In simple terms, a chatbot is an artificial intelligence (AI) based computer programme that can interact with a human either via voice or text through messaging applications, websites, mobile apps or through the telephone. These digital assistants can understand user requests and give prompt relevant answers.

Chatbots are one of the most advanced technologies that revolutionizes how humans communicate and interact with machines.

No. Conversational chatbots have been around for decades now. In the past, there have been many unsuccessful attempts to build a chatbot that successfully mimics human conversation. The first chatbot ever designed was in 1966 by MIT professor Joseph Weizenbaum- it was called ELIZA and was developed to interact with people as a therapist. Following ELIZA, other chatbots have been developed like PARRY in 1972 by American psychiatrist Kenneth Colby, Jabberwacky in 1988 by developer Rollo Carpenter, Dr. Sbaitso in 1992 by Creative Labs and ALICE in 1995 by Richard Wallace.

During the chatbot design process, it is important to keep your user in mind as it will help you define the right chatbot features, functionality and build human-like interactions. It might be helpful to answer the following questions to design a user-friendly chatbot — What kinds of problems do your users seek a solution for? Are they more likely to use text/messaging or voice to communicate with your brand? Do they contact you via your website, phone, social networking apps or some other site?

In order for a chatbot to function properly, it is crucial for the programme to access your business data, whether from your existing knowledge base, website, internal databases, existing documents, reservation systems, shipping information, product inventories or other sources of information.

Once you have determined which data sources will be needed to answer the question asked, you can identify how the bot will access each source in order to interact with the user in a meaningful way. Will you need to make your existing sources available? Is there an open API you can use?

As mentioned previously, different types of bots will have varying features. That said, there are some key features that are non-negotiable:

1. Handing conversations off to an agent: Eighty-six percent of consumers believe they should always have the option to transfer to a live agent when dealing with a chatbot. When looking for features, this one is your first priority.
2. Smart routing: This feature ties into the one above. Not only should the bot be able to hand off conversations, but they should also be able to route the customer to the right person in the right department.
3. Integrations: Whether it’s a webhook to grab location information, or a CRM integration to access a customer profile, a chatbot is only useful when it’s integrated into your current technology stack.
4. Small talk: Just because it’s a ‘bot’ doesn’t mean it has to be robotic. Customers enjoy having a little fun with a chatbot and your bot should be able to play ball.

Using Chatbots, businesses with a large customer base can benefit from automating customer service, allowing customer service agents to focus on more challenging tasks and higher-value work that require a human touch.

With Chatbots, you can deliver a personalized customer experience at scale. Here are some chatbot benefits for you and your customers.

• Answer and respond to customer questions.
• Automate repetitive tasks.
• Cut down on operational costs.
• Allow customers to communicate with your business via existing messaging platforms.
• Deliver customer support round the clock.
• Schedule appointments, including phone calls, meetings and webinars.
• Send users surveys, including customer satisfaction surveys.
• Transition to a live chat with a real human.
• Manage thousands of conversations simultaneously.
• Provide users with timely updates including receipts and order confirmation.

As with any technology investment, chatbots are only as good as how they’re implemented and maintained. But if you plan and build out your bot with clear objectives and measurable milestones, success will be within your reach. You will know if your chatbot is successful through agent and customer feedback; decreased offline messages; and/or improved KPIs such as CSAT, shopping cart conversion, and others specific to your use case.

It depends on the complexity of the client requirements. Our current record is 4-6 weeks to build an average simple bot. However, in more complex scenarios, where the client requirements are not clear or there is a need for multi phases of building, it might take 2-3 months.

There’s no easy answer to this question because not all chatbots are created equal. Generally, the more sophisticated the bot, the more time, money and resources have gone into developing it. 

Technically, you can build a chatbot for nothing if you use a free trial on platforms like Many Chat, U Chat, DialogFlow or Chatfuel etc. But most brands will usually hire a chatbot development company or consultant to do much of the strategic planning and building necessary, so prices will undoubtedly vary. 

Want to build a digital human? You may want to talk with a chatbot company to ensure you create conversational elements that are specific to your brand and customer. 

It all depends on your use case, goals and ambitions. We’re happy to help our clients with these along the way.

Our chatbots are omni-channel, which means you can engage your customers where they spend most of their time and connect your conversational app to the tools and applications that your customers already use.

The following are examples of channels that our chatbots support to interact with your current and prospective customers:

• Your website.
• Your mobile app.Facebook Messenger.
• Facebook Messenger.
• WhatsApp.
• Slack.Telegram.
• Telegram.
• Hangouts.

Data protection is our top priority. As long as your website and technology stack are set up securely and you take steps to ensure that your customer data is secure, then rest assured that your data is safe with us.

We use protocols, systems and security to protect users.

There are some scenarios when the client’s needs cannot be fulfilled by automated chat. In these cases, human support is required.

To ensure a seamless customer transition, an escalation to a human agent might be required when a customer:

• Requests a phone or video call.
• Asks the same question multiple times.
• Asks a question the bot doesn’t know how to answer.