How to Make the Perfect Chatbot: Best Practices for Chatbot Design

Nowadays, bots are a very common feature in many businesses. They can be based on AI or simple rules, and they provide a lot of benefits to companies that use them. In fact, there are claims that by 2026, the reduction in costs within contact centers due to the use of AI chatbots can reach $80 billion. But what are the best practices in the field of chatbot design? Let’s talk about it.

Starting Chatbot Design: Determining Key Features

Before you do anything with your bot, it is good practice to determine some of its key features. For example, here is an non-exhaustive list of such topics. 

• The type of the chatbot. Usually, three types are considered: rule-based, AI-based and hybrid. Rule-based versions are cheaper, but they are limited to what you tell them to do. On the other hand, AI-based chatbots can “understand” what is asked of them with the help of Natural Language Processing (NLP) and machine learning. You need to decide which option suits your budget and needs more.
• The purpose of the chatbot. What is the goal for the creation of your chatbot? You need to have a good understanding of the intent behind the innovation. Then, you will be able to focus on it and bring your vision to life.
• The audience of the chatbot. Usually, that would be clients or employees, but who are your clients and employees? You can say a lot of things about them. What do they like? How do they communicate? When do they buy things? Ask yourself these and many more questions to determine who your bot is going to be chatting with.
• Determine the channels you will be using. This point is connected to the previous one — where will your intended audience meet the chatbot? It can be your website or messengers — or both! Think about the platforms for your chatbot. 

All these decisions need to be made early on to ensure success of your chatbot design campaign. In addition, do not forget to have your knowledge bases ready. Even a rules-based chatbot is likely to need to use those. 

With these preliminary steps behind you, we can pay attention to other best practices in the field.

Visual Chatbot Design

How a chatbot looks is very important. Here are a few recommendations.

• Make the chatbot’s widget stand out. It needs to be easily visible in whatever channel you are using, contrasting with the background. 
• The widget also needs to be always accessible. Do not make people scroll to find the chatbot option.
• Make the chatbot look like your brand. It should be using the colors of your brand and otherwise appear like it belongs to your company.
• Make it visually appealing. Your chatbot should be pleasant to look at. 

You can conduct surveys to determine whether your design fits these requirements. The bot itself can do that. However, you can also make focus groups of the intended audience for some more detailed feedback. 

Chatbot Communication

The most important aspect of a chatbot is how it talks to the intended audience. IBM describes such a feature as a chatbot personality. You need to make a few decisions about it based on who the bot is supposed to interact with.

• The greeting. Try to make something unique and representative of your brand. 
• The tone. Chatbots can be very different — they can be professional, friendly, funny, and so on. Choose the right tone for your chatbot based on what its audience responds the best to. 
• Do not try to trick the users into thinking they are talking to a person! Always be upfront about them interacting with a robot. 
• Make the bot easy to use. It is very important that the user finds the chatbot intuitive. A very common practice is introducing buttons with replies, so that the user does not have to type. 

When a Chatbot Needs Some Help

Chatbots do not always perform perfectly. In fact, they need help! The best practice in the field is to redirect the users to a human support member. Here are a few things to remember.

• Bots are good at gathering information. Let your bot ask the user about relevant details before directing them to a human. Make sure that the bot provides all those details to the human support manager.
• Ensure that the user knows they are being redirected to a human. Just like knowing that they are talking to a robot, they should be aware of talking to a human.
• Do not redirect to humans when a bot can solve the issue. For example, bots are very good at Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs). Have your chatbot programmed so that it always responds to FAQs. It can redirect users to a human when it cannot find an answer in your knowledge base.

Your Ecosystem

Chatbots can and should be integrated with your other tools, for example, customer relationship management (CRM) and ticketing systems. Naturally, the knowledge base should also be integrated. Such an approach makes working with chatbots easier for your employees. It also facilitates information exchange between your workers and the chatbot. It is best practice to make sure that the information from the bot is easily fed into your CRM and other tools that help you interact with the chatbot users.

To the user, chatbots seem to be “intelligent” due to their informative skills. However, chatbots are only as intelligent as the underlying database.

Peter Gentsch, academic and entrepreneur

Testing the Chatbot Design and Measuring Its Effectiveness

One of the most important best practices is to check your chatbot design for issues and potential areas of improvement. 

• Testing is crucial to do prior to launch, but it is also an ongoing project. Testing the chatbot design helps to catch errors early and improve the flow of the bot’s interactions with users.
• You can create key performance indicators (KPI) to monitor the bot’s activity. The KPI should depend on what you want from the bot, for example, improved customer satisfaction or sales.
• You can receive feedback about the bot’s activity straight from the users. Just ask them to click a button indicating their satisfaction or dissatisfaction. Some of them might even leave a more detailed reply. 
• Based on your KPI, feedback and testing results, optimize and improve the bot. It is an ongoing project that can provide a lot of benefits. To make the most of it, be ready to work on it for as long as you are using the chatbot.

The Pitfalls of Chatbot Design

Some common issues go against best practice.

• Outdated information. If your bot gathers answers from your knowledge base, the latter needs to be updated at all times. You cannot allow your bot to spread misinformation.
• Issues with data security. It is most important to ensure the safety of the users’ data. You also need to be upfront with the users about how their data is used. Follow the local legislation and go above and beyond to protect user data.
• No personalization. Personalizing communication may seem like a complicated task, and it does require additional development time. But it is worth it because users generally appreciate personalized messages.
• Ignoring or not acquiring the information about user experience. As we have stated, all the feedback from users is crucial. This is the best way to learn how to improve your bot. The more convenient it is to use, the better.

In Conclusion

Chatbot design requires a lot of considerations. They start with determining audience and goals, and they end with continual improvement. The best practices described here are very important for a successful bot creation. 

Insolvo can provide you with freelancers who will help with every step of your chatbot design journey!