In this blog, we will discuss the ins and outs of ‘How to create a chatbot’ along with the different types of interactive chatbots that you can make and some cool case studies and tips to help you excel.
In the 1960s, MIT professor Joseph Weizenbaum created the first-ever chatbot and named it ELIZA. But there was no internet back then and the use of chatbots was therefore confined. Although it took some time to popularize the use of chatbots, now it’s something that every company wants. And why won’t they? Like any other interactive content (quizzes, calculators, etc.), users love using chatbots as well.
Did you know that 69% of users prefer to use chatbots because they provide quick answers to simple questions?
Yes, that’s the popularity and importance of chatbots! So without further ado, let’s discuss all about chatbots.
What Are Chatbots?
A chatbot is a tool used to automate the conversation process between a brand and its online users. It eliminates the need for 24x7 human attendance to answer frequently-asked user queries, thus saving time, money and boosting efficiency.
Primary Reasons to Make Your Own Chatbot
1. Helps you stay connected with your customers 24x7
The foremost advantage of using interactive chatbots is that it allows you to attend to your customers at any time of the day. And the best part, you don’t need employees sitting round the clock to answer user queries. It helps break the worldwide time zone barriers. Not only that, but it also helps you attend to multiple customers at the same time with ease.
2. Users love chatbots
Did you know that 56% of users prefer chatbots over traditional customer support? So, why won’t you give your customers what they want?
3. Helps you in data collection
Interactive chatbots are capable of mining user data on the go. It’s easier to collect data through a conversational approach rather than lead forms. You can also analyze this data, segment it and use it for future communications.
4. Helps you automate processes
Did you know that automating your work process can reduce your operational cost by 30% and double the efficiency at the same time? And interactive chatbots can be used to do just that! You can automate your registration process, the appointment process, reservations, and more.
5. Offers a better user experience and conversion rate
Chatbots can make your customer’s journey smoother. User’s often fall off the marketing funnel if they don’t find what they are looking for. You can embed informational chatbots at different touchpoints to streamline the customer journey on your website and increase your conversion rates.
Must Read: Live Chat Examples And Lessons We Can Learn From Them
Types of Chatbots
Registration Chatbots
You can use chatbots to automate your registration process. Be it a webinar, event, or anything of that sort, chatbots can easily become an indispensable tool. Take a look at this webinar registration example:
Educational Chatbot
Chatbots are an excellent way to educate users in an interactive way. In contrast to boring educational journals, chatbots help you deliver a personalized and interactive environment to guide users, which is fun and engaging at the same time. Here is a ‘Career Guidance Chatbot’ that we built on Outgrow’s no-code platform.
Event Planning Chatbot
Yes, you can even help your users plan an event using a chatbot. These chatbots are super engaging and helpful. Moreover, you can easily generate qualified leads through event planning chatbots. Take a look at this ‘Event Planning Chatbot’ for a first-hand experience.
Real Estate Chatbot
If you are into the real estate business, you must pass on precise information on property deals. Blogs and other forms of content often fail to deliver crisp information. This is where ‘Real Estate Chatbots’ come into play.
Consultation Chatbot
Generating qualified leads for consultation services is tricky. If you offer online consultation services, you might often notice random users give their lead details but don’t convert. But, imagine if a user actively interacts with you and then fills the lead form, doesn’t that have a better chance of converting? Sure it does! Here’s an example of a ‘Consultation Chatbot’ that can serve the purpose!
Key Features of No-code Chatbot Builders
- No coding requirements
No-code chatbot builders like Outgrow, offer a drag and drop interface that eliminates the need for coding to build the chatbot. Even a layman with zero coding experience can create a robust chatbot by simple drag and drop.
- Saves time
As we mentioned, the drag and drop functionality makes it super easy to build chatbots. Naturally, it takes only minutes to set up. Compared to coding methods, no-code chatbot builders take a fraction of the time to build a robust chatbot from scratch.
- Saves money
Hiring professional programmers to build chatbots is expensive. A no-code chatbot builder on the other hand eliminates the need for programmers completely. You can assign anyone from your organization with basic computer skills to build a chatbot using these builders. Hence, it saves you a lot of money. And this makes it achievable for small companies who do not have the resources to hire professional programmers.
Must Read: 10 Best Website Chatbot Examples of 2021 [Real-Life Examples]
How to Create a Chatbot Within Minutes?
1. First things first! Get a Chatbot Builder — The Outgrow Chatbot
The Outgrow Chatbot not just helps with customer support but also boosts lead generation effortlessly. The most noteworthy point is that it requires no CS knowledge or coding! In fact, creating this chatbot is just a matter of minutes. Moreover, this experience can be seamlessly integrated into a pop-up, a chat, or any custom embed.
Seems too good to be true?
How about we prove it to you? By the time you’re done, your chatbot will look at a little bit like this:
For the purposes of this blog, we’ll create a chatbot for a bakery shop. The aim of this chatbot will be to take orders from the clientele. The beautifully designed experience will help us attract more leads. Moreover, it will eliminate the hours wasted by the baker’s employees while taking clients’ orders.
2. No-Code Builder
i. Log in
The first step is to log in to your Outgrow dashboard. In case you don’t have one, you can always sign up for the Outgrow chatbot builder for free.
ii. Content Type
After you have logged in, choose the “Chatbot” content type. You may also try other interesting interactive content types that Outgrow offers. But for now, let’s just stick to Chatbots.
iii. Chatbot Builder & Welcome Page
Now you will land upon the chatbot builder. All you need to do is select an appropriate heading, button text, and picture for your chatbot welcome page. Moreover, you can choose to use your own logo or not have one at all.
iv. Questions
Create questions that suit your needs. In this chatbot, our first question is ‘Are you looking to order a cake?’.
We have included two options here — Yes or No. This is in line with the best practices for chatbots.
In fact, head over to this article for more such practices.
v. Customization
You can further customize the user input into your preferred format:
a) Text Input- This allows the user to input the answer manually.
b) Multi-Select- This allows the user to select numerous options.
c) Single Select- This allows the user to select a single option.
d) Rating- This allows the user to reply in rating.
e) Date/Time Picker- This allows the user to select a date and time.
3. Logic Jump
You can choose to add a Logic Jump to any of your questions. This will be based on the input by the customer. In this case, if the user chooses to select ‘No’, we can redirect him to the results page. Consequently, we can redirect the user to the bakery’s website from there.
It is possible that you have abundant options and do not want to enter manually. In such a situation, you can upload your options through an Excel sheet and CSV format.
4. Lead Generation
Do you want to use your chatbots for customer support only? Well, let’s be realistic! Customer support alone can’t flourish a business. You need to convert your customers as well. So, use your chatbots to capture leads. You can place a lead generation form just before you display the results or along with the results.
5. Results Page
The result page or the outcome page is the final stage of your user’s journey. So, you must spice up the result page with attractive pictures and CTAs. Further, you can activate social share options to make it more engaging and shareable.
And if you want your users to follow your social media handles, just activate the social media widgets option as well.
6. Email configuration
Now that you have your user’s attention, you can configure the email settings to trigger an automated personalized email to every user who has interacted with your chatbot.
7. Integrations
Outgrow can further help you automate your daily work by integrating with more than 2000 apps like HubSpot, Salesforce, Mailchimp, Zoho, etc., and syncing your leads.
8. Embed Section
This is one of the best features of Outgrow. It allows you to embed the chatbot almost at every touchpoint. And the best part — it’s super easy to embed the chatbots.
Head on to the ‘Configure’ tab, select ‘Embed on a webpage’ from the left menu, and then click on your preferred embed option like ‘Pop-up’, ‘Greet Bar’, etc. You will find a code to embed the chatbot and all you need to do is copy-paste the same on your webpage.
Chatbot Case Studies You Must Check Out
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How to Add Chatbot on Your Website?
A leading chatbot builder like Outgrow gives you the flexibility to embed chatbots almost anywhere on your website. Here are the embed options that you get with Outgrow:
a. Full Page
b. In-Page
c. Popup
d. Chat
e. Greet Bar
f. Floater
g. Sidenote
h. Custom placement
So how can you embed the chatbot? It’s quite simple!
a. Just Log in to your Outgrow dashboard and select a content piece that you want to embed on your website.
b. Once you are in, navigate to the ‘Configure tab’. Click on the ‘Embed On A Webpage’ sub-tab. Here you will find all the embed options we mentioned above along with a code. Just copy and paste that code on the page where you want to run the chatbot.
Tips for Building a Chatbot
1. Define your goals
Once you have a clearly defined goal, then you can start building your chatbot based on that. Build your chatbot aligned to a specific goal, do not overload a chatbot with multiple features to meet multiple goals. It is better to master one task at a time.
2. Think of a catchy name
Chatbots are growing in popularity and if you want to cut through the clutter then think of a unique name for your chatbot. One that resonates with your audience.
3. Talk like a human
Try to create a natural conversational flow in your chatbot. Interactions are more engaging when there is a natural flow as it would be if two real persons were talking. So try to make it sound more human than a bot.
4. Optimize regularly
Evaluation and optimization of your chatbot on a regular basis are equally important. Go through the user behavior pattern, analyze what questions your users are asking and optimize your chatbot accordingly. Outgrow analytics gives you the power to get these personalized insights.
5. Ask the right questions
To collect the right data from the user, you need to ask the right questions. Once you have a clear understanding of the data you want to collect, start thinking of the right questions that will fetch you that data. You can also get improvement suggestions and accordingly modify your Outgrow chatbot at any time.
Must Read: Kickass Chatbot Examples And Lessons We Can Learn From Them
Chatbot Trends in 2021
a. 95% of internet users think that ‘customer service’ is going to be the major beneficiary of chatbots.
b. 80% of standard customer queries can be addressed using chatbots.
c. 53% of online consumers are more likely to shop with businesses that they can talk to.
d. Chatbots are capable of cutting down customer support costs up to 30%.
e. 69% of internet users prefer chatbots because they provide quick answers to simple questions.
f. Banks are expected to automate up to 90% of their interactions using chatbots by 2022.
g. 58% of companies using chatbots are in the B2B industry and 65.1% are SaaS companies.
h. 33% of users prefer making reservations using a chatbot.
i. 40% of millennials chat with chatbots on a daily basis.
j. 56% of people prefer to clear their doubts by sending messages rather than call customer service.
Conclusion
We hope this step-by-step guide gave you a fair idea about how to create a Chatbot experience on Outgrow. If you already have an Outgrow subscription then you are all set to create amazing chatbots of your own.
And in case you don’t have a subscription yet, we have got you covered! Try us for free.
FAQs
1. What are chatbots and how do they work?
Chatbots are a form of interactive tool that can answer user queries automatically. Apart from answering queries, it can capture leads and other useful information about users seamlessly.
There are two types of chatbots — One that is hardcoded manually with questions/answers and the other is AI-based which can learn by itself using machine learning.
We have discussed the first type here. These chatbots need to be pre-fed with standard user queries and answers. So when a user asks a question, the chatbot scans through its predefined data set of questions and replies with the relevant answer.
2. Is it easy to make a chatbot?
Well, it is super easy to make a chatbot if you use a no-code chatbot builder like Outgrow. You just need to drag and drop the options you want, feed your question/answers and embed them on your web pages.
3. How long does it take to create a chatbot?
5–10 minutes! Yes, you read that right! If you use chatbot creation tools like Outgrow then you can create a chatbot in minutes. Its simple drag-and-drop interface makes the process of creating chatbots a cakewalk.
4. How do you make a chatbot for free?
If you want to make a chatbot for free then you can try Outgrow for sure. They offer a free plan for creating chatbots and other interactive experiences as well. Have a look at their pricing.
Outgrow’s no-code chatbot builder helps you create a chatbot in minutes. Also, it has a robust analytics setup that helps you analyze the data and provides graphs for clear understanding.
5. What is the best chatbot creation platform which provides real-time analytics with interactive graphs?
Well, there are a lot of chatbot builders in the market, but the best in terms of features, pricing, and customer support is Outgrow.
6. How much does it cost to create a chatbot?
Naturally, it varies from company to company. But using a no-code chatbot builder like Outgrow eliminates the need of hiring programming professionals. As a result, it proves to be more cost-effective.
Just to give you an idea, take a look at the pricing that Outgrow offers.
7. How can you embed a chatbot on your website?
Well, chatbot maker tools like Outgrow allow you to embed your chatbot in a lot of different spaces and styles on your website like:
a. Full Page
b. In-Page
c. Popup
d. Chat
e. Greet Bar
f. Floater
g. Sidenote
h. Custom placement
Once your chatbot is ready, you can navigate to the ‘Configure tab’ and you will find embed options in the sub-tabs. You will find a code with the respective embed options and all you need to do is copy and paste the code on your webpage
