Tips for Building Your Own Successful Chatbot (Tip 1)

Research

Consider what your bot is going to do and then research to find out how it will work.

For example, if the chatbot is going to answer product or customer service questions, then look through your data and find out what your most frequently asked questions are.

Customer service chatbots are a real time saver, since they can usually answer 80% of customer questions for you in real time. Imagine if 80% of your customer service requests were handled automatically, without a real human having to touch it. What would that mean for your time, or the time of your virtual assistants?

To create a customer service bot, look at the most frequently asked questions for your product or service to see what content makes sense to begin with.

To find these FAQs, you might ask your customer service team or poor through the questions you’ve personally answered. You’re looking for the questions that come up time and time again.

Look at the questions asked on social media, too. Anyone on your staff who interacts with your customers is someone who can help you assemble your FAQ.

If you have a sales team, be sure to consult them. And even take a look at the questions you’ve strived to answer through social media and content marketing.

If you want to go even further, you can source questions from outside your immediate website, products and team. The search suggestions at the bottom of relevant Google pages are a good place to start, as are crowdsourced communities like Quora and Reddit.

If you’re building a chatbot to help with sales, to generate leads or to promote any product or service, it’s crucial to research common questions and customer journeys so your bot is fully prepared to be as useful as possible.