Chatbots have simply brought a revolution in the digital marketing realms. With the incorporation of automated messaging in customer support, chatbots are considered the new buzz of 2017.

Plenty of companies, starting from the smallest startups to the major giants in the business are trying hard to incorporate this technology in their functions to ease up several procedures.

In this article, I will discuss a few character traits of a good chatbot UX. If you are opting for chatbot development, you should see that your chatbots stick to these traits in the best possible way. Let’s begin.

• Sound situational awareness

Situation awareness is considered the key feature of chatbots. A chatbot is expected to respond to an individual’s minimum amount of input by utilizing pre-stored information.

These bots should be capable of automating our daily life tasks such as ordering groceries, hotel reservations etc. It should be able to save our time and effort.

• A human-like approach 

Chatbots are primarily of two types:

• Rule based chatbot,
• Intelligent AI chatbot (the one that uses machine learning to learn things faster).

No matter what you use, they are expected to be more life-like than other conventional apps.

The app must have a human-like response. Say for example, if a human being logs in and asks it a question like “what are the restaurants nearby?” it must come up with an answer immediately. But there must be a human pause in between before giving away the final answer.

Such subtle things trick the human being into thinking that they are talking to another person and not a machine.

• Should be capable of giving a positive experience 

Why are we building chatbots?

Like I said before, we are building chatbots to make our life easier, to give our customers a positive experience in the best possible way, 24 hours round the clock.

So your chatbots must be able to provide the required information and do the needful to provide a positive experience to the users continuously.

• The bots should be predictive in nature 

The chatbot must have the ability to move the conversation forward. It can consider suggestions and other things to do to tactically move the conversation forward.

Take a peek at this conversation. It should explain this point beautifully.

“Hey X, can you please send some flowers to my friend?”

Chatbot: Sure. Which one do you prefer? Roses or daisies?

“Roses.”

Chatbot: Would you also like to send a card with the flowers?

“Yes.”

Chatbot: Please tell us the address of your friend. And don’t forget to mention a landmark. That’ll make our tasks easier.

So you see the conversation goes on smoothly and effortlessly. It has that subtle human touch as well such that the guy who wanted to send a flower to his friend would feel like he’s talking to a real person and not a machine.

That’s exactly what’s needed.

• Interactions should be short and simple 

Keep it short. Keep it simple. And you’ll definitely get the best results.

The same thing’s applicable in case of chatbots.

The interactions should be short and simple especially because users are more likely to converse with the bot on their mobile devices. Mobile devices usually mean less screen space to work with.

Therefore, to make the conversation more convenient, the bots should follow the rule of the three S’s.

“Short, sweet and simple!”

• Speak the human language

Chatbots must not speak in technical terms with humans.

The bot has to speak the language in which we all speak. Things like “log in,” “sign in”, “sign out” etc. appear too mechanical. Languages like “get on it” sound more human.

• Chatbots must possess a simple UI

A simple UI goes a long way.

Chatbots are commonly text driven with additional options to send images/videos (in certain cases). Since, it’s mainly a conversational agent, its UI must be simple enough to make users feel at ease during conversations.

• Last but not the least, chatbots must be focused

A strongly focused chatbot has high potentials of keeping users engaged on its platform for an extended period of time.

It should not deviate and should be right to the point in its approach to customer conversations.

How to design a great chatbot

Designing a chatbot is like brewing a beer. You will always use the same ingredients to make it, but some minor changes to the process can affect the whole outcome.

Here a few tips to create a great chatbot for your business.

• Determine the purpose

Start designing your chatbot with a simple question. Why do you need a bot? If you have no answer to this question, you should rethink why you really need one.

Remember, your users are using your bot for one reason: to find answers to their problems. So, if you don’t know the problems, how can you find the solutions?

• Define the tone and personality

Your chatbot is going to represent your brand. It’s the first one to say “hello” to your users. It is, therefore, important to design the language in line with your brand identity.

What would make your experience more positive while talking to a chatbot?

The answer is simple: if they react more in a human fashion. Wittiness can also work great (for example, Siri and Android), but it may not always go well with your brand.

• Interact like a human

Now, we have learned that your users would most likely want the conversation to feel more human. But how can you incorporate that in your design?

Here’s a simple trick:

Taking up the user’s first name frequently, congratulating him or her, greeting him/her, etc. are some practices that can come in immensely handy for this purpose.

So, that’s more or less it. We certainly hope you keep these things in mind before developing a chatbot for your business purposes. It’s time we bring this to an end for now. Hope you had a good read.