[Update] ZeeRate Is A New WhatsApp Chatbot That Helps You Check Black Market Exchange Rates

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With Zimbabwe seemingly in a transition to dollarize, a growing number of companies are now demanding payments in US dollars. Those who still accept bond notes will still be quoting their prices in US dollars but you can make a payment in bond notes or RTGS/mobile money (EcoCash predominantly) using the current exchange rate of USD: bond notes or RTGS/Ecocash.

It can be a whole lot of work to be always going on the internet or calling people to check or ask the prevailing rate before you decide to make a payment.  ZeeRate is a chatbot that makes your life easier to check rates anytime in the comfort of your WhatsApp. Yes, ZeeRate is WhatsApp chatbot. It’s a part of a growing list of WhatsApp chatbots that Zimbabwe developers are developing.

It now seems that whenever there is a nationwide problem in Zimbabwe, it’s spurring the development of chatbots as in the instance of a fuel chatbot by Intelli Africa Solutions for the fuel crisis and now the ZeeRate chabot for the money crisis . You need not wonder why the chatbots being developed are, more often than not, WhatsApp chatbots rather than Facebook chatbots or any kind of chatbot that uses some other platforms- its because WhatsApp is the most used communication platform right now in Zimbabwe.

How Zeerate works

ZeeRate works kinda differently to other chatbots that have recently been introduced in Zimbabwe. With other chatbots, you only have to add the chatbot’s number and text a certain chant like ‘Hi’ and then you start to interact with the chatbot.

I don’t know if you have heard about Duta WhatsApp chatbot before, but that’s pretty much how the ZeeRate WhatsApp chatbot works like. With the ZeeRate WhatsApp chatbot, you save the chatbot’s number AND THEN create a group or add the number to a group (the difference). You then send a text like Hi to start to interact with the chatbot. You see the difference is the that with the ZeeRate WhatsApp chatbot is that you have to create a group, rather than just start to interact (in the chat, not the group) with the chatbot after you save its number?  

I’m not sure why Zeerate chose that tedious way for people to communicate with its chatbot. My uneducated (and stupid) guess is that maybe they want to have more people communicate with their chatbot system. But to what benefit?

[Update]: You can try out the bot by saving this number: 071 922 0415

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27 comments

  1. Sir Tom

    Could have been a great article if you would have given us the chatbot number

    1. Farai Mudzingwa

      071 922 0415

    2. 3rd time lucky again

      LOL these techzim clowns can never seem to get it right 1st time!!

  2. tunga gotora (@tugotora)

    ko number dzacho dziripi

    1. Farai Mudzingwa

      Sorry for that, the number is 071 922 0415

  3. Anonymous

    Try http://www.marketwatch.co.zw i find them the most accurate!

    1. Rangararirai

      Thanks hey!

  4. Prof

    Nhai nhai..?🤣🤣

    1. Farai Mudzingwa

      071 922 0415

  5. Anonymous

    where is the number

    1. Farai Mudzingwa

      Sorry for that oversight; 071 922 0415

  6. Mukanya wacho

    whats the zeerate number

  7. barekernel

    Chatbots as a concept is going to evolve and become meaningful. They will create more opportunities for new companies to explode from nothing into prominence. They will create many new business strategy opportunities. In my opinion, they will play a large role in online business but not every role.
    Engati is a chatbot platform that allows you to build, manage, integrate, train, analyse and publish your personalized bot in a matter of minutes. It presently supports eight major messaging platforms including messenger, kik, telegram, line, viber, skype, slack and webchat with a focus on customer engagement, conversational commerce, and customer service and fulfillments.

    1. Team ZeeRate

      Thank you for the insight and for recommending Engati!

  8. Imi Vanhu Musadaro

    Isn’t this overkill for a bot, and also for an article. Soon enough there’ll be an article on a bot to find the current time.

    Back to the bot, developers should make themselves more useful creating true innovation. I don’t think there’s any innovation here. From a security perspective, this bot could easily be collecting phone numbers of individuals interested in the black market, for future unknown purposes. I wouldn’t recommend using it considering that.

    1. Team ZeeRate

      Please note that we do not collect phone numbers, this is a service that we provide simply for the benefit of helping people gauge how much SME’s may charge them on a day to day basis.

      1. Imi Vanhu Musadaro

        All we have is your word, and that isn’t good enough. What is it that you stand to gain at the end of the day? There is nothing for free, or done for free, under the sun.

  9. alternatives for serious people

    rate.co.zw and also zimbollar index on twitter much better and much more insightful !!

  10. Nice

    That’s for highlighting the security threat…I was about to use it… Security first esp if it’s illegal

    1. Team ZeeRate

      Please note that your phone number will remain private and that there is no security risk.

  11. Nice

    Zombie no good they haven’t posted a rate in over 30days….rate.co.zw and marketwatch

  12. Shemaiah

    I need to be put in touch with the developers…thanks in advance

    1. Team ZeeRate

      You can contact us via email at teamzeerate@gmail.com

  13. Anonymous

    Can you fix the money signs it’s saying $4.18 zar

  14. Chitransh Naman

    Thanks for writing about chatbots. Definitely bots have the exciting future when it comes to customer engagement, transactional and conversations commerce domain. Given the bot technology is still evolving and we do need to focus on better user experience, business integration… We at Engati have started this evolutionary journey. Do visit us and provide us with your valuable feedback at http://www.engati.com/#bl as we strive for more mainstream acceptance of this technology of the future. Create your bot – app.engati.com/getstarted

  15. ggglompfyt

    is this still working?

  16. Fra (@nkaust)

    Am failing to get WhatsApp Messenger on my group

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