Chatbot Tips for Beginners
Building a chatbot for your website can be easier than you think. A chatbot platform (like VirtualSpirits.com) will let you build your own chatbot without any development skills or Artificial Intelligence knowledge.
Having said that, getting some basics right will help you sail through your chatbot development project and get the best results from your new chatbot. We have put together some basic tips to guide you with your first steps towards your chatbot's setup. These practical pointers will help you creating a chatbot that increases conversions and resolves customer queries.
1. Make your chatbot stand out.
One of the basic reasons for adding a chatbot to your website is to get your visitors’ attention. Without getting their attention you cannot start a conversation or increase conversions.
Make sure that your chatbot is visible to your visitors. Use an attractive chatbot design that stands out on your website. Set triggers for your chatbot to engage your visitors once they are on the website.
2. Remember it’s not a commercial.
Your chatbot can’t be just another pop-up or advertisement banner on your website. Your visitors need to reach out to your chatbot to ask real questions that they have.
To this end, you need the best possible ‘start-of-chat’ messages that capture visitors' attention and get them to respond and take the conversation forward.
Make your chatbot's introduction (the first 2-3 sentences) as engaging as possible for your visitors. Let them know that the chatbot is a tool that can help them while using your website. Make it clear what the chatbot can do for them and suggest options to start a conversation.
3. Make sure it has helpful answers.
As we just mentioned, visitors will be reaching out to your chatbot with real questions that they have. They are looking for clear, specific answers that will help them get information, make a decision, complete a purchase or solve a problem.
Make sure your chatbot's answers have relevant, helpful information and advice. Try to find the best responses to common questions and keywords that your visitors are using most often. The best response is the optimal answer that helps your visitors, increases motivation, and gets you closer to your goals.
4. Assign a chatbot manager.
Even chatbots need someone to report to! Just like you have a person who manages and updates your website, or looks after your Facebook or Instagram page. Just like you make sure that someone is optimizing your ad campaigns. You need someone to manage your chatbot.
The Chatbot Manager’s job is to read transcripts of your chatbot’s conversations with your website’s visitors, work with the chatbot's Artificial Intelligence to add new questions and answers, update existing answers for better results, read reports, and make sure that the chatbot is able to increase conversions or solve customer support queries online.
5. Use a chatbot template.
Building chatbots from scratch can be frustrating when you don’t have prior knowledge of artificial intelligence or experience in developing chatbot applications. Using chatbot templates is a wiser alternative. You can build a great chatbot by starting from a template and customizing it to fit your business.
VirtualSpirits offers hundreds of ready-to-use chatbot templates to help you get started with your chatbot. These templates contain basic FAQs for many different verticals and can make your chatbot setup a lot quicker.
6. Introduce the chatbot to your team.
No matter what you’re using your chatbot for – lead generation, sales or customer support – it will be sending new sales leads or support tickets to your team. Make sure that your sales and support teams are aware of the conversations your customers are having with the chatbot on your website.
For example, if someone has left their contact details for a follow-up call, it’s important to contact them within the next 5-20 minutes. The longer you take to get back to a visitor who’s expecting a call from you, the less effective your sales call is likely to be.
Keep in mind that the chatbot collects a lot of information from your customers. What questions they have, what they’re looking for, what they need in order to complete their purchase, and more. Use this information to get your team prepared before calling the customer.
7. No chatbot is perfect on day one.
Don’t try to solve every problem or scenario immediately. There’s simply no way we can think of every possible question our website visitors might ask. Instead, let your chatbot learn what people are asking for and make suitable recommendations on what to add to its script.
To make the most of your chatbot’s AI, launch it as soon as possible so it can start interacting with real people. All you need as a starting point is to create a basic script with answers to common questions that your customers have asked so far. These Q&As are probably already included in your website’s support section. Add them to your chatbot and then let it make new suggestions as it starts conversating with your visitors and customers.
8. Building a chatbot doesn’t have to be complicated.
Most people have not built a chatbot before. Building your first chatbot might sound complicated but it is not. All you have to do is stick to these basic tips, work with your chatbot, and rely on expert advice where available.
Don’t hesitate to ask us for help! The VirtualSpirits support team is always ready with tips for setting up or managing your chatbot. Use our knowledge and experience with hundreds of chatbots to understand what works and what doesn’t, and make your chatbot work to your advantage.