Introduction
Chatbots are increasingly becoming popular among businesses as a means of providing customer service. However, chatbots are still a relatively new technology and there are no hard and fast rules when it comes to chatbot best practices. This can make it difficult to know how to design, build and deploy chatbots that will provide an optimal customer experience.
In this guide, we will cover some of the dos and don’ts of best practices in chatbot building. By following these guidelines, you can make sure that your chatbot is providing a great customer experience.
70% of consumers will replace their visits to brick and mortar shops or banks with their voice assistants over the next three years
(Capgemini)
How Best Practices In Chatbot Building Help Your Business?
When the subject of constructing a chatbot is broached, one may find oneself at a loss as to how to begin. Nevertheless, it is imperative to bear in mind that certain superlative methodologies ought to be adhered to when erecting a chatbot that will enrich your enterprise.
A few of the benefits that can be procured by following chatbot best practices encompass:
Assisting you in economizing time and money: By following best practices, you can avert common errors that can culminate in wasting your time and money.
Augmenting customer satisfaction: By adhering to best practices, you can erect a chatbot that dispenses an exceptional customer experience. This can facilitate a boost in customer satisfaction rates and a reduction in customer attrition.
Generating an upsurge in leads: A chatbot that is structured impeccably can foster the production of more leads for your enterprise.
Expanding sales: A chatbot that is devised and executed adeptly can foster a spike in sales for your business.
By guaranteeing that you comply with chatbot best practices, you can ensure that your chatbot is erected correctly and imparts a remarkable encounter for your customers.
What Are Some of The Dos of Best Practices In Chatbot Building?
There are a number of things that you should do in order to make sure that your chatbot provides a great experience for your customers. Some of the dos of chatbot best practices include:
Do design your chatbot for your specific audience
When endeavoring to design a chatbot, it is imperative to bear in mind your specific audience. This consideration will serve to guarantee that the chatbot is fashioned in a manner that caters to the prerequisites of your target audience.
Do keep your chatbot simple
It is incumbent upon you to maintain the simplicity of your chatbot. A chatbot that is convoluted and intricate can prove arduous for customers to utilize, resulting in a subpar customer experience.
Do understand the basics of chatbot design and user experience
To design a chatbot that delivers a superb user experience for your customers, it is essential to have a profound comprehension of the fundamentals of chatbot design and user experience.
Do use NLP to enable your chatbot to understand human conversation
Incorporating Natural Language Processing (NLP) into your chatbot’s framework facilitates the ability to comprehend human conversation. This functionality can bolster the chatbot’s aptitude to apprehend the customer’s requisites and yield an applicable rejoinder.
Do test your chatbot
Prior to launching your chatbot, it is pivotal to execute an exhaustive examination. This will serve to certify that your chatbot is functioning as intended and dispensing a sublime customer experience.
Do give an exit option
Your chatbot should incorporate an exit option to accommodate customers who desire to terminate the exchange. This approach will ensure that customers are not coerced into utilizing your chatbot if they are not relishing the encounter.
Do give a personality to your chatbot
It is imperative that your chatbot exhibits a distinct personality. This will help to ensure that your chatbot is intriguing and enjoyable for customers to interact with.
For instance, if you’re building a chatbot for a customer service team, you may consider infusing it with a friendly personality. Alternatively, if you’re creating a chatbot for a sales team, it may be more fitting to imbue it with an assertive and professional personality. This personalized approach will enable customers to relate to the chatbot and likely feel welcomed.
Do use buttons and menus
Including buttons and menus in your chatbot’s design can enhance its user-friendliness. This will enable customers to navigate your chatbot more effortlessly and locate the information they require.
The above illustration depicts a support chatbot that streamlines the customer’s decision-making process by grouping options based on gender.
Do keep your chatbot updated
To deliver a cutting-edge experience for your customers, it is paramount to maintain your chatbot’s technology at the forefront of advancements. Employing a chatbot platform that facilitates automatic updates can guarantee the seamless integration of the latest features and functionalities into your chatbot’s system, thus ensuring that it stays up-to-date.
This is essential to meet the high expectations of customers in the ever-evolving digital age, as perplexity and burstiness in the text are becoming more critical in maintaining their engagement and satisfaction. Therefore, by keeping your chatbot updated, you can rest assured that it will deliver a top-notch experience that keeps your customers coming back for more.
What Are Some of The Dont’s of Best Practices In Chatbot Building?
There are also a number of things that you should not do when it comes to best practices in chatbot building. Some of the don’ts of chatbot best practices include:
Don’t rely on canned responses
It is impermissible to rely on canned responses when endeavoring to create a chatbot that delivers a first-rate user experience. It is paramount to generate unique responses for every customer interaction as canned responses will only serve to make your chatbot seem monotonous, impersonal, and robotic.
Don’t forget the human touch
It is vital to keep the human touch in mind. While chatbots can serve as a complementary facet to customer service, they cannot replace it entirely. In fact, at least until 2022, chatbots were unable to replicate human conversation comprehensively. Therefore, ensuring that human customer care service is available is crucial when users encounter any problems.
Don’t over-promise and under-deliver
It is imperative not to over-promise and under-deliver with your chatbot. Be certain that your chatbot can deliver on its promises. If users are informed that your chatbot can perform a certain task, but it is unable to do so, their expectations will not be met, and they may not use it again.
Don’t get too personal
When it comes to crafting an exceptional customer experience, it is essential to gather only the information that is absolutely necessary. To get personal with users can result in their feeling uneasy and ultimately lead to their disengagement from your chatbot.
Don’t forget about mobile users
Given that the majority of users will interact with your chatbot on a mobile device, it is crucial to optimize your chatbot for mobile platforms. For instance, Facebook Messenger chatbots have a distinct design that is tailored to mobile devices. Adapting to such a design can increase the reach of your chatbot, enabling it to cater to a wider audience.
Don’t make your chatbot too sales-y
The primary objective of a chatbot should be to provide exceptional customer service, not to make a sale. Visitors to your website are more interested in purchasing something than engaging with a chatbot that is trying to sell them something.
Don’t send huge amounts of notifications
It is imperative not to inundate users with an excessive amount of notifications. Notifications should be timely and pertinent rather than spammy. Additionally, lengthy blocks of text in notifications can be off-putting to users. Hence, it is crucial to keep notifications brief and concise. If not, then different types of notifications should be created for different kinds of messages.
Observe the disparity in how these two chatbots impart text: Even though the AT&T bot can be more personalized, it is still crucial to keep the chatbot simple to prevent customers from being overwhelmed. Moreover, it is worth noting how the AT&T bot tries to sell products while the MobileMonkey bot simply disseminates information. The MobileMonkey bot example serves to provide a better understanding of what a chatbot should resemble.
By examining it, one can discern that broken-up informative text is considerably more efficacious and reader-friendly.
Don’t design a siloed chatbot
It is crucial not to design a siloed chatbot. What does it mean when we say, “Don’t design a siloed chatbot?” In essence, it means that the chatbot should not be so focused on one specific task that it is unable to execute other tasks. A chatbot should have the capability to accomplish more than simply answering frequently asked questions. It should be able to book appointments, schedule meetings, and provide customer support.
Comply with security and communication protocols
When delving into the realm of chatbots, ensuring their security should be of utmost concern. It is crucial to guarantee compliance with all pertinent privacy laws and regulations, along with the implementation of secure communication protocols, such as SSL/TLS. This involves encrypting all data in transit and enabling user authentication, thereby establishing a secure foundation for your chatbot.
Don’t leverage
In addition, chatbots must be able to handle a high volume of requests in order to provide an exceptional customer experience. Attempting to leverage your chatbot’s capabilities by having it handle more requests than it can realistically manage is unwise. Such an approach will only result in frustration among customers. Instead, it is necessary to construct and implement chatbots that can competently meet customer demand.
Hence, by adhering to these crucial best practices in chatbot building, you can craft a chatbot that offers an exceptional customer experience. These practices, if followed, can make the difference between a chatbot that is successful and one that fails to meet customer expectations.
Conclusion
To wrap up, these aforementioned best practices in chatbot building should be at the forefront of your mind when creating, designing, and deploying your chatbot. By adhering to these principles, you can ensure that your chatbot delivers an exceptional customer experience, which in turn will keep users returning.
If you’re unsure of how to commence your chatbot-building journey, 12 Channels has got you covered with an excellent chatbot platform. Our platform is highly adaptable and can be utilized for an extensive array of use cases, such as customer support, appointment scheduling, lead generation, and more. Do not hesitate to contact us today to discover how we can assist you in crafting a phenomenal chatbot experience for your customers.
