Creating a self-chat, also known as a chatbot, allows you to have conversations with an AI assistant. Self-chats can be useful for automating customer service, providing information, or just for entertainment. There are a few different ways to create a basic self-chat, depending on your needs and technical skills.
What is a Self Chat?
A self-chat, also known as a chatbot, is a program that can conduct conversations with users via text or voice interactions. The chatbot software contains scripts and artificial intelligence that allows it to understand questions, respond, and mimic conversations like a human. Self-chats are commonly used for the following purposes:
- Customer service – Provide 24/7 automated support and answers to common questions
- Information delivery – Give users specific data like weather, directions, or inventory availability
- Personal assistants – Perform tasks like scheduling meetings or controlling smart home devices
- Entertainment – Tell jokes, play games, or have witty banter for fun
The main components of a self-chat are natural language processing (NLP) to interpret user input, scripts to determine responses, and an interface like chat or voice. Self-chats may start out simple but become increasingly intelligent with machine learning algorithms as they interact with more users over time.
Benefits of Self Chats
Here are some of the key benefits that self chats can provide:
- Availability – Self chats can be available 24/7, unlike human agents
- Automation – They can automate repetitive customer service or information provision tasks
- Scalability – Can handle large volumes of customer interactions simultaneously
- Consistency – Provides consistent, accurate responses every time
- Cost savings – Less expensive than staffing human agents; reduces labor costs
- Customizability – Can be tailored to specific needs with scripts and AI training
With these advantages, it’s no wonder why more businesses and individuals are embracing self-chat technology for a variety of uses.
Choosing a Self Chat Platform
There are a variety of platforms available to build a self chatbot, from simple options requiring no coding knowledge to advanced bot frameworks for developers. Here are some top options to consider:
| Platform | Description |
|---|---|
| Chatfuel | Intuitive drag-and-drop interface to create Facebook chatbots without coding |
| ManyChat | Allows non-coders to build Messenger chatbots for marketing and sales |
| Dialogflow | Advanced NLP platform owned by Google to build conversational interfaces |
| Amazon Lex | Automatic speech recognition service to build chatbots on AWS |
| Pandorabots | One of the oldest and most established chatbot hosting services |
| Motion.ai | Visual bot builder for non-technical users |
Consider factors like features, ease of use, integration, scalability, and pricing to choose the right platform for your needs and level of technical expertise.
Self Chat Design Principles
When designing a self chat experience, following UX principles can help create more natural, intuitive conversations:
- Use clear, concise language – Avoid jargon and keep sentences simple
- Develop a distinct personality – Give your bot a consistent voice and style
- Make conversations casual – Use greetings, emojis, humor to seem more approachable
- Ask for clarity – Confirm user requests to avoid misunderstandings
- Apologize for mistakes – If the bot gives a wrong answer, apologize and fix the issue
- Provide options – Give users menu choices or suggestions instead of open-ended questions
- Maintain context – Reference previous parts of the conversation for better flow
Following conversational UX principles helps improve user satisfaction and engagement when interacting with a self-chat bot.
Defining the Goal
Before building your self chatbot, clearly define what you want it to accomplish. Here are some examples of potential goals:
- Answer frequently asked customer service questions
- Help users book appointments or reservations
- Deliver information like weather, stock prices, or news on demand
- Provide an interactive gaming or entertainment experience
- Automate business processes like IT ticket handling
The bot’s capabilities should directly address a specific need or desire. Having a well-defined goal will inform decisions like platform, dialog structure, and required integrations.
Gathering Content
Content provides the raw material for your self chatbot’s conversational capabilities. Useful content to gather includes:
- Sample conversations – Real chat logs between customers and human agents
- FAQs – Frequent customer questions and answers to common inquiries
- Product/service info – Details like features, pricing, benefits to share
- Process workflows – Steps users take to complete tasks like purchases
Study collected content to identify key conversational needs, intents, entities, and dialog flows. This will provide the framework to start scripting your self chatbot’s responses.
Scripting Conversations
Scripting out conversational dialogs is a key step in teaching your self chatbot. Start by mapping out possible dialog flows:
- Greetings – Bot says hello, asks how to help
- User request – User asks question or makes request
- Clarification – Bot confirms specific details if needed
- Information delivery – Bot provides requested info
- Additional support – Bot asks if user needs more help
- Goodbye – Bot says goodbye
Within each exchange, script specific responses, variations, and associated trigger phrases. Consider potential dialog branches based on user input. Test and refine scripts through iterations.
Integrations
Integrating your self chatbot with other data sources and services expands its capabilities:
- CRM – Fetch client data and history when chatting with customers
- Billing system – Enable payments or account management from within chat
- Inventory database – Check product availability and make recommendations
- Weather API – Provide up-to-date weather information on demand
- Google Sheets – Store and retrieve dynamic data like FAQs
Consider what integrations can allow your chatbot to deliver better information and automate workflows for users.
Testing and Refining
Once initial scripts are complete, conduct thorough testing:
- Functionality testing – Trigger every dialog branch to identify gaps
- User testing – Recruit people to roleplay conversations and provide feedback
- Error handling – Introduce bad data and unsupported requests to see how bot reacts and recovers
Use test findings to refine dialogs, expand content coverage, and improve error handling. Repeat testing regularly, even after launch, to continue improving the self chatbot.
Launching Your Self Chat
When ready to launch, start exposing your self chatbot to real users. Some go-live best practices:
- Introduce gradually – Avoid overloading your bot at first
- Set up monitoring – Track usage volumes, conversation metrics, and errors
- Respond to feedback – Solicit user comments to improve continuously
- Promote responsibly – Set appropriate expectations about capabilities
- Evaluate performance – Assess KPIs like conversation completion rates
A thoughtful launch allows your self chatbot to deliver value immediately while continuing to learn and improve over time.
Conclusion
Building a useful self chatbot takes strategic planning, scripting, integration, testing, and iteration. Define a clear goal, gather conversational content, choose the right platform, follow UX principles, and focus on continuous improvement after launch. With the right approach, self chats can add tremendous value by improving customer service, delivering information, and automating workflows.