How To Build A Chatbot From Scratch

With the hype and giddiness surrounding bots, you will be hard-pressed to find someone who does not know a thing or two about them nowadays. The industry is a fascinating one, and you will begin to wonder how to build a chatbot from scratch.

There are so many things to consider before deciding to have a chatbot. Yes, they may be all the rage today, and the future of online marketing but you need to be informed.

Studies confirm only about 1% of businesses that make use of chatbots are using them to full capabilities. What do you think happened to the other 99%?

Most of the losses and disappointments that arise are not because the bots are incapable. Usually, it is because business owners did not take the time to find out more about the industry. It could also be because of the chatbot builder you use among many others.

While you can allow an effective chatbot platform like Zebrabuzz build for you, you also need to know how to build a chatbot from scratch.

Why Should You Build a Chatbot from Scratch?

There are two ways you can get a chatbot; either pay someone to do it for you or do it yourself.

There are many chatbot builders in the market today that are effective in building the chatbot of your dreams.

The chatbots most builders offer are already ready-made in the form of templates. They will be designed to suit your needs, expectations, and goals.

However, if you do not have faith in someone doing it for you, and you want to build a chatbot from scratch, there are opportunities to do so.

Before jumping right in, why should you build a chatbot from scratch?

Asides the reasons why chatbots are important to a business, there are a couple of benefits you can get from developing it on your own.

• Low or No Costs
• Designing to Suit Exactly what you want
• Able to Edit Features at Any Time

Low or No Costs

When you build a chatbot from scratch, you either accrue no costs or very little. Compared to what you may likely spend when a bot builder or contractor builds your bot, doing it yourself can be shrewd on your finances.

Most times, you spend absolutely nothing when you build a chatbot from scratch – no costs at all. However, you may need to spend a little bit when it comes to using some frameworks to build.

Nonetheless, if you are looking to save up some few dollars here and there, building you bot on your own is a very smart decision to make.

Designing to Suit Exactly what You Want

Although custom made chatbots are brilliant, sometimes they may not give you the exact bot of your dreams.

Some chatbot builders are good at what they do so you would likely get what you want. However, sometimes nothing comes close to doing your thing yourself.

When you build a chatbot from scratch for your business, you have total control to make your bot to the specifications you desire.

Every little detail is intentional and important. You create your chatbot to your specifications. Building a chatbot yourself means you are at liberty to make the bot into the bot of your dreams.

Bringing it to life the way you imagine is already in your hands. All you need do is dedicate time into making it work.

Able to Edit Features at Any Time

Building your chatbot from scratch on your own also means you can alter it at any point in time easily.

There is no need to wait for anyone to go through the optimisation and evaluation process for you. Customising your bot is made very easy when you build it on your own from scratch.

You can evaluate your bot to see what is wrong, what customers think about it, the kind of questions it has been unable to answer, and many more.

Using the answers to these questions, you can proceed to optimise the bot to do exactly what the customers want if it has not been doing that as well as making it able to answer the questions it had trouble answering.

Besides, you may also find out a particular feature is unnecessary, and customers do not need or use it.

You can remove it at any point in time and add it back at a later date if the need arises for it. All of these will be at zero costs.

How to Build a Chatbot from Scratch

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Although you still need a platform to help you build a chatbot from scratch, you must ensure you use a non-coding framework.

Therefore, if you want to build yours, here are four key ways to go about it.

Pinpoint the Opportunities in an AI-Powered Chatbot

To get you started, you must, first of all, identify the opportunities available for an AI-Powered chatbot. Artificial intelligence makes it all easier and better.

Therefore, you need to think about the areas of your business that can be automated or augmented by AI solutions.

For a specific kind of work activity, use the following criteria to consider AI solutions:

• Data Complexity
• Work Complexity

The analysis from the above leads to four basic kinds of activity models; these are:

• Innovation
• Efficiency
• Expert
• Effectiveness

Understand your Customers’ Expectations and Goals

What do you think your customers are expecting from you? What do they want?

Some customers want an improvement in your customer services. Some want speedy and efficient responses to queries, while some want first-hand offers and updates from you.

Therefore when you build, with the knowledge of what they want in mind, you build to suit their desires.

The features you add and use are those that are aimed at giving your customers what they want.

Designing a Conversation

What next? Designing the way your chatbot simulates conversations. The pattern of chatbot conversations are in two parts:

Structured or Close-Ended: Follows a specific pattern. The conversation is usually mapped out. It is more like a flow chart – one leads to another and so on.

Unstructured or Open-Ended Conversations: It is the opposite. No laid out pattern.

However, because it is unstructured does not mean the chatbot will not moderate conversations.

Although your client is free to say what they want, ensure while scripting the conversation, the topic is close or still the same with what the chatbot is equipped for.

For instance, a structured conversation will most likely involve multiple-choice answers in which customers can choose from instead of asking or typing it out.

However, when unstructured, and the customer is at liberty to ask a question, ensure the questions the customer can ask is centred on what your chatbot can do.

Use Non-Coding Platforms

While building, ensure you use platforms that do not require coding.

Although time-consuming, it can be fun when you build a chatbot from scratch. There are several opportunities to explore. What are you waiting for?

You can also save up time, money, and stress by using AI-Powered chatbots like Zebrabuzz to get started into the chatbot industry.