A Comprehensive Guide on Chatbot Development: Benefits, Features, and Tech Stack
How can chatbots take your business on a new level?
In today’s reality, people value time more than anything. Technological progress allows us to save time on routine processes.
Chatbots are popular among users because they help to save our precious time. With their help, users can instantly get answers on their questions, order various services, and immediately pay for them. Large companies, like Airbnb, Starbucks, and Facebook, have already developed chatbots that help customers and improve user experience. In this article, you’ll learn more about the advantages and pitfalls of chatbot development and figure out the price to build a chatbot.
Benefits of Chatbots
We’ll start our journey to the world of chatbot development with their benefits for businesses.
Better Customer Experience
The ultimate chatbots’ advantage is that they’re available 24/7. That means your customers can get an answer to their questions without delays and at any time of the day. It leads to improved customer experience and the growth of brand loyalty.
Taco Bell is a well-known use case. This fast-food company developed a TacoBot for sales automation. Now, customers don’t have to make calls and wait for an operator. They can use TacoBot to clear all the issues.
Sales Automation
Chatbots are useful not only in answering questions. They also allow users to order and pay for the goods right from the messenger.
On top of that, chatbots engage customers to make purchases. The system suggests goods based on the client’s browsing history. Thus, chatbots help companies to sell faster and effectively.
Personalized Services
Another chatbot benefit is that they support users on every stage of the customer lifecycle. They provide detailed information about the product, help clients to make the right choice, and clearly explain the payment process.
Cost-Efficiency
Recently, JPMorgan Chase & Co, one of the largest banks in the US, gathered a group of researchers that had to come up with an idea to optimize the expenses.
The solution was floating on the surface. The team of developers built a chatbot that deals with security issues, such as granting access to internal software and resetting employees’ passwords. According to JPMorgan Chase & Co’s estimates, this software processes around 1.7 million requests and equals to the amount of work performed by 140 people.
Thus, chatbots bring a lot of benefits to businesses. Still, their integration may be costly and time-consuming.
Main Types of Chatbots
Chatbot developers usually single out two main chatbot groups — rule-base and AI-powered. Let’s figure out what’s the difference between them and which one suits you the most.
Rule-Based Chatbots
A simple version of a chatbot that doesn’t require developers to use AI algorithms. It usually follows a predefined behavior pattern and answers only with ready-made questions. Still, you can develop different scenarios, so your chatbot will manage various tasks.
After the start of the conversation, clients can see the list of possible questions and operations. When users trigger some action, the bot responds with an answer or an action according to the instruction. Thus, these bots will help only with the problems they’re familiar with.
These bots suit companies that often get repetitive questions and need an FAQ solution.
AI-Powered Chatbots
AI chatbots will be our next stop.
With the help of machine learning algorithms, chatbots analyze the user requests to come up with new responses.
At first, answers may seem confusing. That’s not a cause for concern, because before generating the responses, the system has to learn from somewhere. The more requests it analyzes, the more accurate and personalized are the answers. So, to launch a successful chatbot, you have to provide it with the initial base of questions.
Even though the AI-powered chatbot may cost you a fortune, the personality and customer care it gives to your brand worth every penny spent.
What Chatbot Does Your Business Need?
Without regard to the chatbot’s complexity, both types of chatbots are suitable for certain tasks. Before the development, you have to analyze business requirements, decide on the problems you’re going to solve, and carefully estimate the budget. If you’re short on budget and your project is meant to release your call center’s workload, FAQ chatbot is your choice. On the other hand, if you’re looking for a complicated solution with a personalized approach to every customer, you should go with AI-powered chatbot.
Chatbot’s Architecture and Work Principle
For now, you have an overall picture of chatbot types. Now it’s time to get a closer look at the chatbot’s internal structure.
Chatbots’ Architecture
Regardless of the chatbot’s complexity, the overall structure stays the same, give or take. The picture below shows a common chatbots’ architecture. Mind that some components for more natural communication can change the architecture and make the architecture more difficult.
How do chatbots work?
Rule-based chatbots usually work with click actions inside messengers. If we’re talking about the e-commerce niche, the rule-based bot will offer customers to browse the goods. Then, the bot has several click options responsible for the characteristics of the product. Eventually, the customer will have a buy option.
As you see, rule-based bots are called so for a reason. They follow a strict set of rules and never break the sequence of actions.
AI-based bots, in their turn, don’t depend on rules. They analyze information and make decisions based on the gathered data. However, they need some time to understand the sentence structure.
Five Vital Steps to Build a Chatbot
We’ve outlined the main principles that chatbots follow. But what are the steps to develop a chatbot, and where should you start? Let’s figure it out.
Figure Out the Customers’ Expectations
As you already know, chatbots are meant to improve the user experience. That’s why you have to understand their requirements clearly.
A clarity in customers’ demands allows you to create a precise feature list. Thus, you will satisfy your users’ needs and won’t spend extra money on useless features. For example, when clients order a taxi via a local cab service, they need to send their location via the messenger and know the estimated arrival time. So, you have to use maps and develop algorithms that will predict the average path time.
Decide on the Platform
Today, the majority of top-tier messengers support chatbots. In case you can afford the development for several platforms, you’ll gain more flexibility and win new customers.
However, if you’re going for a single messenger or a website chatbot, you have to decide on the platform your clients use the most. Facebook Messenger, Telegram, Skype are the most well-known platforms for chatbot development.
Find a Reliable Team of Developers
A single programmer can’t develop an outstanding solution with complicated features. That’s why you have to think about hiring an experienced team of developers.
However, don’t go for the first company you find on Google. First, you have to conduct research. Here are some services that can come in handy when looking for developers:
Discover the Tech Stack Required to Build a Chatbot
Usually, developers have two options during chatbot development — frameworks and chatbot development tools.
Frameworks allow developers to unleash the chatbot’s potential and create useful features. Chatbot development tools, in their turn, are easier to master, but the final version of the product will be short of features.
Test and Deploy
Testing is crucial during the development process. Bugs and vulnerabilities ruin the user experience and can even lead to significant problems, like data leaks. So, quality assurance helps to make sure that your product meets all the requirements.
The majority of software development companies include QA services in the final price for their services. In case you’re hiring a freelance programmer, chances are you’ll have to test the software on your own. On top of that, unfair freelancers may even charge you more money for fixing their bugs. That’s why you have to make inquiries about the testing stage before hiring developers.
Chatbot Development Tech Stack
We’ve already touched upon the topic of chatbot development tools. As you remember, there are two groups of tools — platforms for chatbot development and frameworks.
Let’s start with the simple ones.
Platforms for Chatbot Development
Chatbot platforms are an excellent solution for building simple solutions. If your clients don’t need custom features, the chatbot platform is your choice because it saves developers a lot of time. However, if you’re aiming at something more sophisticated, it’s better to use frameworks.
Chatfuel, Botsify, Flow XO, Motion.ai, and QnA Maker are the most powerful examples among chatbot development platforms. Each of them has its benefits and drawbacks. For example, Chatfuel can collect data from chats, but it’s compatible only with Facebook Messenger.
It’s impossible to say what platform you should use without the project requirements. So, before the development, you have to look for expert advice.
Chatbot Development Frameworks
Chatbot development platforms have limited functionality. The reason is platforms allow you to combine different components to create a chatbot. However, you can’t create custom components for specific needs. That’s where frameworks come to help.
Frameworks let you create any feature that comes to your mind. However, this development approach requires you to be tech-savvy and deal with complicated code structures. So, if you’re not familiar with programming, it’s better to find dedicated developers that know how to deal with these frameworks.
Let’s take a look at Wit.AI — the most popular chatbot development framework. Developers use it to build voice and text-based chatbots. With the help of machine learning algorithms, chatbots analyze vast clusters of data and come up with the best answer to the request. This framework is compatible with Python, Ruby, and Node.js programming languages.
Microsoft Bot Framework, BotKit, IBM Watson are also worth mentioning.
MVP Chatbot Features
What’s the point of tools if you don’t know where to apply them? As a product owner, you know the needs of your customer better than anyone. That’s why you have to come with a feature list. In this section, we’ll go through the main chatbot features from various fields of activities.
Conversation
To get an uncut experience from the conversation with a chatbot, messages should make sense and be well-structured. Chatbots should reply fast and cover only the conversation topic.
Also, make sure that your messages don’t contain grammar errors. Remember that the chatbot represents your company to customers. That’s why you have to treat the tone of conversation very seriously.
Payment System
This feature is necessary for companies dealing with commerce. For a complete sales cycle, you have to add at least one payment method. Mind that clients trust you their payment details, so treat security matters seriously.
There are two options for integrating a payment gateway. You can use third-party systems or develop your own. If you’re going to use third-party software, you have to conduct research. Think ahead about security issues and fees that companies will charge for their services.
Geolocation
Geolocation is a must-have feature for a lot of on-demand services. Food delivery, local cab services, cleaning companies can’t figure out the exact client’s address without GPS.
Google Maps Platform is a commonly accepted tool for navigation. The beauty of this feature is that clients don’t waste time explaining the best path to their current location.
Syncing With Accounts
An essential feature for various niches that can boost sales and engage customers. If you’re an online shop owner, you probably have a promo system or some other kind of bonuses. With synchronized accounts, customers can redeem bonuses right from the messengers during the purchase.
Apart from stimulating sales, this feature has another benefit. Chatbots can analyze the viewing history from other accounts and suggest similar goods in the messenger. On top of that, the chatbot can notify the customer about the discounts for the products from their wishlist. The user will most likely see the push notification rather than email.
Wrapping Up
As you can see, chatbots bring a ton of benefits both to businesses and customers. Fast responses, automated sales processes, and improved user experience increase brand loyalty. However, to build a successful chatbot that will meet your customers’ needs, you have to hire a dedicated team of developers.
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Author’s bio
Vitaly Kuprenko is a writer for Cleveroad. It’s a web and mobile app development company with headquarters in Ukraine. He enjoys writing about technology and digital marketing.
