It looks like you want to create your own chatbot. That’s an excellent idea. Today, everyone can build chatbots with visual drag and drop bot editors. You don’t need coding skills or any other superpowers.
And yet…
Most people feel intimidated by the process. It looks like a complex task, and it is unclear how to make a chatbot or where to start.
Well, you can start right here and now.
We will show you that making your own chatbot is actually very fast and easy. And did we mention that it is going to be fun too?
In this article, we will show you the no-code chatbot creation process explained step by step:
Plus, the advantages of developing chatbots on your own, tips and rules for making chatbots from scratch, and chatbot-building FAQ
To learn more about Tidio’s chatbot features and benefits, visit our page dedicated to chatbots.
We also have more in-depth articles if you are interested in making chatbots for specific channels:
Why should you make a chatbot for your website?
Conversational bots are more than a fad, and chatbot makers develop them with specific purposes in mind. For example, chatbots can:
- Make customers happy by answering their questions faster
- Conduct multiple real-time conversations at once
- Increase your sales by 67%
- Make your website more interactive, engaging, and credible
- Offer better user experiences on mobile devices
- Can collect feedback with up to 90% of the response rate, or recover abandoned shopping carts
- Help us explore the possibilities of conversational interfaces
They are essential for businesses such as ecommerce stores. A chatbot can single-handedly resolve 69% of customer queries from start to finish. This can translate to a 30% reduction in your customer service costs.
Your own custom chatbot gives you:
- Advanced automations based on any action on your website
- Deeper integration with your technological stack
- Personalized customer experiences for your audience
Once you have the answers, it will be much easier to identify the features and types of chatbots you’ll need.
Let’s assume you have an ecommerce store offering yoga accessories.
You want to create a chatbot that will collect customers’ emails, so you can send them updates about sales and new products. Step 2: Decide where you want it to appear What is your main communication channel? Do your customers contact you mainly on social media or via a live chat widget on your website?
Either way, check whether the chatbot platform of your choice integrates with the tools you already use, so you can serve your customers where they are at: Your website. The majority of chatbot building platforms offer integrations with popular website providers such as WordPress, Magento, or Shopify.
Your social media channels such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, or Telegram.
Other messaging platforms and tools you have in your stack (such as Slack).
Alternatively, check if you can configure the integration yourself via code snippet or an open API.
Many chatbot development service providers and platforms offer multiple integrations, so you can use chatbots across many channels.
Your yoga accessories shop is hosted on Shopify. You also use Instagram as one of the main communication channels. A chatbot platform like Tidio is a good choice because it offers Shopify integration, and on top of that, you can create chatbots that will answer repetitive direct messages on Instagram.
Read more
: Discover how to install Tidio on your website and how easy it is to launch Instagram chatbots. Also, learn more about WordPress chatbots, their benefits, and how to add them to your website.
- Step 3: Choose the chatbot platform
- Now that you know what chatbot variants you want to create and which channels you want to cover, it’s time to choose the provider.
- You have two options: the framework or the platform.
As an owner of a yoga accessories shop, you want a platform that will enable you to create the chatbot by yourself, in the easiest way possible.
Once you pick your provider, it’s time to register, log in, and get to work.
Step 4: Design the chatbot conversation in a chatbot editor
You can build the conversation flow by dragging and dropping building blocks, so they create a sequence. Let’s assume you want to give a product discount to users who enter a specific landing page of your yoga accessories shop and collect their emails in return.
To start, log in and go to the bot builder. Begin with the trigger—a condition that makes the chatbot send a welcome message. If you want the chatbot to appear on a specific landing page, start with a
- Visitor opens a specific page
- node.
- Then, type in the message you want to send and add a decision node with quick replies. Set messages for those who want a discount for your product and those who don’t.
- You want to collect the emails of visitors who choose to get the discount—to do this, toggle the
Save the answer as a Contact Property
Ask a questionblock. This way, your chatbot will remember the visitor’s email.
You can add many other action blocks, like asking the visitor to subscribe to your newsletter, or routing them to the operator if necessary. You can also build FAQ chatbots or NLP-based bots that recognize the queries in the exact same way.
Congratulations! You just designed your first chatbot.
Read more
Step 5: Test your chatbot
Now it’s time to test if everything works as it should. To do that, click the
Test it out
按钮。将出现一个窗口，向您显示聊天机器人对最终用户来说是什么样子。多亏了预览版，你可以随时回到编辑器来修改流程。
第六步:训练你的聊天机器人 如果你想使用基于决策树流程的简单聊天机器人，可以跳过这一步。如果你想让你的机器人理解用户的意图，你需要给你的聊天机器人添加一个NLP触发器。 在蒂迪奥，我们有一个
游客说
一旦你用这些短语“喂”NLP，你就可以训练聊天机器人按照这三个意图行动，给你的客户更好的产品推荐。
步骤7:收集用户的反馈没有人会比你的访客和客户更好地评价你的聊天机器人工作的有效性。你能做的最好的事？让聊天机器人发送一份自动客户满意度调查，询问用户是否对聊天机器人的交互感到满意。根据结果，您可以看到哪些有效，哪些地方需要改进。
第八步:监控聊天机器人分析以改进它
Once you discover how easy it is to create a chatbot, you might be tempted to create complex conversation flows branching into many additional flows. It’s understandable! But bear in mind that the more interactive your chatbot becomes, the more difficult it is to manage it. After all, the number of messages grows exponentially with each additional scenario, so it’s more difficult to analyze them, too. Instead, try to keep it simple. Allow for (too) open-intent conversation.
Yes, we do think that mimicking a human conversation is the best option, but a chatbot’s main job is to guide the users in a specific direction. This means that the user should never end up figuring out what they are supposed to do. Your intelligent chatbot can be witty, and the conversation can take a few directions, but the outcome has to be specific, too.
Suggested read
: Discover more useful tips for chatbot design. Key Takeaway Building an AI chatbot, or even a simple conversational bot, may seem like a complex process. But if you believe that your users will benefit from it, you should definitely give it a try.
You can create a prototype all by yourself with a bot builder and add it to your business website. To create your own chatbot: Identify your business goals and customer needs
Choose a chatbot builder that you can use on your desired channels
Test your chatbot and collect messages to get more insights
Use data and feedback from customers to train your bot
Check which conversation routes are the most popular and improve them for a better user experience
Collect more data and monitor messages to see what are the most common questions. If your customers will be using it on a regular basis, you may think about additional automations.
除了是视觉聊天机器人开发者中最受欢迎的编辑器之外，Tidio还提供实时聊天小工具和电子邮件营销工具。你可以无缝集成你的机器人与客户支持聊天和数字通讯。
想试一试吗?
常见问题:如何构建聊天机器人
你还在担心设计自己的会话机器人太难吗?深呼吸，然后继续往下读。以下是一些关于创建聊天机器人最常见的问题。它应该会让您对聊天机器人的创建过程有更多的了解。
It’s all about engagement. Quality bots regularly see 80-90% response rates. Tailor your chatbot experience with graphic materials (e.g. GIFs, photos, illustrations), human touch (personalization, language), and targeting (e.g based on geography or timeframe).
Przemek Szustak
Product Manager at Tidio
- Route complex conversations to human agents. As many as 69% of consumers admit that they prefer chatbots to resolve small issues and get quick responses. However, you need to remember that there are people who will always prefer to talk to a human agent—and it’s in your interest to make it possible. Make sure that you include this option in your conversation flow, especially if your business conversations revolve around complex issues.
- Mimic a real human conversation. This means that your chatbot shouldn’t send long blocks of text at the speed of light. Break your long answers into a batch of quick replies and set a delay between each message, so the flow is more natural.
Don’t:
- Design dead-end conversations. Picture this: you go to a shop and ask an assistant to help you with choosing a variant of a specific product. The assistant gives you 10% off a completely different product and just leaves without a word. To avoid such situations, make sure that the answers you provide are actionable. Even after the conversation is over, the customer should always have an option to restart it or get help from the FAQ chatbot.
- Overcomplicate chatbot flows. Once you discover how easy it is to create a chatbot, you might be tempted to create complex conversation flows branching into many additional flows. It’s understandable! But bear in mind that the more interactive your chatbot becomes, the more difficult it is to manage it. After all, the number of messages grows exponentially with each additional scenario, so it’s more difficult to analyze them, too. Instead, try to keep it simple.
- Allow for (too) open-intent conversation. Yes, we do think that mimicking a human conversation is the best option, but a chatbot’s main job is to guide the users in a specific direction. This means that the user should never end up figuring out what they are supposed to do. Your intelligent chatbot can be witty, and the conversation can take a few directions, but the outcome has to be specific, too.
Suggested read: Discover more useful tips for chatbot design.
Key Takeaway
Building an AI chatbot, or even a simple conversational bot, may seem like a complex process. But if you believe that your users will benefit from it, you should definitely give it a try.
You can create a prototype all by yourself with a bot builder and add it to your business website.
To create your own chatbot:
- Identify your business goals and customer needs
- Choose a chatbot builder that you can use on your desired channels
- Design your bot conversation flow by using the right nodes
- Test your chatbot and collect messages to get more insights
- Use data and feedback from customers to train your bot
- Check which conversation routes are the most popular and improve them for a better user experience
Collect more data and monitor messages to see what are the most common questions. If your customers will be using it on a regular basis, you may think about additional automations.
Apart from being the most popular editor among visual chatbot builders, Tidio also offers a live chat widget and email marketing tools. You can seamlessly integrate your bots with customer support chats and digital newsletters.
Care to give it a try?
FAQ: How to build a chatbot
Are you still afraid that designing your own conversational bot is too much? Just take a deep breath and read on. Here are some of the most frequently asked questions about creating chatbots. It should give you some more insights into the chatbot creation process.
