Creating a chatbot — years ago, this involved a lot of effort, not to mention an AI chatbot, i.e. a chatbot based on artificial intelligence. Thanks to innovative software and tools, however, it now takes neither IT skills nor several months of time to create a chatbot.
Companies that use a chatbot in their customer communication can do so primarily in the following areas:
- customer service /Guest Support
- marketing
- Sales
- HR
This shows that the use in customer service and marketing in particular is very worthwhile. Of course, a chatbot can also be used in several areas at the same time. To get started with a chatbot, however, we recommend that you first select a use case and focus on it. It can be helpful to first define the goals to be achieved with the chatbot. Which brings us to the first point:
1. Define goals to be achieved with the chatbot
The central question in order to narrow down the objectives is:
What are the biggest pain points? FOR EXAMPLE:
- A permanently overloaded service team
- Long response times and, as a result, dissatisfied customers
- Many inquiries outside business hours
- A high bounce rate on specific pages or during transactions
- A very low conversion rate on the website
The reasons for the so-called pain points can be manifold — and a chatbot It is not a panacea, but through smart automation, it is usually an attractive option for preventing or resolving problems.
Specific objectives when using a chatbot could therefore be:
- that Live chat-Lower volume
- Relieve the service team
- Reduce customer waiting time
- Improve the customer experience
- Expanding accessibility
2. Define topics that the chatbot should work on
A chatbot can only be successful and helpful if it masters the topics that users actually ask for and need. It is therefore elementary to think in a user-centered way and to use a chatbot to cover topics that are frequently asked or actively help users in certain processes and transactions.
Rome wasn't built in a day and it's the same with a chatbot. We therefore recommend starting with a not too large set of topics. It is better to cover the most important topics first and expand them step by step. This ensures that the chatbot can grow with users and companies can start creating chatbots quickly and easily — without escalating into a kind of “mammoth project.”
There are now several ways to determine which topics the chatbot should initially work on. For many companies, they are obvious, such as the topics return or shipping costs in the area of e-commerce.
Another quick and easy way to determine which topics the chatbot should initially know is to use moinAI Chatbot creation tool to use. This tool automatically evaluates which topics could be relevant to your company.
3. Decide on which channels the chatbot should be played
A chatbot can be played on various channels. Corporate apps, messaging services such as WhatsApp, Telegram or Facebook Messenger and, of course, your own website are conceivable.
The recommendation is to use the channel that most users have access to, that most users know and/or that is easy to get started with. As a rule, this is the website. For most people, the website is the central point of contact when they have a question or comment about a product or service. It therefore makes sense to integrate a chatbot on the website so that initial questions can be answered without much effort on the part of the user.
However, a chatbot can also be used on several channels at the same time, which means that companies that, for example, offer different websites (due to a wide range of products or different languages), or use WhatsApp intensively in their customer communication, can of course use several channels at the same time. Even the content, the tone of voice or the design of the chatbot can vary — if desired.
4. Give the chatbot a name and personality
To select a chatbot name and personality, it is helpful to use the following three chatbot categories as a guide:
- The Avatar
A fictional character. Well suited for marketing campaigns or if there is already an existing avatar, e.g. in the form of a mascot. - The digital assistant
The digital assistant is the most neutral form of a chatbot. The name sets clear expectations right from the start - The we brand
Using the “we” brand in the chatbot is the most formal way. The company welcomes the user to the chatbot as “we.”
In addition to the three categories, there are also three golden rules that you should follow when choosing a name to guarantee a good user experience:
- The chatbot name should match the brand.
- The chatbot name should be chosen in such a way that users do not mistakenly expect a person.
- The chatbot name should not irritate the target group.
Further explanations on choosing a name and finding your personality can be found in the article “Find the right chatbot name”.
5. Artificial Intelligence (AI) Training
Sounds complicated, but it usually isn't. At least with moinAI, because here the training is provided by our NLP- and AI team taken over. Like a KI Training and who ultimately costs the effort varies from provider to provider.
For example, some AI chatbot tools require that the company using the chatbot manually train the AI. This task often falls on the already overburdened service employees who, in addition to their work, have to “feed” the AI with typical questions. What is presented as quick and easy actually steals valuable time.
We believe that in order to function well, an AI must be trained and controlled by experts, which is why we at moinAI use the “AI as a Service” approach, which enables companies to use complex AI technology without having to worry about training and developing the AI themselves.
In the case of moinAI, there is therefore no need to plan any time or a separate step to train the AI. With other tools, however, additional time should be allowed here.
6. Design answer texts
ChatGPT currently shows how well automatically generated response texts can work — or not. Because ChatGPT should be treated with caution: There are situations in which the AI makes false statements or hallucinates, i.e. freely makes up content without further clues. This must not happen, particularly in companies' customer communication. Not only because false statements can confuse or mislead users — if a user asks for product recommendations, for example, it can happen that your competition is also mentioned. At the same time, ChatGPT always gives different answers to the same questions, which is rather counterproductive in the case of a clearly desired communication.
The past has shown that there are unpleasant Chatbot fails can come to (large) companies that, among other things, have used ChatGPT in their customer communication. For these reasons, we strongly advise companies to use generative AI within a controlled framework in order to retain editorial control over the content that the chatbot plays out.
A best practice here is a mix of GenAI and control. The moinAI Company, for example, offers this. The Kompanion is a smart assistant that is available in the hub, i.e. the backend of the chatbot, to automatically create answer content. He can extract his information from websites, knowledgebases, PDFs, etc. Based on this information, he not only creates texts, but also entire response concepts. After all, it's time to get creative here: Users don't want to read long blocks of text either in articles or in chat windows. It is therefore better to work with multimedia. It can
- graphics,
- videos,
- gifs,
- link buttons
- Yes/no buttons
- Slides
are incorporated into the texts so that users expect multimedia appealing chatbot answers. Thanks to the smart moinAI company, this works in no time at all. The texts and concepts only have to be approved by one person and can then be published live.
7. Live with the chatbot
Once the goals and topics have been defined, the answers formulated, the AI trained, the channels selected and the name of the chatbot selected, the only thing left is to go live. This usually works very easily. For example, moinAI can be integrated using a two-line code, e.g. using the Google Tag Manager. No IT expertise is therefore required.
Keys to Success
Some of the keys to success have already been addressed in the text. For a better overview and practical take-aways, we have briefly summarized them here:
- Before going live: Focus on the most important
The chatbot works particularly well when you start small, i.e. start with just a few topics, so that the chatbot serves the most important points after the initial live. - After going live: Continuously expand the chatbot
It is just as important to tailor the chatbot to user needs and constantly add new topics in order to offer users more and more answers and, at the same time, to gain an overview of users' real needs. - Integrate high-quality content into the chatbot
Giving users attractive answers that offer added value and solutions is an important success factor. On the one hand, good chatbot answers ensure positive user reviews and a low human takeover rate, as most of the queries are answered correctly by the chatbot. - User-centred thinking & always prioritize customer perspective
Innovative technologies such as chatbots offer a variety of ways to use them, but it is important first to empathize with the user and to consider: “What questions does the user want answered? ”. The highest priority is a high level of customer satisfaction regarding answers and interactions with the chatbot.
Build a chatbot yourself?
To get an idea of how a chatbot could work for your specific use case, we recommend our Chatbot creation tool. Create a chatbot prototype in 4 steps and get a first insight into the technology — without obligation and free of charge.
