Key Points to Remember While Building your First Chatbot The way a bot behaves can make or break the bot experience in more ways than one
By Nidhi Singh
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Chatbot is a hot new thing in business these days. The adoption of chatbot is increasing as companies are now realizing its benefits and effectiveness in improving customer-interaction and generate more sales.
This computer programme initiates a real conversation with users by using Artificial Intelligence. It is a perfect option for brands to connect with consumers as more and more people are using messenger apps for business communication.
According to a report by Haptik and Juniper, companies are looking at $8 billion in annual savings from the use of chatbot.
Entrepreneur India provides a list of issues that brands must keep in mind while building their first chatbot:
Identify Use-cases Before Getting Started
Aakrit Vaish, CEO and Co-Founder, Haptik maintained that to build a chatbot, the first thing brands need to identify is the specific use cases to fulfill.
"The worst mistake you can make with a chatbot is leaving it open-ended for people to ask anything. Identify a few specific criteria before designing a bot around that. Use a defined structure with smart chatbot elements, such as buttons, lists, quick responses, etc. to make it very clear to the user about what a bot does. Pay very close attention to the content, tone, and character of the bot," he added.
The way a bot behaves can make or break the bot experience in more ways than one.
"Identify the mode among web/mobile/social that will the best for the use case you want to accomplish. Start with anyone and then expand to others as needed," added Vaish.
From Bounded Scope to Focused Chatbot Design:
Sindhu Joseph, CEO & Co-founder, Cognicor emphasized that brands these days are competing among themselves to offer a chatbot with the best features that can be made available.
As the temptation to be the first one to come up with a chatbot takes lover, brands might be tempted to just quickly build a bot with whatever technology or team that they lay their hands on.
"Just like websites, a simple chatbot can be made quickly – but a bot that delivers an ROI (Return on Investment) and consistent user experience requires careful planning and research. The bot has to be designed with a bounded scope, within which a user's journey related to business objectives can be successfully provided. The more focused and defined the scope of the bot is, the better the user experience will be," he stressed.
Joseph advised that brands could go with a scripted bot platform, where the flow of conversation is designed in advance or opt for a more cognitive backend.
"The advantage of going with a cognitive backend is that it simulates a more human understanding and generates more personalized responses," he added.
Start With a Simple Use-case:
According to Beerud Sheth, Founder & CEO of Gupshup, brands must start with a simple use-case before building their first bot.
"Brands must start simple and build incrementally. They should start with a simple use-case and use tools that take care of infrastructure and integration. The welcome-message should clearly state bot capabilities," he said.
For Abhijit Jayapal, Founder & CEO of Wyzebot, the sooner a refined and improved Chabot is launched applying the user-behavior data, the more intelligent the Chabot will be.
"Brands need to focus on defining the problem statement and desired user experience for consumers that can be delivered via automation and Chatbots. The better the applied AI, the more significant opportunity it offers for exponential competitive advantage," he shared.
