Create your own Chatbot in just a few days, without coding

The ever-growing proliferation of Artificial Intelligence like chatbots is linked to companies’ desire to increase their performance. A chatbot is a conversational robot programmed to instantly answer its users’ questions. By implementing a chatbot, companies can not only offer a more tailored service to their clients thus drastically improving customer relationship, but also free up employees’ time by automating most repetitive tasks.

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To create a chatbot, it seems rather logical that one should know the basics of programming. However, with Ideta’s software, you can easily create and deploy your own personalised chatbot without coding. Our intern had the opportunity to create her first chatbot with Ideta (you can try it out here). The chatbot’s purpose is to help users find a holiday destination depending on their desires and preferences. Although quite simple, this chatbot works really well and could become a real tool if more selection criteria were to be added. By following the four steps I explain below, it took me less than a week to create a chatbot despite not being familiar with the software’s features at first.

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Create your chatbot step-by-step

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Step 1 - Define the purpose:

The first step to creating your chatbot, and maybe one of the most important steps, is to define its purpose. There are multiple use cases of chatbots in companies. A chatbot can be used, for instance, internally, by Human Resources services in order to automate repetitive tasks to reduce employees workload and improve their satisfaction. It can also be used as a tool for sales or after-sales services by suggesting products, giving advice, facilitating refunds and answering clients’ questions. Many other use cases exist: welcoming website’s visitors, conveying the brand’s values, acting as a virtual seller or as increased advertising,… Once your chatbot’s purpose(s) is/are clearly defined, you can start building your tree of possibilities.

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Step 2 - Build the tree of possibilities and create your chatbot’s bubbles:

The next step is to create, edit and link conversation bubbles to make your chatbot able to have the right answer to users’ questions at the right time.

To make this easier, imagine a tree of possibilities with numerous branches. Your chatbot is the tree. The branches are the different paths users will be able to choose. Each time they will answer or ask a question, they will follow a new path made of a series of predefined bubbles. The more bubbles and branches you will create, the more your chatbot will be effective and cover a wide range of possibilities and topics.

Step 3 - Use NLP:

In order to make your chatbot even “smarter”, Ideta offers the possibility to use Natural Language Processing (NLP). By choosing an NLP service and entering multiple example sentences such as “I can’t find my password” or “Help me make a reservation” into your chatbot, you will enable it to understand human language by association, and to answer accordingly. Using NLP will enable your chatbot to be more personalised, accurate and to understand users’ inputs. You can connect your Ideta's account to Dialogflow. It will make it easier to use the NLP and thus to expand the possibilities.

Step 4 - Deploy and improve:

Before deploying your chatbot, make sure every branch is perfectly working and that it will redirect users to the right bubble or information. You can also change your chatbot’s design to make it match your brand identity. Your can personalise your chatbot by modifying the logo, the avatar, the colours, and the background.

When you are happy with the result, you can deploy your chatbot on various platforms: your website, as well as Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Slack, etc. Deploying your chatbot does not mean you will not be able to modify and improve it later, on the contrary. Once you will have deployed your chatbot, you will have access to the “cockpit” which will allow you to read your chatbot’s conversations and identify areas of improvement. You will then be able to modify your chatbot at any time by adding, changing, eliminating bubbles, links, intents and example sentences.

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To conclude, Ideta offers a very intuitive software with a user-friendly interface. By following these four steps, one can easily create high-performance chatbots in just a few days, without coding.

Interested in creating a chatbot with Ideta? Have a look at the website for more information. To try out the chatbot I created, click here.