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Need some quick pointers on chatbot conversational design? Here’s some key points to get you started.
1. Be Clear
Your chatbot’s purpose and functionality needs to be clear to your users. You need to do this up front as well as weaving it into your conversation. Do not just copy your website text into your chatbot — your answers need to be conversational, short and to the point. Keep a consistent tone. A chatbot that keeps changing personality is a distracting and uncomfortable experience.
Role play being your chatbot with someone else. It’s the quickest way to discover where your conversations are unclear or awkward.
2. Be Helpful
It can be easy to focus on the core functionality of your chatbot and forget that sometimes things go wrong. Make sure you have thought about what should happen in those cases. Have strategies for when people get confused or go off topic to get them back on track. Build in help, offer it proactively when needed.
Vary up your messages. It’s not helpful to see the same “sorry I didn’t understand” message over and over again!
3. Be Nice
Websites aren’t generally very forgiving when you make a mistake. Your chatbot can’t be like that. In a conversation the user has never said the wrong thing — your chatbot just hasn’t understood. Your chatbot should take the blame when things go wrong.
No matter how smart you are, and how great your chatbot is, it is not a human, and it is not smarter than your user. And no matter how great it is, some people won’t want to speak to it. Be nice about that too — give people an alternative, anything from a live handoff to an email address.
Now you are one minute into your conversational design journey — there’s lots more to learn out there! Here are some other articles if you want to read a bit more:
- New to Conversational Design? Start Here.
- Helping Your Baby Bot Learn To Chat Like A Grown Up Bot
- Why your Chatbot needs to Care about Context
- Responsive Personality Design in Chatbots
Keep exploring and go build some awesome chatbots!
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