You should consider these points when developing your chatbot

To repeat:

A chatbot is software that enables users to communicate with a computer in natural language via a chat interface. Customers can communicate with a company at any time and request information without the need for a human customer service representative to be available. The software takes care of answering the customer’s questions.

For some companies, such as Telekom Austria or PostFinance, the use of bots is producing the desired results and is generating enthusiasm on both the customer and company side.

However, many bot projects fail because they do not satisfy customers or have technical defects. So consider the following points before you let your customers talk to a chatbot:

1. don’t want too much at once

Under no circumstances should you try to handle all processes and possible conversations via the chatbot right from the start. Better start small. Define your use case precisely and reduce complexity.

2. predefined answers vs. open answers

Be careful with too many open answer options. On the one hand, many users are overwhelmed if they are not given any answer options and on the other hand, open answers require very detailed programming and a large database from which the chatbot can learn.

3. using artificial intelligence correctly

AI is often just a buzzword and it sounds good when you can say “our chatbot has artificial intelligence”. However, it is important that the bot is intelligent in 2 ways. On the one hand, it should be able to understand the user’s requests intelligently. It must not be trained on direct input, but must always try to understand the content.

For example: “I would like a day ticket for my dog” or “Which ticket do I need if my dog travels with me all day”. Both times the bot should provide information about the dog day ticket.

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The second important factor is that a bot does not simply answer based on rules, but learns from example conversations. In the case above, the bot would have been shown 3-4 possible conversations on the subject of the dog day pass beforehand and it would have deduced the answer itself.

4. identify cost drivers from the outset

What a shame it is if you run out of budget in the middle of a project to continue development. So check the key cost drivers in good time. In general, the more connections to internal systems, the more complex the bot becomes. In many cases, it is worth working without many links to begin with, for example by simply linking to the respective store instead.

I wrote this article as a guest author for More Than Digital.

You can read the entire article here at Morethandigital.info.