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Curated Inspiration: The Chatbots Edition
With so much hype around chatbots and conversational interfaces, it’s easy to get lost in all the resources that are available and lose track of what’s really worth reading. But never fear—our Slack channels are overflowing with articles so we’re coming to your rescue. We’ve gathered 3 articles about chatbots that are resource-rich, inspiring, and actually worth your time:
Chatbox UX: Crafting a Valuable Conversation
Source: http://www.uxbooth.com/articles/chatbox-ux-crafting-a-valuable-conversation/
Heard the words ‘chatbot’ and ‘conversational interface’ being thrown around and want to know the basics? This article is for you. In just a few steps, the author explains how to plan and design a chatbot—without neglecting users’ needs: from how to identify scenarios to what you should pay attention to in order to avoid frustrating users.
With all the possibilities of chatbots, it’s easy to lose sight of the basic principles that make them user-friendly. That’s why this text is a good reminder that creating chatbots isn’t just done for the sake of it, but actually to solve users’ problems. And, as the author points out, a chatbot is definitely not a solution to every problem. We couldn’t agree more.
Beyond Chatbots: 40+ Commerce Startups Using AI To Style Shoppers, Adjust Pricing, Track Behavior, And More
Source: https://www.cbinsights.com/research/ai-retail-smart-shop-startups/
On that note, if a chatbot isn’t the solution, then maybe it’s worth looking into some alternative uses of AI. It’s a growing industry that’s influencing more areas of our lives than we often realize. If you want to stay up to date with the possibilities of AI, this article will help you keep track of the newest developments and key players in the field. It provides a good breakdown of the categories of AI commerce startups, and visualizes the most important companies on a market map. If you’re looking for a solution for your customers’ problems, but don’t want to do the obvious (aka build a chatbot), this is where you can find other potential ways of applying AI.
Five things we learned from launching a Facebook Messenger chatbot
There’s nothing better than learning from the mistakes of others. As the title suggests, in this article David Moth shares what he learned from the launch of a Facebook Messenger bot designed to promote an event in an unusual way and discover how the technology is impacting marketing.
It turns out that managing expectations is quite important when you’re building a chatbot. Because most people haven’t delved into the topic yet they assume a chatbot will have something to do with AI, but if you read the first article you’ll know that this doesn’t necessarily have to be the case. Communicating clearly about what the bot can and cannot do will prevent users from getting frustrated by its limitations.
Also interesting is the data you can gather from the bot’s interactions—a bot can be an effective way of getting to know your users better. It can offer helpful insights about your customers’ views on bots and how they want to interact with them.
Still can’t get enough of this topic? We’ve also written about it ourselves. Read Jeroen Pluim’s Beyond the Bot and our Q&A with Data Scientist Igor Mikhalev.
Header image by Jael Koh.