Habot

Steps to Build a Chatbot for Your Business: From Planning to Launch

So, you want to create a chatbot for your business? You have made a wise choice.

The most important reason? Your customers love the convenience of them. In fact, most of them prefer chatbots to their human counterparts.

When chatbots first took the business world by storm around 2016, it did not take long for them to fall into the category of novel technologies that never fulfilled their potential.

Fast-forward to 2023, and the chatbot renaissance is well underway. And it shows no signs of halting its progress this time around.

In this piece, we will show you the steps to build a chatbot that not only boosts sales but also the productivity of your people.

AI-powered chatbots offer more than just customer service

With a massive shift towards e-commerce over the last few years, consumers being hungrier than ever for superior customer service, and the rise of AI, the chatbots are back.

And they mean business.

These days, chatbots have become an essential tool not only for your customers but for internal communications and marketing, too.

And if your competitors are using them already, you are already two steps behind.

But the good news is that it’s never too late to get your own chatbot up and running. And today is the day you get a crash course in adding a new member to your team that could take your business growth to new heights.

Want to take your first steps to build a chatbot? Here are some reasons why you should.

5 Reasons building a chatbot is essential for your business

With the benefits of chatbots for business clear to anyone who has already deployed them, it’s worth looking at what they can do for your business, too. Chatbots can do it all, whether it is better brand loyalty, more sales, or customer service that puts a smile on their faces.

Here are ten reasons they have the potential to skyrocket your growth and impress your customers, old and new.

Around-the-clock support – You know what your customers love? 24/7 support. With chatbots, you can sleep knowing your customers get all the help they need. All the time.
More time for your team – Save your team from burnout and get maximum productivity. Chatbots take the lead on queries so your team can focus on high-priority tasks.
Direct messaging for sales – Social media is a booming marketplace for online retail. Chatbots also give your customers omnichannel support and drive sales by up to 67%.
Improved customer journeys – Your customers love smoother buying processes. Chatbots provide support, recommend products, and create buying journeys that remove obstacles to purchasing.
Multilingual customer support – With an Arabic chatbot like Habot, you can speak to your customers in their native language. This can do wonders for getting new customers and retaining them.

5 Steps to build a chatbot for your business

With the ability to build your own custom chatbots with simple drag-and-drop platforms like ours, you don’t have to be intimidated by any fancy technical terms or your lack of coding experience.

No-code platforms like ours make it easy for you to build your perfect chatbot by simply selecting from a range of templates that you can customize to your specific conversational needs.

Here’s how to start creating one of the most effective tools for business growth.

Step 1. Defining the purpose of your chatbot

The first thing you need to do when building a chatbot your customers will love is to decide what you want it to do. One of the best ways to define the goals for your chatbot is to ask a series of questions.

What are the most common issues your customers are facing in your business? Where will your chatbot do the most work for you? Do a deep dive and see where your queries are coming from.
Are you creating your chatbot for customer support? Enhanced customer experience? To generate more leads? All of them?
What features would be most beneficial to your business? Do you need support for your team? Do you need to qualify your leads or prevent carts from being abandoned?

By identifying your needs and goals, you can narrow the search for the type of chatbot best suited to your business.

And by doing that, you have taken your first steps to build a chatbot that transforms your operations.

Step 2. Where do you want your chatbot to be?

Omnichannel support is all good and well, but you must have your primary communication channel, whether your website is on social media or elsewhere.

Ensuring your bot can be easily integrated into your platform of choice is another of the crucial steps to build a chatbot, and the easier, the better.

On your website: Most chatbots can be easily integrated into your website and even on eCommerce platforms like Shopify or web hosts like WordPress, Wix, or GoDaddy.
On your social media: Integrating with apps like WhatsApp, LINE, Instagram, and Facebook Messenger gives you the ability to be where your customers are.

Wherever you decide to deploy your chatbot, you need to be sure that it is the place that will reach the majority of your potential or current customer base.

That being said, integration with multiple platforms will always give you another dimension and greater each with your chatbots, so be sure to check the number of integrations available to you.

Step 3. Knowing your customers

Your customers will undoubtedly have some things in common, and depending on your brand voice, they will expect your bot to speak a certain way.

An ice cream shop won’t use the same language as a law firm. So, your bot should always be true to your identity.

So, you need to find out who your customers are before you can design the responses they will get.

An excellent way to refine who those people are is to create something called a ‘customer persona.’

How did your customers find you?
Why are they getting in touch?
What are their expectations from your product or service?
Do you need to convince them chatbots are beneficial to their experience?
What languages do they speak?

With 80% of people online already interacting with a chatbot in some way, you can expect them to have a working knowledge of how to converse with them.

Your job is to ensure that you are saying the right things at the right time, which means putting in the time and the effort to understand them, their needs, and how best to talk to them.

Remember, your customers are a big part of why you are taking steps to build a chatbot in the first place.

Step 4. Designing your conversations

With the drag-and-drop functionality of chatbot building platforms, there is no need for any expensive developer costs or complicated backend work that you need to do.

All you need is to drag the blocks so that they create a sequence or ‘flow’ that makes sense and feels like a conversation.

When you start tailoring your chatbot’s responses, think of your chatbot as a person.

What kind of personality does it have?
What motivates it?
Does your chatbot have a backstory?

Giving it a sprinkle of personality will make your bot all the more engaging for your customers, especially once you have considered the kinds of people who will be talking to it.

You can then customize those responses to suit various situations and customer personalities.

Your introduction: What phrase will your bot use to introduce itself?
Your information: How will you use your bot to give and gather info?
Null responses: How does your bot respond to queries it does not understand?
Non-verbal responses: Let your customers know the bot is ‘busy’ after specific inputs
Success messages: Celebrate resolving a query with your customers with appropriate messaging

Step 5. Testing out your chatbot

Testing is one of the most essential steps to build a chatbot. Doing this removes any potential issues or glitches and ensures that responses work as they should.

User experience is super important when doing testing. Making sure you are getting maximum engagement and satisfaction from your customers will determine how much value it can bring your business.

Here is a quick checklist to test out your bot.

Test conversational flow by conversing with your bot. User greetings and critical use cases should be first. Then, you can move on to edge cases.
Run domain-specific tests and ask contextual questions. Imagine you are a customer asking them and seeing if your bot is giving the correct information about your products and services.
Check the response time. Your customers don’t want to wait longer than 2-3 seconds for a response. Try long and short questions to see how quickly it takes to reply.
Be aware of any broken links, issues with image display, and correct spelling and grammar to provide an exceptional user experience.
Test your bot on different operating systems, devices, browsers, and resolutions. Your users could be using a variety of each of these.

All done? Well, then, you are ready for launch!

Save time, boost sales, and beat the competition with our industry-leading Arabic chatbot platform

There is a big difference between a business that thrives and a business that simply survives. And the margins are small between success and failure.

Give your customers what they want most and speak to them in their native language with an intuitive and easy-to-use chatbot platform. Our no-code Arabic chatbot platform is the first of its kind.

With Habot, you get an AI-powered chatbot that you can build, test, and launch with just a few clicks.

The time to add a new member to your team is now.

Ask us how Habot can drive your sales numbers and give you ROI that changes the trajectory of your business.