Chatbot technology is rapidly advancing. The latest smart bots are capable of facilitating smooth and natural conversations. Not only that, they provide extensive customization options and precise customer segmentation and targeting, which explains why such software can have tremendous applicability across different industries. For many businesses, chatbots help accomplish their objectives and grow outreach without a huge investment.
Though most of us tend to interact with bots from time to time, the backend technology that allows them to function in sync with their websites and deliver customized messages is not widely understood. So, if you are wondering ‘how do I get a chatbot for my website’ or ‘what would I gain from a chatbot’, then here are some answers for you.
Why do you need a chatbot on your site?
Chatbots can perform a wide range of functions on a website, from handling and scaling your customer service duties and answering frequently asked questions, to collecting demographic information about potential buyers and spearheading marketing campaigns. With an active chatbot, a website becomes more responsive and more user-friendly, as interactions can be initiated automatically and in context.
Regardless of the size of the business, primary target groups, or the type of products and services offered, chatbots can deliver value for almost any organization with an online presence. Importantly, chatbots act as ‘force multipliers’, liberating employees from routine or repetitive duties and allowing them to use their work hours more productively.
How hard is it to add a chatbot to a website?
Technically speaking, it’s not very complicated to add a chatbot to an existing website. Site owners with basic technical skills should be able to do this on their own, although in cases where extensive customization is required it may be better to seek professional assistance.
While simple bots may be effectively built with in-house resources and publicly available software packages, advanced, AI-driven chatbots need to be carefully optimized for the task at hand and trained to respond to common requests. It goes without saying that well-built and fine-tuned bots perform much better, so it’s worth investing some time and effort to create a solution that will excel in practice.
There are a number of chatbot products to choose from, with some providers offering templates that are pre-programmed and ready to install and use immediately. But for the best results, it may be necessary to pick a solution that requires some personalization.
Setting up triggers and automated responses
Deciding when your chatbot will activate is one of the most important steps in the process of adopting chatbot technology. This decision needs to be driven by strategic concerns – you want to build the best fitting bot for your business. Some websites might want to engage all, while others may use chatbots only to communicate with those who visit multiple times.
Bots can also be activated based on the on-site activities of the user, for example, duration of stay or clicking on a particular link or banner. Each trigger can be associated with a specific response, allowing the chatbot to address each user appropriately. The idea is for the chat window to appear at the right time, when the user is ready to enter a conversation about specific aspects of the offer.
When triggers and responses are set up well, chatbot communication doesn’t feel invasive or forced.
Setting up conversation flows
Starting off on the right foot is definitely important, but a successful bot has to navigate complex interactions with users in order to achieve its primary purpose. Such conversations can be lengthy and include multiple requests by the user, so the bot needs to be instructed on how to respond to many possible user actions.
AI chatbots with advanced linguistic capacities allow for more natural interaction that depends on dynamic analysis in real time, but even rule-based bots are capable of effective service when they employ a goal-based structure and key scenarios are prepared down to the last detail. Ideally, a bot should be able to recognize the intentions behind users’ actions and offer assistance in a logical and timely manner.
Since user behavior can’t be reliably predicted, bots should also have alternative routes of action to fall back to if the first-choice scenario doesn’t produce the desired result.
Setting up nuanced responses
Much of the recent progress in chatbot technology has been in the area of producing more meaningful and nuanced responses to user inquiries. There are several approaches to refining bot capability, some of which are based on sentiment analysis of the incoming messages and other machine learning techniques.
It’s also possible to use data collected during previous interactions with customers to train the bot and allow it to be more accurate when choosing the appropriate scenario. The more data the bot has access to, the more sophisticated and naturally sounding the conversations will become. In that way, the responses formulated by the chatbot will be very similar to human responses and will be directly related to the main issues mentioned in the original query.
The best way to deploy chatbots
As is evident from this post, chatbots aren’t difficult to set up and offer a wide range of options. That being said, there are successful strategies for their deployment, and learning about them before you build and launch can be critical. It also makes sense to enlist high-level guidance from the start, as this will shorten the trial-and-error period and eliminate costly mistakes.
There are chatbot platforms that specialize in online automation and help you to create, customize and activate your first chatbot. View our step-by-step guide on how to build an Instabot bot, or start a free trial today.