Have you visited a website and noticed a little popup on the bottom right corner? 

It innocuously pops up and asks you a helpful question.

The popup is so innocent that inclines you to make conversation. 

That is an example of a Well-Drilled Chatbot.

There is an effortless progression of ideas and responses in a conversation. A naturally motivated invitation to speak occurs. This makes for a smooth and comfortable experience.

While programming a chatbot, we need to mimic human conversation. As part of the design process, we write a proper chat script. 

The Design of a Chatbot needs to be Conversational

Alexa, Cortana, and Siri have set a standard by which all chatbots get judged these days. 

The modern speaking style of such digital assistants has tuned people. They expect chatbots that have human-level conversational abilities—often deviating from logical if-else statements. 

Let us dive deep into the essential characteristics of a Conversational Chatbot.

What is a ChatBot

Concept

It is necessary to identify the intent of the user at a page to determine the flow needed. Reciprocate, according to the response selected by the user. On selecting the appropriate option, the Chatbot can flow. 

Right down to concrete answers which would solve the user queries on the spot. 

Mindset

Your Chatbot would be the first Direct interaction touchpoint. The visitor uses the Chatbot to understand our website better. As such, you don’t want it to be monotonous and bland.

If your bot speaks and performs well, it could ease a large workload by recycling repeatable processes and help create a positive brand perception.

Welcome to our Page! 

Would you like to know more about us? 

Action

Always have the primary aspects of Conversational Design finalized. Now the construction can begin. 

Here I have narrowed down the Science of Chatbot Conversation. It is now a Six-Step process you can execute in 4 days.

Planning your Chatbot. Get to the Drawing Board! 

PRODUCT & PROCESS

Product Psychology

Putting conversational UI into perspective

Conversational interfaces have steadily crept into our lives. 

A toll-free number accepts voice responses rather than the dial pad. 

We speak to Alexa as a real person standing in our home. 

From “You’ve got mail”, we can now delegate basic tasks to our Chatbot to execute. 

A Conversational UI allows interacting with the computer on human terms.

Process Cycle

No one has patience for crappy chatbots. 

Conversational UI set the intelligence bar high, so scripts need extra care.

Writing for conversational UI isn’t a simple process; It needs a transparent system of execution. One such 6 Step process we discuss in the article. 

The most straightforward workaround is creating multiple flows for a given page. 

Despite our best efforts, there’s no telling what the page visitor will do.

I am keeping a flexible enough Chatbot to accommodate for all possible scenarios when deployed.

1. ChatBot Goals – Decide the Chatbot’s purpose.

The first step to writing a conversational flow is determining your Chatbot’s purpose. 

That’s right because your Chatbot isn’t human doesn’t mean it’s safe from enquiries about its job.

What do you do Mr. Chatbot ? 

What does it do for a living? 

Does your Chatbot assist customers with support related queries?

Is the Chatbot an equivalent of a Mall Welcome Security?

What will your Audience use it? 

Speedy tasks like checking a shipping status or long-term goals like fitness tracking?

How much effort will it take? 

Will it regularly send reminders to users or pop up now and then to celebrate when they meet a goal? Or is it a hit it and quit it type of deal

like checking it for weather updates or football game stats?

Without Further delay Here is Step Number

Create a Customer Avatar for your Chatbot Audience. 

• Determine the current state of your Audience
• Please focus on the Customer Journey stage when they visit the page. 
• Play out the conversation between a page visitor who wants to extract 

Fill up your Customer Avatar

Case Study:- A hair salon bot for a client that lets users schedule and modifies their appointments.

The bot’s duties include:-

• Monitoring each stylist’s calendar
• Presenting openings to the user
• Asking the user which service they need (cut, colour, styling, etc.)
• Modifying appointment dates and times at the user’s request
• Canceling appointments
• Sending appointment reminders via push notifications

2. ChatBot Persona – Decide on the Chatbot’s Appearance

Give the ChatBot an Identity

The second step to writing your conversational flow is to personify the bot. 

Before you can begin writing your script, create a backstory for your Chatbot. A commonly used method fiction writing will add authenticity to your bot and help you find its voice.

Give your Chatbot a Personality

For instance, if you were in a content writing class and asked to write a story about a woman, you may ask, What kind of woman? Why?

However, if given that the woman is 42 and dealing with a divorce, it would be easier describing her, voicing her, and picturing her typical day. 

Your Chatbot’s persona will help to determine the tone, writing style, maturity and politeness needed in the script. 

Your Chatbot needs to be believable and compelling, connect it with your brand. 

A chatbot with a witty and emoji-heavy script may not suit a law firm. 

Your Chatbot represents your brand, so make it look and sound like part of your team.

3. Create a conversation diagram

In messaging, replies are short. Poorly written chatbots send walls of text with an overload of information. 

Real conversations don’t work this way. Chatbot replies should generally be brief and cut to the chase. 

To quote John Mayer

“Write your script in fragments to stay organized and make brainstorming easier. An easy way to do this is by creating a conversation diagram.”

Conversations have elements, and a diagram will help you map out every possibility of what your Chatbot could say. 

The ingredients you may use in a chatbot conversation are:

Greeting: 

It is used to say hello or start a conversation. Formality is dependent on the relationship (return versus new users).

Informing:

It was giving information that is either requested or pertinent to the conversation.

Checking:

Testing the user’s understanding. Restating details and information for clarity.

Apologizing: 

Politely acknowledging the Chatbot’s shortcomings. Should be brief and serve as a bridge to alternative solutions.

Asking:

Query users to gauge their intent. Please provide a list of suggested responses to aid them.

Error:

When the Chatbot fails to understand a user query, the bot goes through a decision loop and gets a more precise response. 

Suggesting: 

Presents the user with relevant actions or options.

Conclusion: 

A fitting end to the conversation using visual elements count as well, such as GIFs, emoji, pictures or videos.

4. Bringing it all Together 

Keep your customer’s journey in mind when you map out your conversation elements and diagram. What kind of experience do you want to create? Will interactions be quick and professional or conversational and casual?

You’ll create diagrams for multiple conversation types, and they’ll all likely follow a similar speech pattern.

The Chatbot masterplan is readyWith your drawing tools of choice and a conversation type in mind, create a flow chart outline. Using simple boxes and arrows, map out a greeting or two, potential user responses, chatbot answers and so on. If you have a live chat, you can look through your transcripts to find frequently asked questions for your Chatbot to answer.

Once you have your material on deck, you can start labelling your diagram boxes. Give them simple names like “Greeting 1,” “Greeting 2,” etc.

Let it all out

Now that you have a structure to work with, you can start writing conversation scenarios. Depending on your bot’s purpose, you may have to register quite a few.

The trick is to keep messages short — hence the diagram boxes. Try to imagine you’re texting someone in real-time when writing your script. Abandon your curse of knowledge and put yourself in the user’s shoes.

It’s also essential to keep the pacing in mind. Even though you can’t draw pauses, consider them when writing your elements. A conversation with a therapy bot may move slower than a street traffic reporting bot.

Writing and fine-tuning your conversation flow could take some time. Don’t worry about getting it right the first time – write down every possible thing your Chatbot could say and keep it or scrap it later.

5. Put your conversation flow to the test.

As you write and rewrite your script, I recommend reading it out loud to yourself so that you can hear how it sounds. 

Hearing your writing makes it easier to spot errors or awkward moments. Try doing this with a partner who is unfamiliar with your Chatbot. 

An outsider’s perspective will determine if it comes through in your writing. Helps to overcome the creator’s bias.

You don’t need Expensive costumes. Just a volunteer to simualte the Customer Avatar.

Use the software to test your Chatbot. Interact with your bot in real-time to get an idea of its flow. It’s like seeing a play performed on stage versus just reading the script. 

The pacing and delivery make the words come alive.

Outside input will help enrich your Chatbot’s script, primarily if you’re not used to content writing.

6. Wrap up the Conversation

Ending a chatbot conversation may seem like a wasted effort. Though not talking to a real person, users may feel inclined to skip the niceties and close the page.

But real conversations have endings, even if they’re not always “goodbye.” When writing your script, try to avoid dead ends and leave the user hanging.

ChatBot Build TASKLIST

Day 1

• Finalize Chatbot Goals
• Create Customer Avatars for your Chatbot users

Day 2

• Finalize a Chatbot Persona
• Create a sample Conversation diagram

Day 3

• Populate the conversation with all touchpoints
• Readout aloud and participate in the conversation.

Day 4

• Program the Chatbot onto the Tool
• Simulate the chatbot interaction with the intended Customer Avatar,

RESOURCES

ManyChat

They have a detailed Knowledge base that can help you get templates, tips and support articles to decide on a conversation diagram.

SilferBots

A new player in the chatbot market has a dedicated training and education portal. Support is right here, and their weekly sessions are value-packed. 

Collect.chat

Perfect for giving offline support as they have an extensive knowledge base. 

Closing Words 

Here are some sample ending phrases I use for my chatbots :-

I’ll be around if you need me, teacher. Hit me up anytime.

Happy to help 🙂 , Click me if you need anything. 

Let’s chat more often! I’m always on the clock.

These types of phrases end the conversation but imply that the Chatbot is still around. It mimics what you would hear from a shop assistant in real life.

Finding your chatbot conversation flow is the easy part.

Once you’ve found your Chatbot’s voice, the conversation possibilities will be endless. 

Writing them all down and organizing everything into diagrams will require a lot of your time and effort.

Write, Organize, and Flow. That’s your Conversational Chatbot for you 

Don’t feel pressured to write an entire novel for your Chatbot. The phrase “less is more” applies here, primarily if you use your bot in customer service.

 Just say what you need to say but with love.