A chatbot is a service powered by rules and sometimes artificial intelligence that we can interact with via a chat interface. This form of service can be run in several ways, from functional to fun. Chat bots are useable across multiple platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and even on your own website.

Define what your overall goal is. This will help you to identify what responses you want your chatbot to provide to your audience. Are you looking to resolve customer service issues? Promote a new product? Or generate quality leads?

Your next step is to decide which platforms you want chatbots to perform on. To start you off, you could consider the following options:

• Your website
• Facebook Messenger
• Twitter Direct Message

Next, figure out what content you’d like customers to engage with throughout the chatbot interaction.

Try starting with FAQs. Think about what questions customers are likely to ask your chatbot and go from there. The best way to do this is to go to your competitor’s website and think about what you want to know from looking at their website.

The welcome message is incredibly important for engaging users and getting them to respond to your bot. If your welcome message is boring, then there is literally no point in having a bot on your page.

One of the best ways to stay relevant in the modern era is to automate as many of your processes as possible. The true value of chat bots comes from the overall ability to automate conversations with potential new consumers.

By automating conversations that would otherwise require an employee to answer, organisations save time and money that can then be allocated to other efforts.

Think through some of the questions to ask that will route your visitor to the best possible solution. These questions vary by business type, but some common ones are:

What problem are you trying to solve?

What are your goals?

Where are you located?

As we previously alluded too there are a number of ways that chatbots can be utilised, such as the following:

• Weather bot. Get the weather whenever you ask
• News bot. Ask it to tell you whenever something interesting happens
• Personal finance bot. It helps you manage money better.
• Life advice bot. You tell it your problems and it helps to give you a solution

It may seem stupid but don’t forget to try your chat bot out before you set it live. Make sure it works and your customer is going to be able to understand and not be bored.