Productivity maximized. Busywork minimized. AI on YOUR terms. These are but a few of the many benefits that an implementation of Chatlayer can bring to your Customer Experience. What’s Chatlayer, you ask? Chatlayer is a groundbreaking user-friendly chatbot configuration platform created by Sinch, one of the world’s preeminent communications companies. Featuring a multilingual NLP AI Model, Omnichannel capabilities, dozens of out-of-the-box integrations with the potential for hundreds and much, much more, the possibilities that Chatlayer unlocks for your CX is almost limitless.
However, when configuring and implementing a new chatbot, it’s incredibly easy to get lost in this sea of possibility, and bite off more than you can chew, creating a jumbled, complex mess of a bot that causes more problems than the original issues you were trying to solve. The solution? Follow our 10-step guide to maximizing productivity day 1! Doing so will bring your stress and confusion down, and skyrocket your chatbot performance:
1. Check Expectations
Before starting any Chatlayer project, checking expectations for how you expect the bot to perform is vital. Building out flows, expanding your scope, and above all, training the AI NLP Model takes time. Remember, this AI is NOT sapient. It will learn to recognize and correctly categorize more and more expressions in time, but you give it life, and dictate its every output. Building realistic goals will help your team and company plan ahead. Consider if you want to do the work yourself or bring in a specialized team (Like Covington!) to help you with it.
2. Start Simple
With expectations set, begin with a focused approach. Even if your bot can only handle 5 out of 15 questions but those cover 80% of user inquiries, that’s an excellent start. Your team can manage the remaining 20%. Gradually expand by adding new features based on real user interactions. It’s better to start small and perform well than to overreach and underdeliver.
3. Map it out
Put that focused approach on the paper. Whether it be a flowchart or Miro or even a notebook, map out with your team your bot flows and logic. Talk to your team about what capabilities you want at the start, and what can be added later. Split it into phases.
4. Identify your Persona(s)
Think about your typical, average user, and create a profile. List their age, education, relationship status, location, core needs, personality, frustrations, etc. Then based on that user persona, and your own business goals and brand, create a bot persona. Think about how you want the bot to introduce itself, what you want it to say in successful and unsuccessful situations, what its “personality” traits will be, etc. Doing so will help maintain continuity between your bot and your existing clientele, meshing it with the brand you have already built up.
5. Build with Purpose
Armed with a gameplan, personas set, it’s time to get building. But don’t just chuck blocks and flows in there willy-nilly. Do your research, identify what the Chatlayer building blocks do and where they are best situated. Put yourselves in your user’s shoes as you build out your flows. Try to make the bot as life-like as possible.
6. Understand your NLP
Take the time to set up and train your Natural Language Model right. Analyze your existing customer data, determine FAQs, and create intents to address them. As mentioned, start small! Keep your expression count balanced from one intent to another. 20 is the minimum. Aim for 50 each by the time you go live. Avoid conflict from one intent to another to keep the bot from getting confused.
7. Dial In your Expressions
Setting up these expressions for each intent is vital to your bot delivering. Utilize diverse expressions and real data – like social media messages, reviews, etc – to train your bot on authentic language patterns. Be specific and avoid filler words – shorter expressions improve training quality. Ensure correct spelling, and use natural language – including slang and dialects! Real data is the best data. Using slag and abbreviations (like ASAP) will help the bot learn to identify what these mean.
8. Optimize your Flows
Keep your initial intent general to trigger your flow, then add follow-ups to establish what exactly your users need. You can refine your intents based off this data later. Organize your flows into categories, keeping your bot cohesive. If it doesn’t make sense to you, it probably won’t make sense to your users.
9. Utilize Templates
Chatlayer provides several pre-built templates, ready to be put to work. Use these do help formulate your own ideas, see how some bot-building concepts are put into action, and build out your scope as you get underway and move towards and past your first Publish.
10. Maintain your Chain
Once you have Published your bot, don’t make iterations and adjustments in the LIVE bot. Keep multiple backup versions of your bot for testing new things, then implement your desired changes in the DRAFT version, and then, once your changes have passed your checks, Publish. This system of checks will ensure your bot continues to run smoothly and uninterrupted, regardless of changes. All too often we hear of bots being edited in the LIVE version, leading at times to disaster. Keep your updated flows mapped out, so if something does go wrong, it’s easy to pinpoint.
