What is a chatbot?

The very first chatbot, ELIZA, made in 1966 by Joseph Weizenbaum, was built as a therapy robot, to offer scripted responses to therapy-related questions. It was linear and structured and didn’t understand intent.  Chatbots have come a long way since then. 

Today, there are several chatbot software available in the marketplace, built for many reasons. When deciding to buy a chatbot, look for the features that boost your workflows, including :

Having a chatbot on your website is not enough. People are engaging more on messaging apps than on social media, and this means your business needs to engage with your audience where they prefer to communicate. Check whether the chatbot integrates with messaging services such as WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger.

Chatbots can seem complex and technical, but the reality is, you don’t need an army of developers to create chatbots or write code. Find a chatbot provider who can help with managing chat conversations across platforms and has a customizable chat widget. This way, all you have to do is integrate it with your website and train it to answer your most common questions. 

Chatbots themselves are cost-saving channels for businesses, so they shouldn’t be expensive to implement either. Look for a chatbot that covers the basic features that your business will require. If all you need is a rule-based chatbot, you don’t need to invest in purchasing or building an AI chatbot.

Your AI chatbots will also need to be trained before they can interact with customers, so you need to find one that allows you to do this with ease. Unless you require it to perform highly complicated functions, find a chatbot that doesn’t require too much technical expertise. The more complicated the functionality, the more time you will need to spend writing code to train your chatbot. 

Not all chatbots are AI-enabled, but those with AI are more likely to give precise answers. They can understand the intention of the customer and learn to have better conversational flows to customer queries. Not only can they trigger actions, they also know when to handover the chat to a team member. Both these features offer uninterrupted communication flows between the business and the customer.

Find a chatbot that can analyze human intention. Chatbots should know when to interact with the customers and whether their intent is positive, negative or neutral. Customers prefer quick conversations with bots, but at times will want to talk to an agent. Your chatbot must be able to detect nuances and proceed.

Don't expect too much from a chatbot

Chatbots are only as smart as their programming. It’s important to know what your chatbot can do and what it cannot. You can train it to learn simple dialogues that are often repetitive with your users before moving on to complex topics. A good way to do this is by looking at common questions your customers usually ask, and starting out with those.

 

Ease the fear of talking to a robot

Even with research showing that the majority of customers are willing to talk to chatbots, there will be some fear surrounding technology. Let your customers know that even though they are interacting with a robot, they can always request for a live agent. Give the chatbot an identity that humanizes the conversation and makes the visitors engage with the bot.

 

Create a personality for your bot

Giving your chatbot an identity can seem daunting. Chatbots that don’t have an identity can feel less natural in interactions, and visitors will not get the sense of your brand identity. Think of who your ideal customer is and build your chatbot’s identity to cater to their comfort. When programming conversation, think of the tone your team would use and duplicate the same for your chatbot. It’s best to find a balance between humor and sensitivity.