The Success of a Chatbot is in the Details
By Mandy Reed, Global Head of Marketing
Last year many of us were spending much more time at home than usual as we did our part to slow the spread of COVID-19 in our communities. This created a surge of another kind, though: a wave of do-it-yourself project attempts. If you’re at home anyway, why not try to tackle that project yourself?
As many DIYers quickly discovered, the devil is in the details. No matter how easy something looks in the YouTube video or how complete the step-by-step instructions may appear, some projects are better left to the professionals. Sometimes recognising the small details needed to really succeed requires an expertise that comes only from experience.
This is most certainly true when it comes to creating chatbots for customer self-service, and too often organisations fall into the DIY trap. Some companies delegate their project solely to an inexperienced internal team because they underestimate the amount of expertise needed to build and deploy a working chatbot. Some companies treat their chatbot as an unimportant DIY side project not worthy of dedicated resources and investment because they fail to recognise the importance of conversational AI in modern customer experience (CX) strategies. Whatever the reason for a DIY approach, these organisations soon discover that they should have collaborated with a chatbot professional.
A good example of an important detail for chatbot success that is often overlooked comes from Maria Ward in a conversational AI vendor selection guide. Maria, an industry expert with over 15 years of experience working with chatbots and virtual agents, shares this insider tip:
“Avoid using ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ at the beginning of virtual agent answers as it may not fit with the many ways a question may be asked. Adding the subject within an answer also gives the user confidence that they have received the correct answer. For example, when answering ‘Can I have 3 slices of cake?’ instead of ‘Yes, you can.’, use ‘You can eat as much cake as you like!’”
Besides making me hungry for cake, this quote also illustrates an important point about the importance of the details in chatbot creation. When you read Maria’s tip, you might think that structuring the chatbot’s answers in that way should be common sense. It sounds so logical. But, if you’re not experienced with creating chatbot content, is that something you would automatically know? Probably not.
Really understanding how to structure answer content to work with the many ways users may ask the same question is just one skill that comes with experience. It’s a detail that’s crucial to delivering a quality self-service experience and building user confidence in your conversational AI tool. It’s also a detail that could very easily be overlooked by an inexperienced DIY team.
When it comes to creating a successful chatbot and delivering a positive customer service experience with conversational AI, the devil really is in the details. Unless you have a highly experience internal team, taking a DIY approach is not worth the risk. CX is a critical competitive differentiator for organisations, and a poor performing self-service tool will quickly erode customer loyalty and your brand reputation.
