How to Give Your Chatbot Some Soul In 5 Easy Steps The more human-like a bot is, the more customers enjoy interacting with it.
By Murray Newlands Edited by Dan Bova
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
The chatbot world has evolved significantly over the past few years. Today, instead of being simply gadget-like tools that answer basic customer care questions, they have become problem-solving machines. Above all, they've become machines that consumers actively like interacting with, thanks to their human-like behavior.
At Chattypeople we are always trying to think of ways to improve the user experience. Although you should never try and dupe your audience into thinking that they're talking to a human rather than a robot, it can't hurt to give your bot a bit of soul. Thanks to the advancements in the technology that powers these chatbots, they are not only able to help consumers with a larger variety of tasks but also better equipped to converse with them on a more personal level.
Despite customers not wanting to be lied to, they do like the idea of talking to a human and having a more personal conversation about their problems rather than dealing with a robot. With this in mind, I'm going to share 5 easy steps you can follow to give your chatbot soul.
1. Choose an audience precisely.
Yes, you can choose your chatbot's personality based on your brand's tone of voice and image, but that won't be enough to win over your audience. You need to know your consumers like the back of your hand so that you can really connect with them on a more personal level.
You wouldn't interact with a doctor in the same way you would a student. You wouldn't try to sell men's underwear the same way you would baby accessories. You need to find out how you can best serve your audience, and to do so, you have to understand their individual needs.
Related: Top 10 Best Chatbot Platform Tools to Build Chatbots for Your Business
2. Design a character
Despite your chatbot not being a human, it should have individual characteristics that differentiate it from others. To start this process, you must establish, clear, SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely) objectives that you would like your chatbot to achieve.
Then, you need to think about other characteristics, such as:
- The semantics your chatbot will use
- Its tone of voice
- How you would like its daily interactions to flow
- If there are specific ways you'd like it to say things
- How it will adapt to specific customer needs
Related: How to Create a Facebook Messenger Chatbot For Free Without Coding
3. Give it personality.
While it's important to some companies that their chatbot has personality, others really don't need that. Go back to your objectives and consider what you are really using your chatbot for. Is it for customer care, SAAS, sales, or is it an internal facing chatbot? Does this really require personality?
If the answer is still 'yes' and one of your key goals is to create long-term relationships with those who interact with your bot, then you need to make its personality engaging. You need to consider whether it needs to be positive, informational, fun, educational, and more. On the other hand, although adding personality to your bot is important, you should also make sure that it responds to your customers rapidly and to the point.
Related: Make Chats With Chatbots Work
4. Consider giving it a sense of humor.
Giving a chatbot a sense of humor is something that can cause both wonder and worry. Yes, making a chatbot funny can engage customers on a whole new level, but there is also the risk that certain people wouldn't get it. It's also difficult to say whether this funny side would be interpreted positively or negatively.
Before interpreting a level of humor into your chatbot, dig deeper into your audience. Think about the age group you are aiming for, their social class, their geographic location, and their religious stance, to name a few things, and then look at the risk factors involved. Frankly, if your audience doesn't find your chatbot funny, or worse, finds it offensive, you could lose a lot of customers.
Related: The How-To: Using Chatbots As A Tool For Customer Service
5. Keep your Brand Image Consistent
Consistency throughout all your marketing is essential. From your chatbot's tone of voice to the semantics used, everything should represent the current image your brand portrays. If you give your chatbot a completely new image to the rest of your marketing endeavors, your audience is going to struggle to link it to you.
Remember, your chatbot must:
- Maintain the same tone of voice
- Be consistent with the way your company responds to requests and even complaints
- Integrate with, and match or resemble your current social media profiles
Related: Social Media Marketing Strategies With Chatbots
Finally…
Above all, your chatbot has been designed to solve problems; build brand, product, and service awareness; and simplify your procedures. While it's important that it portrays your brand's personality, you must remember its key functionalities.
Chatbot platforms make it easier than ever to create a chatbot that integrates directly with your Facebook accounts. With this, you'll not only be able to create a chatbot that has soul, but one that's able to best target your audience, push personalized offers to your customers, on demand, while monetizing your social media channels.
