How Long Does it Take to Create a Chatbot?

However long it takes to create a chatbot, the fact remains that chatbots are the future on online business and the significant improvement your business needs.

The time it will take to create chatbot is dependent on many factors. A chatbot can be created within 5-10 minutes, and it can also take up to 8 weeks in some cases.

Some chatbot builders already have chatbot templates for every kind of business that have been created already. This makes the process of designing it to suit your specific needs quick.

A very simple chatbot on Facebook Messenger can be done easily within minutes. These kinds of chatbots are basic and may encounter certain issues if user queries become complex.

In most cases, chatbots that are created within minutes cannot handle complex user queries. They are merely for the simplest of tasks that you do not want to bother yourself with as you focus your energy more on the harder stuff.

You may begin to wonder why it might take up to 8 weeks or more to create a chatbot. However, there are some factors why it takes long to create a chatbot.

Factors that Influence the Time it Takes to Create a Chatbot

It may take a week to create a chatbot for Business A and then a month to build that of Business B.

There are factors why that is, and you will learn some of the major reasons why the development stage takes longer in some cases than in others.

From the framing stage up until the launch date, chatbot creation time differs. Here are some factors that influence the timeframe in bot creation.

Chatbot Builder

The first factor why the time it takes to create a chatbot differs in is the chatbot builder. Some chatbot builders are faster than others when building and designing a chatbot.

As good as chatbots can be, they can also mar your business if they are not well-designed. Chatbots can frustrate users and misbehave if enough time is not taken to build them carefully.

Chatbots that are rushed are more likely to crash. Therefore, most chatbot builders usually take their time to carefully programme and test bots before it reaches its launch stage.

However, some chatbot builders already have bot templates created.

For instance, some builders have created a chatbot for restaurants, for supermarkets, movie streaming platforms, and many others.

These chatbots have been made as templates. You as a business owner then find one that falls under your kind of business, and it is then designed to suit your preference.

These kinds of chatbots do not take too long again. Although they may still take a fair amount of time, but compared to starting from scratch, it will be faster.

There are many chatbot builders in existence today, and in your quest to have a bot, you must use one that will give you the best.

For example, Zebrabuzz gives you multiple options. Whether you want a template or a chatbot created from scratch, it is all up to you.

Therefore, you how long it will take to create a chatbot for your business is in your hands.

Type of Chatbots and How It Influences How Long it takes to create a chatbot

Another factor that influences how long it will take to create a chatbot is the type of chatbot you want to create.

There are different types of chatbot in existence today. While more are still being created and developed, chatbots are divided into three.

They are:

Decision- Tree or Rule-Based Chatbots

Intellectually Independent Chatbots

AI-Powered Chatbots

Some may be familiar with these kinds of chatbots already. However, for the sake of the reader who isn’t, we will give a little breakdown of these chatbots.

There are some classifications of chatbots that divide them into two; rule-based and intellectually independent chatbots.

However, artificial intelligence has made some bots more than just intellectually independent. While the other two kinds of bots follow a specific set of rules, AI-Powered bots more or less make their own rules.

Decision-tree or rule-based chatbots are the kind of bots you can make within 10 minutes. These chatbots are programmed like flow-charts; conversations are mapped out.

For example, a few multiple-choice questions are asked by the chatbot, and you choose one of the options, which then lead you to one with fewer options and so on.

As they are simple and basic, it does not take too long or too much to create a chatbot of this kind.

You can make one within 10 minutes and complete and launch it within a week.

Intellectually independent chatbots are also rule-based but more advanced. They are advanced because they adapt to the user’s inputs through machine learning.

These chatbots know how to respond by learning from the keyword inputs of your users and customers.

That is to say that your chatbot begins to learn from the keywords of users by itself and over time, adapt to them and begins to know how to respond to questions that are similar but structured differently.

They are a little bit more advanced and may take up to two weeks from the framing phase up until the launching stage.

AI-Powered bots are the most intelligent of the lot; these chatbots know how to respond like humans. Bots like Zebrabuzz, for example, are AI-Powered.

Ai-Powered bots feature software like natural language processing, semantic comprehension, and machine learning.

As they are complex, the process of making them could stretch up to 8 weeks and even more in some cases.

estimation of time and cost to build a chatbot application

Functions of the Chatbot

The features a chatbot will have also play a part in influencing the amount of time it will take to create it.

Chatbots have a lot of functions they perform to improve a business. Therefore, the more the functions you want your bot to have, the more time it will take to create the chatbot.