Since Facebook introduced chatbots to its messaging platforms, more and more brands are trying to understand how they can leverage this AI-based technology to their advantage. Moreover, the highly fierce competition makes it obligatory for nearly every brand to hop on to this emerging technology.

According to a study, 44% of consumers prefer to communicate with chatbots when it comes to interacting with brands over human customer support representatives. Another research suggests that more than 60% of consumers prefer chatbots because of their ability to provide instant responses to queries and quick communication with brands.

In fact, it’s high time for brands to catch up to this burgeoning technology as soon as possible since chatbots are here to stay, and for a lot of great reasons.

Chatbots can be used to handle a lot of customer queries, improve your marketing efforts, increase brand awareness, accelerate operations, and create personalized and better interactions with users, in addition to offering a host of other benefits.

If you are thinking of creating a bot for your brand, make sure that you spend a lot of time researching, testing and breaking bot flows across platforms such as Slack, Facebook, Kik, Twitter and more. Building a bot needs a variety of development skills, such as creating a perfect bot design, hosting the bot, connecting it to channels, writing codes, Natural Language Processing and so much more.

Here are some important tips that you need to consider when it comes to creating a conversational chatbot experience that your customers want:

Identify Your Objectives

If you are looking to create a chatbot just to keep up with the joneses, think again. Think judiciously about why your customers would need a chatbot and how it can help them connect with you better. Build a chatbot to address your customer pain points and solve their problems. Remember that the ultimate goal of your chatbot is to leave a significant impact on your conversion goals and ROI.

Diligently determine how your chatbot is going to work. Do you want to focus on informing your customers about the latest products and promotions? Do you want to provide instant responses to your customers? Or do you want to make the purchasing and check out process easier for your customers?

Once you have set clear goals in mind and are sure about the features that you want to incorporate in your chatbot, it will make it easier to come up with a chatbot that your customers will love talking to.

Decide the Building Platform

When it comes to creating your own chatbot, you can either choose a bot building platform or simply code your chatbot completely from scratch.

Using a bot building platform requires no technical skills and coding experience as the interface is 100% visual and based on blocks and arrows. In addition, using a bot platform is easy, simple, and necessitates no technical background. Therefore, it is a great option for amateurs and non-coders, since it doesn’t entail you to manually enter copious lines of code. It is also to be noted that while visual bot platforms are less powerful in terms of AI and NLP, they are nonetheless faster and more cost-effective.

On the other hand, developing your bot from scratch is only possible when you have strong technical skills, in-depth knowledge and an uncanny ability to write and review code. Though the complexity is exponentially higher, it will allow you to create more custom features and provide a range of possibilities in terms of making changes and creating in-depth conversation flow.

Natural Language Processing

When it comes to building your chatbot, designing the conversation is just as important as maintaining a perfect balance between functionality and engagement. Chatbots can understand what we say by passing our text through a Natural Language Processing engine which leverages its vast database to decipher the meaning and intent behind a sentence. The purpose of NLP is not to interpret every single word but to extract the exact intent behind the message. For instance, a query such as “What is the weather in California” could have the same intent as “Is it raining in California?” Understanding the context behind both questions, a bot would respond to both with California’s weather conditions.

Design Your Bot Carefully

Remember, a chatbot can serve as a virtual, talking ambassador of your brand, so it is important to fashion it prudently. Designing a natural conversation flow is important to make sure your chatbot is smart enough and can answer customer queries. Adding predefined menus and reply buttons can provide users with a satisfying experience. In addition, keeping the conversation focused and limiting options by giving quick reply buttons can keep the conversation within bounds as well. The way a chatbots expresses itself can either make or break your brand identity. Make sure that your bot doesn’t sound robotic. Focus on the tone and personality of your chatbot to lend it a human touch.

Over to You

To create an efficacious chatbot experience, you need to hone in on your skills such as natural language programming, technical competencies and conversational UX that resonate with your audience in a more personalized way. In fact, building a chatbot is a natural way for brands to interact with their customers and foster a meaningful connection with their fanbase.