Over the past few months, I have been making bots, a lot of bots. Here are some of the things I have learned making 10+ Chatbots.

Tip 1: Chatbot First Use Cases

For thousands of years, we solved problems directly through conversation, Chatbots are a throwback to this simpler time.

Chatbots, in their current form, don’t provide as rich a GUI experience as apps. As a result, the value presented by a conversational interface needs to be utterly simple in order to be truly leveraged.

There are two main reasons why anyone would use a chatbot:

Conversational: When an App can’t do it because multiple variable inputs are needed to solve the problem. Simplicity: When a bot offers the most immediate and direct solution to a person’s problem.

This should lead you towards ‘Chatbot First Use cases’ which require multiple conversation inputs and can solve problems in a more direct way than apps or offer superior simplicity.

You can’t download an app for all your problems, however one day you might use a bot.

Examples:

DoNotPay: Chatbot Lawyer that Can Fight Parking Tickets for You

How to Properly Leverage Machine Learning

Artificial Intelligence is still in its infancy and there is a long way it go.

When it comes to Machine Learning, it excels in areas where the epistemology of the field is clear and well defined. For example, Machine Learning can be used to a great effect in fields like Medicine, Hiring, and Law but will fail in areas where there are no definitive boundaries, eg: Negotiating, Creative Problem Solving, Communication, Management, etc…

Great Use Cases for Ai & Machine Learning:

Ross Intelligence : ROSS is an A.I. lawyer that helps human lawyers research faster and focus on advising clients. Predicting Cancer: Computers trounce pathologists in predicting lung cancer type, severity. Gradberry: No more applying. Gradberry uses AI to evaluate developers by checking their code and matches them with ideal company.

Tip 2: Seeing the Future… WeChat

For a number of months now, Facebook has been quite transparent and obvious in their goals for Messenger Chatbots. Ultimately, they hope that Messenger platform will resemble WeChat and Facebook has even urged developers to look at WeChat as the model.

So what does this mean? Well let’s take a quick look at some of the things you can do on WeChat:

On-Demand Service via Text : Via WeChat you can get just about everything on-demand with a simple text message. Need to get you place cleaned? Hire a plumber? etc… You can do it instantly via text.

: Via WeChat you can get just about everything on-demand with a simple text message. Need to get you place cleaned? Hire a plumber? etc… You can do it instantly via text. No-Lines, No Waitresses, No Cashiers : WeChat has revolutionized the restaurant experience. You can now order and pay for you meal via WeChat. When you enter the restaurant, you simple pick up your meal and enjoy! (Currently, Allset is doing this, more below)

: WeChat has revolutionized the restaurant experience. You can now order and pay for you meal via WeChat. When you enter the restaurant, you simple pick up your meal and enjoy! (Currently, Allset is doing this, more below) Virality: Grouping so many functions together in one app allows everyday things to go viral.

The Coming Restaurant Revolution

According to Stas Matviyenko, Founder and CEO at Allset, “The restaurant revolution is here. New technologies are changing the traditional restaurant model and the ways restaurants interact with their customers. We see more and more restaurants who want to bring ordering and reservations directly to where people spending a lot of time chatting with friends. Facebook has created a great opportunity for businesses to offer a whole new experience to their customers.”

Tip 3: Test & Go Live in minutes using Smart Loop

Smart Loop allows you to build bots in 10–15 minutes with or without coding! This is the ideal middle way, as it allows you to quickly make an MVP and then build it out after your use case has been validated without starting over. Furthermore, you can actually add code right in Smart Loop and it has its own NLP layer which uses Rasa Core.

I strongly recommend using SmartLoop to:

1. Test Your Concept: Is your bot solving a painful problem people care about? 2. Usability Testing: How usable is your bot? Does the flow make sense? Where do users drop off? 3. Advance your Copywriting: Can you get to the ‘Aha Moment’ right away and provide value as quickly as possible?

Once you know what to build:

Very Easy to Use and Minimal Programing: You can create add custom code to any flow! Instantly Deploys to Multiple Platforms: FB Messenger, Website, SMS, etc… NLP Included: Smart Loop uses Rasa Core behind it’s firewall and is also available as an on-premises solution should you need one. The Rasa Core technology is based on Tensorflow, so ultimately it’s like using Google’s Dialogueflow without the risk of exposing your customer’s data to a 3rd party.

Goal is to release as fast as Possible, gather insights and feedback, and iterate quickly towards a product people love.

HOW TO GET PEOPLE HOOKED ON YOUR BOT