Here's a quick rundown of the most important things you should know about chatbots and how to create one.
How chatbots work
You can use chatbots for many things, but we think the best and most effective way to use chatbots are to engage with visitors, asking questions that qualify them to schedule meetings with your team or chat with them further.
After answering some questions, their answers determine whether they’re offered a time to schedule with your team or the opportunity to chat live with them.
We understand that personalization leads to better engagement in your visitors' experience. You can create a different chatbot for each experience your visitors may have, according to their needs and your business objectives. You can also create one chatbot with multiple paths, taking your visitors through the best interactions for them with conditional routing.
This allows you to customize their experience seamlessly, providing the most effective messaging for that specific audience under the given circumstances. It also raises the likelihood of identifying the right prospects for your team to engage with as high-quality leads.
Step 1: Create your chatbot
You can create as many chatbots as you like for different pages on your website.
You can access your chatbot builder by going to Chatbots on the left → Create chatbot button.
Start from scratch: You'll start building your chatbot with a blank canvas.
Use a template: Choose chatbot one of our many, ready-made templates. The correct template saves time by providing an example chatbot you'll adjust according to preference.
Duplicate an existing chatbot: If an already-existing chatbot is similar to what you're wanting, you can duplicate that chatbot and tweak it to suit your preferences. Click the three dots on the right-hand side of that specific chatbot and select Duplicate.
Learn more about building a conversation
Step 2: Build your chatbot
Build a chatbot
Drag and drop interactions into the chatbot's column in the order you prefer.
Figure 1: Add an interaction to your chatbot builder
You have many interaction options for your chatbot, allowing you to:
- Ask questions to qualify visitors
- Send follow-up questions depending on their answer, to personalize the experience further
- Offer scheduling or live chat to qualified visitors, based on their answers
Routing your interactions
You can route your interactions by choosing conditions and deciding which interaction they should see next.
You can use the routing map to view your interactions visually, creating and connecting the routing rules to different interactions.
Figure 2: Route to interactions using the routing map
You can also add or edit routing rules on the Routing tab for each interaction.
Figure 3: Route to interactions based on rules, using the routing tab
You can get really specific about the routing logic you want. The logic can depend on how your visitor answers the current question or a previous one. You can also base the logic on a contact field OnceHub already saved to their contact record (for instance, the Company size field).
Learn more about routing your interactions
Offer scheduling with your chatbot
Your chatbot can identify the people your team should speak to further and offer scheduling to them. Once they qualify, route them to a Schedule interaction.
The entire scheduling experience takes place as they chat to the chatbot.
You can add scheduling from the Actions tab.
Figure 4: Add scheduling to your conversation
Offer live chat with your chatbot
If you want your high-quality leads to get in touch with you as possible, live chat can provide the experience your visitors desire while reducing your time to engagement.
Once you qualify visitors through the chatbot conversation, you can choose the right time to offer live chat to them. This way, people seriously interested in your product can ask questions and move to the next level in your funnel.
The entire live chat experience takes place as they chat to the chatbot.
You can add live chat from the Actions tab.
Step 3: Configure assignment for your team
In the Assign tab, you can assign new contacts to team members. This means they'll be the owner of that contact in their Activity stream.
1) Assign to a specific team member. If you select multiple people, they'll be assigned the contact based on round robin distribution.
2) If you offer scheduling, you can assign the contact to the team member who received the booking.
Figure 5: Assigning a team member
Step 4: Preview your chatbot
To see a preview, click on the eye icon at any time as you're building your chatbot. You can preview everything as your audience would experience it.
Figure 6: Preview your chatbot
Step 5: Publish and share your chatbot
Publish your chatbot
Once you're happy with your interactions and routing, you can publish your chatbot by toggling it on.
Figure 7: Publish your chatbot
Share your chatbot
Select the Share tab.
Figure 8: Share your chatbot
1. Share as a link
You can share your chatbot as a standalone page which requires no website. Simply copy the link and send it to whomever you like.
2. Share as a page
You can create a standalone page and add a chatbot to it. This option allows complete customization of your chatbot so that you can match it to your branding. Once you have customized the page, you can simply click on Get page URL at the bottom of the screen.
3. Embed on your website
Embedding your chatbot allows you to change the design of your chatbot. Get the code at the bottom right of the screen. You can paste the embed code in the admin area of your site, on whichever page(s) you'd like the chatbot to appear.
More resources to help with chatbots
- Browse the chatbot articles: For those who like to read everything ;)
- Integrate OnceHub with Zapier: Track your chatbot campaign effectiveness by sending triggered updates to a third-party app.
- Hire professional services: Our expert team members can help you configure everything quickly and correctly.