa said is keen to keep the user at the heart of that development, ensuring that fan response shapes the chatbot service into something of genuine use and purpose.

Any time the bot is asked a question it cannot answer the incident will be logged and the developers will build in an appropriate response for the future. This will be a manual process, rather than machine-led learning, ensuring the chatbot retains its carefully curated tone of voice. Furthermore, users will be able to directly speak to the chatbot about features that they would like to see incorporated into the tool.

Named after AVFC founder William McGregor, Billy Bot operates through Villa’s Facebook Messenger. It can answer enquiries about team news, match day news and Aston Villa. However, the chatbot is also designed to engage and entertain the fans, provide genuine insight into the personality of the club and the values of Pride, Passion and Purpose that drive its successes on and off the field.

When fans open Billy Bot, they will be presented with a list of options, offering instant access to today’s news, the AVFC match centre and ticket news. For those who want to delve further, they simply need to start up a conversation with the chatbot to learn more about top scorers, the club’s history or anything else that they want to chat about. Ingrained with the club’s sense of humour, the bot is quick witted – often at the expense of local rivals – and loaded with gifs, quips and content to entertain those who engage with it.
at Villa fans will love.

Will Radford, Head of Digital, Aston Villa Football Club said: “We have been working very hard to create a social voice that our supporters can relate to. 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.”

You can try out Billy Bot here.