How to create a chatbot easily ?

Many companies are starting to use chatbots to improve their customer relations. A chatbot is a question and answer system like the popular ChatGPT, where users enter queries, and the system takes care of answering them using the data at its disposal. It allows companies to automate the interaction with their customers and be responsive to their needs 24 hours a day. Thanks to artificial intelligence (AI), chatbots are evolving at great speed, as real conversations can now be had on intelligent chatbots. But when the demands to be covered by the chatbot are limited, some sales people find it more interesting to design programmed chatbots. In both cases, having a chatbot integrated into your communication channel (Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, etc.) can be very beneficial for your business. It will hold your customers’ attention and allow them to get instant answers to their queries. This means they will have the best customer experience. Fortunately, you can create your own chatbot even without writing a single line of code. Find out what steps to take, what tools to use, and some tips for developing an effective chatbot.

Steps to create a chatbot

Step 1: Define the chatbot’s use cases

Your chatbot must have specific use cases, unless you want to imitate ChatGPT. This will facilitate the development of the chatbot, but you can always increase its scope of actions as it works. To choose the missions that your chatbot should fulfil, you should start by making an inventory of frequent customer requests. If the information is static, such as customer service contact details, for example, there is no need to invest in a chatbot. It would only be necessary to include this information in your FAQ.

On the other hand, personalized requests that pile up and wait for answers for several minutes can be a gap in your customer experience. These are the types of requests you need to automate with your chatbot. It could be a request for an appointment, a request for the availability of a particular product, or something else.

Step 2: Model and design the chatbot’s conversation flows

You now need to build the conversation scenarios between the customer and the chatbot. You need to think of a conversational flow for each type of usage. To model it, you can build a flowchart. Afterwards, to write the contents of the messages, you can use post-it notes, or simulate a conversation on WhatsApp or Messenger, and then take a screenshot to see how it looks.

Each conversation should lead to an action performed by the chatbot. For example, if the chatbot’s mission is to inform about the availability of a product, the conversation should take place in approximately this order :

• the chatbot asks a question about the product the customer is looking for,
• the customer answers with the name of a product or with keywords associated with a product,
• the chatbot gives an answer about the availability of a product after consulting the stock of articles in the backend.

Step 3: Choose the platform to develop the chatbot

To develop the chatbot, you have the choice between using your own resources or a chatbot creation tool without coding. If you have programming skills, or you have the budget to hire a developer, you can do the first choice. But if you don’t know anything about writing lines of code, it’s advisable to choose a click-and-drop platform that is ready to use. This will save you time and money in creating your chatbot.

Step 4: Develop and test the chatbot

Now it’s time to implement your chatbot project. Import the conversation scenarios you have just designed onto the platform. To train a chatbot, you need to provide it with data on all the possible ways in which questions will be asked. Then, carry out several tests on your bot to see if it understands the discussion contexts well and if it gives the expected results. Once the tests are completed, you can deploy the chatbot on your website and communication channels.

Tools to design a chatbot without coding

It should be noted that modelling the flow of actions and conversations in the chatbot is already a time-consuming task. Therefore, why not opt for a “No-Code” tool to develop your chatbot? There are already many on the market, and some of them even use artificial intelligence to allow you to develop your own solution.

Some of the best chatbot creation platforms include: Botnation AI, Botsify, Chatfuel, Motion.ai, Team Brain, and Twilio Flex. With these tools, all you have to do is :

• choose the modules you need for your chatbot,
• enter the triggering keywords and,
• configure the chatbot’s responses.

All this does not require any special skills, as the interfaces of these platforms are particularly intuitive and have been designed for non-programmers.

Some tips to optimise your chatbot

Here are some tips you should apply when creating your chatbot.

First of all, you need to give your chatbot a personality. You can work alongside an experienced writer to define the ideal tone, the semantic field, but also the graphic charter to use to communicate with your target audience. Once you have written the conversations, it is advisable to read them out loud to see how fluent your words are. The more fluid the conversation, the closer it is to reality. It can also be said that the chatbot is performing well.

When you build the chat scenario, the chatbot’s message should never start with “What can I do for you?” This is because the answer to this question is very broad. Instead, start by briefly introducing the customer to your chatbot’s scope of action to direct and frame their queries.

Finally, it is advised that you integrate AI into your chatbot so that it can respond to new needs as it is fed with new data.