In this article, we’ll describe how to use Flow Builder to build automated, custom conversation flows for your customers.
This section includes the following topics:
- Creating a new flow
- Editing steps in a flow
- Inserting messages into a flow
- Managing a flow's language
- Deleting steps and flows
Creating a new flow
Each brand has a complete, working default flow that you can leave as-is. You can also edit some steps or insert new message steps to better meet your needs.
However, you may want to create a new flow from the ground up. Your flow can be as simple as a single step offering a customized greeting, or include multiple branches based on customer responses. To create a new flow from scratch, you’ll need to first delete the brand’s default flow.
By default, a flow’s static text elements – those Answer Bot messages that cannot be customized, such as the feedback and fallback flows – are created and displayed in your account's default Support language. You can also select one of Answer Bot's supported languages for these elements, as well as the default, out-of-the-box flow, and enable automatic translations for the customizable text elements. See Managing a flow's language for more information.
To create a new flow
- In Admin Center, click the Channels icon (
), then click Flow Builder in the left column.
- Locate the brand you want to create a flow for, and click Configure.
- If needed, select a language for your flow.
- In the Flow, click Add the first step.
- In the Configuration panel, use the Select action drop-down to choose the type of step you want to begin the flow and configure the step as needed
- Add the next step by clicking the Add a step icon (
), then follow the instructions in step 4, above.
- Repeat until you've added all of the required steps, then click Publish in the footer.
As you are building your flow, don't forget to use the Previewer to test how the conversation will be seen by your end users.
Editing steps in a flow
You may need to change your flow by editing or deleting steps. You cannot edit a step's type. However, you can edit some of the details in a step's configuration.
To edit a step in a flow
- Click the step you want to edit. Its details appear in the Configuration panel.
- Edit the elements you want to change:
- Displayed message (all step types): Update the text in the Bot says box.
- Options (Present options step): Update the options in the text box. To delete an option, click the trash can icon. To add an option, click Add an option.
- Suggested articles (Show Help Center articles step): To delete a suggested article, click … and select Delete. Use the Select article search box to add additional articles.
- Information collecting fields (Handoff steps): To delete a field, click … and select Delete. Use the Fields drop-down to add additional fields.
- Click Publish when you've finished making your changes.
Inserting messages into a flow
In some instances, you can add a message into the middle of an existing flow if needed.
To add a message step into a flow
- Hover over the connecting line between a message step and its subsequent step.
- Click the Add new icon (
).
- In the Configuration panel, use the drop-down menu to select Send message, then enter the message text.
- Repeat as needed, then Publish your updated flow.
Managing a flow's language
By default, the static text elements in a flow appear to your end users in your account's default language. You can, however, choose to display those text elements in any of the languages supported in Answer Bot. Additionally, you can enable automatic translation to present a conversational flow in the language an end user has selected in their browser.
For more information, see Managing languages in Flow Builder.
Deleting steps and flows
Deleting a step removes all subsequent steps from the flow as well.
To delete a step in a flow
- Click the step you want to delete. It opens in the Configuration panel.
- At the top of the Configuration panel, click the Trash can icon (
). If there are subsequent steps, click Delete steps in the warning box.
- Click Publish when you've finished making your changes.
38 Comments
Thomas Crosson Yeah I'm feeling we may end up doing something similar until this Product goes to market. The product thus far has HUGE potential and pretty excited to see this rolled out across all of our websites.
Thanks for your help too! =]
Clik Rogan as part of the collect data step in Flow Builder you can choose to capture "Name" (system field) which replaces the anonymous "Web User 123456" with their name in the various places.
Hey Mike Mortimer thanks for that! It worked!
Hi Mike Mortimer, I have a question regarding the data collection step. We have our flow builder setup with a data collection step to gather users information which is working properly when they end up on that step. The issue we're running into is when the flow presents the customer with a list of articles and they then select the Talk to a Human option, this skips the data collection step and routes the user directly to the agent. Is there any way to route this to the data collection step properly? At the moment on the flow builder seems to hit a dead end after the suggest article step, I'd like to make it easier for our agents by having the information collected beforehand every time.
Hey Mike,
I've got a couple of proserv customers who are looking at using Flow Builder for their needs however they have both come back to me with the same feedback.
They both reference the bot which is on Dan Murphy's website here: https://www.danmurphys.com.au/dm/home
The bot on here is very similar to what you've created with the Zendesk Flow Builder however it has more functions. When live chat is no longer available on this bot they are running, it allows the customer to still submit a ticket.
Both of these customers currently use the web widget and feel if they upgraded to using flow builder for a nicer/more personalized experience, that there are a few features that are missing and we're hoping to see if these might be on the road map at all for flow builder.
1. Ability to customize the messages more. i.e when the bot asks "was this helpful" and the yes no options appear, could this text be customizable so it's possible to make it more obvious that if you select no, it takes you to a chat or wherever from there. It's just not that obvious from a customer perspective
2. You can add name/email& custom fields... however no option to add a description field to capture a question before the customer is transferred to the agent on chat. If the customer selects no and gets all the way to chat, then most of the time what they want to ask will differ from the suggestion which has been served up. It would be nice to be able to offer a description field if the question for the human on chat differs, in the end, from the original. The reason for this is by the time the ticket is created for chat, the transcript could already be quite lengthy by the time agent gets to read it.
3. Both asking for the ability to be able to serve a ticket form as a last resort when chat is not available.
4. there's nothing to indicate that if they select to talk to a human... that chat is offline.
Don't shoot the messenger. Appreciate any feedback on this. :)
Looking for the answer to Ruben's question above also. We have hundreds of 'Web user' anonymous users being created and it's causing some havoc..... as we dont know if they have separately contacted us and their issues resolved....
Matt // Zingerat and Ruben, in the short term we're looking to introduce the name and email by default on the fallback experience to ensure this is captured. Longer term the plans are to make all experiences (including this fallback and feedback flows that aren't currently configurable) available for you to configure as well.
Amie B:
1. Covered above
2. What we suggest here is that the handoff message (as part of the transfer step) asks the user to provide a description. When the user replies, that reply would be then be visible as the most recent message in the history for the agent to respond to - this is cleaner and simpler and more conversational than having a "description" field.
3. Messaging is a new way of thinking - we're no longer forcing users to think about "channels". If the user has a question and they need to speak to a human, we connect them. We don't force them to "submit a ticket" and switch over to email. If a user chooses to provide their email so they can get notified when an agent replies, it's up to them. The most important part here is setting the right expectation around agent response time so users aren't left waiting around when an agent isn't available to reply quickly. The new re-engagement work which is still in the process of being rolled out, addresses this. https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/1260803148430-Enabling-continuous-conversations-to-re-engage-messaging-customers
4. Re-engagement above begins to address this as well, and we're also working on making the offline/online experience better and more configurable - stay tuned
As always, thanks everyone for your feedback, questions and context, it's hugely useful and valued 🙏🏻
Awesome, thanks Mike Mortimer.
Mind if I ask does 'in the short term' equal days, weeks, months or years?
Just trying to decide if we disable it while we await the improvement or not.... thanks.
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