How To Chatbot Works In Retail Industries

What We Have Covered in This Article

Last Updated on March 30, 2018 by Editor Futurescope

Chatbot is a tool that stimulates conversations and allows the users to interact endlessly with a non-human user. Chatbots are very much in use these days. They are mostly used in eCommerce business which don’t find it feasible enough to deploy customer service agents to carry out their customer service operations. With the help of chatbots, you can easily serve your customers 24*7, solve all their queries and successfully generate leads. When it comes to speed and efficiency, chatbots simply outperform humans.

Let me first establish the context by briefing the benefits of chatbots and what it means for you and your business to have a chatbot

Chatbots are useful in gathering the information of users by prompting them to fill in their details. They are also used for communicating various offers and discounts available. More often than not, they prompt users to make payments.

For all intents and purposes, a chatbot can act as a restaurant, a retail store, as your boyfriend or girlfriend, as a gift shop etc. depending upon the purpose for which it was built. They are used on a number of user friendly platforms such as Google Assistant, Facebook Messenger, WeChat for web etc. Chatbots have revolutionsed the ways a business interacts with its customers. Some examples of famous retail chatbots are Sephorabot, Pizza hut bot, H&M’s Kik chatbot, Tacobell’s Tacobot.

This essentially brings us to this question- How to build a chatbot?

How to build a chatbot

Having been acquainted with what a chatbot is and its associated benefits, you must now be wondering how to build one. It is no rocket science to build a chatbot. You must be clear about your requirements and diligently choose from a multitude of options available in the market.

There need not be a science intellect to build a chatbot. You can build a high end chatbot without the knowledge or expertize of coding too. However, to build an advanced AI based chatbot, it is recommended to take the assistance of experts and get your profits booming in no time.

Now let us look at the ways by which you can create an amazing ecommerce chatbot for your retail business

Get a ready-made solution.

Go for a ready made solution if you feel reluctant to invest money on a chatbot. For example, there are ready made options available on large messenger apps such as Telegram or Kik, wherein you can choose a chatbot that suits your requirements and business goals from the list of available options. Turnkey platforms have their own chatbot markets that you can explore.

Build a bot from scratch.

If you want to build your own chatbot from scratch, it might burn a hole in your pocket. A conscious entrepreneur should keep in mind all the expenses involved. No doubt, the resulted chatbot will be perfectly tailored as per your requirements but you need an expert team and their services to build and run your chatbot.

Use a chatbot platform.

There are several platforms available that give you dual advantage of high audience and chatbot creation options. Since the platforms are used by a large number of people, finding audience for your chatbot is a lot easier. A chatbot platform allows you to create a chatbot even if you have no coding knowledge.

Let us look at some of the best tools / platforms available to build your own chatbot without any knowledge about the programming language:

1) AI : It is one of the most powerful tools available . If you wish to create a conversational messenger bot, this tool stands second to none. The best thing about this tool is a small procedure which includes just three simple steps to build a bot.This involves creating an agent, providing textual examples and resting in a corner while API.ai does the training work. All you need to do after it is created is to connect the bot and launch it.

2)  Chat fuel: If you are looking to build a chatbot on social networking sites such as Facebook or Telegram, then this is one of the best bot platforms for you. Prior knowledge of coding isn’t required. It guides the user in the friendliest way throughout his process of building a chatbot using chat fuel. It is very easy to make your own personalized chatbot using chat fuel in no time. You can edit responses, put or modify the content very easily and quickly using simple steps.

3) Botkit :- Botkit is a toolkit for making bots on messaging platforms such as Slack, Twilio IP Messaging, Facebook messenger etc. Botkit has some exceptional capabilities of listening, saying and replying. Hence, any kind of conversation can be facilitated .Semantic features to send and receive replies are its unique propositions

4) Botsify: It is a chatbot designing tool that can be used in tandem with social media platforms such as Facebook. To begin with,  you only need to visit their official website, setup a web hook after integrating your Facebook account, write the commands you want your chatbot to carry and let the chatbot do the rest for you.

5) Facebook Messenger Platform

Facebook Messenger has a lot of advanced bot creation options. You can create a chatbot using official page of Facebook. You need to set up some tools before you can start creating your own bot. A refer guide is available for creating chatbot on Facebook.

Whether you want a personalized bot with advanced features and go for paid options or utilize the free tools available or opt for readymade options, it just doesn’t make a lot of difference. Thanks to chatbots, your online retail business is going to have far-reaching audience.

Now that you know about how to create your own ecommerce chatbot, pull up your socks and get one as soon as possible and witness the difference in your online retail store business.

Editor Futurescope
Editor Futurescope

Founding writer of Futurescope. Nascent futures, foresight, future emerging technology, high-tech and amazing visions of the future change our world. The Future is closer than you think!

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