Lenta’s Chatbot in MAX Lets Shoppers Check Bonuses and Find Products
Lenta Group, one of Russia’s largest federal retail chains, has launched a new customer-facing feature: a chatbot inside the national messenger MAX. The service works as an alternative to a standalone mobile app. Shoppers can now access the hypermarket’s full online functionality without installing a separate application. At the same time, the messenger still delivers push notifications and can operate in offline mode.
Access to Loyalty Programs and Other Perks
Effectively, the chatbot gives Lenta customers access to the retailer’s entire service ecosystem. Users can place delivery or pickup orders, browse store assortments, check accumulated bonus points and collectible rewards, activate personalized offers, and verify product availability, pricing, and location inside a hypermarket. The chatbot also helps customers enroll in the loyalty program and unlock discounts and other benefits. Earlier, in April 2026, Lenta Group launched a separate MAX chatbot for handling customer requests. Now shoppers can check order status and delivery times in just a few clicks, make changes to orders, and track courier locations.
Business Can Cut Costs Without Sacrificing Quality
Company experts say the main communication channels with shoppers are still the mobile app and hotline service, which account for 62% and 28% of customer requests respectively. But that balance could shift. Industry practice shows that when China’s WeChat introduced “official accounts” with functionality comparable to full-scale applications, many companies stopped spending money on standalone apps and instead built their services directly into the messenger ecosystem.
The audience of the national messenger continues to expand, and the fact that a major federal retail chain has launched its own chatbot there is a telling example of that trend. What is particularly notable is that developers did not create just another retail chatbot. They equipped it with a full-fledged toolkit for e-commerce operations.
The Number of Services Keeps Growing
The creators of MAX originally positioned it as a multifunctional platform with chatbots, mini-apps, and a payment system, where businesses could build product catalogs, customer-support tools, and financial services.
The arrival of major corporate chatbots inside MAX benefits Russian consumers directly. People can interact with hypermarkets like Lenta without installing a separate app. That matters especially for users trying to save smartphone storage or those who prefer services consolidated into a single interface. The ability to shop from Lenta through the messenger makes customer interactions more convenient.
The national messenger is gradually becoming not just a communication tool but also a platform for commercial services and customer support. More companies from retail, finance, and the service sector are integrating into MAX and establishing branded presences there.
Over time, Lenta’s example could become a blueprint for other federal retail chains. Instead of building and promoting standalone applications, retailers gain a ready-made communication channel inside a messenger users already have installed. That could help businesses reduce spending on app development, customer acquisition, and retention. In addition, the national messenger complies with Russian legislation and is integrated with Russian government and commercial services.
Registration in MAX is already available to citizens of 40 countries, including states across the CIS, Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America. Developers expect the messenger could eventually become an exportable product if it is successfully adapted to local customer needs in foreign markets.
