Cheat sheet for building the best Chatbot

The chatbot revolution is here and having a bot that can talk to your customers
online is key to your brand’s success and future growth. Chatbots scale quite
easily, and can handle hundreds of conversations at a time. That makes them
the perfect candidates for tasks with predictable and well-defined conversation flow.

We’ve created a little cheat sheet with an essential checklist for you, so you
don’t have to wonder where to start. Take a look and happy building!

 

Tip 1. Start Small

Start with something small as your chatbot version 1.0 and then iterate for
a version 2.0 after you’ve collected enough data to know what’s working well
and what needs polishing.

You can learn a lot about your users’ behaviour with simple functionality, which
will also help you tweak future versions of your bot. But first, build your infrastructure. To test your chatbot more easily, always set the part you want to test
as default. That way you avoid going through the whole flow.

Tip 2.Consider your chatbot’s personality

Think about creating a personality for your bot. How should it address your
users? Does it say hi, what’s up, or how do you do? Does it have a name?

Develop a character with a distinct style and stick with it, because if you
start mixing different speaking styles, your customers will feel like they’re
interacting with some random customer service rep, instead of the chatbot
you’ve spent hours developing.

Tip 3. Manage expectations

Don’t try to fool your customers into thinking your chatbot is a human agent.
What you can do is give the bot human-like qualities, such as a sense of
humour. It might also be a good idea to explain to customers the scope of
activities the chatbot can help with.

Once you’ve established the tone of voice, think about the type of content
you want your bot to deliver. Preferably this is a combination of text, photos,
emojis and videos. Make it rich!

Tip 5.Specify your customer’s interests

Help customers find what they need by offering a simple selection of
choices. You should use a menu bar when building your flows. Think
about the structure of choices you want to give your customer. To help
select your choices you may choose a gallery accompanied by pictures.

If you don’t want to use a gallery or a simple message + button, another
way to offer clients more options is to create a menu with up to 3 buttons.
Facebook limits you to 3 buttons, so keep that in mind while creating
a menu.

The difference between the menu and the gallery is that the buttons are
vertical rather than horizontal.

 

Tip 6.Personalize the experience–use variables

You can personalize the chatbot’s messages with a customer’s name.

Depending on your chatbot’s purpose and the nature of your business,
a first-name basis might not be appropriate. A financial company may
do well to engage with a more formal greeting, and likewise for complaint
inquiries.

Tip 7. Don’t let your customers wander around

Throughout the conversation, ensure that your visitor never has to guess
what to do next to get the information they need. Give clear options based on
the service your chatbot provides. You can include bubbles, buttons, quick
reply texts, images, audio, video or files. It’s important to be very specific.
Use the medium that best works for directions. A short video is excellent for
showing how to get started with a product, but it’s too much if you’re searching for
a specific product.

Tip 8. Think about a response bank

When building a chatbot, avoid designing it to provide the same sentence
repeatedly as an on-topic answer. This breaks the illusion of sentience,
so it’s a good idea to prepare a whole list of responses the robot can
choose from. These should be based on customer queries. It’s a quick
and effective way for the robot to appear intelligent.

Watch and learn

Testing your bot in the real world is essential. Make sure your project
plan includes a test rollout to a closed group— staff, friends, and customer
ambassadors.
Collect last comments and failed responses to tune your matrix of
keywords and phrases. Iterate frequently and… remember to have fun!

Voilà, you’re ready to chat!

 

Don't have a chatbot yet? Reach out to your account manager or to the Support Team.