This article includes the following topics:
About bot-enhanced messaging
Creating a bot means you can use advanced automation and customization options in your messaging configuration. The bot's behavior is determined by its answers. Answers are sequences of steps, or actions, the bot uses to respond to questions your customers may have. Answers are created in Flow Builder, the click-to-configure tool for customizing more complex bots. See Building a bot using answers for more information.
Messaging bots are listed on the Bots page in Admin Center. The Bots page displays any bots you’ve created, as well as basic information about them including a name, status (live or draft), and the channel(s) connected to it.
From the Bots page, you can add a bot, configure the bot settings, and open a bot to view, edit, or add to its answers and greeting behavior.
Upgrading to bot-enhanced messaging
When you initially activate messaging for a Web Widget or mobile channel, you can choose to upgrade to bot-enhanced messaging as part of configuring the default messaging response. Alternatively, you can choose to return to the widget’s Responses tab to activate it at a later time. In this section, we'll describe the latter.
To upgrade from the default messaging response to a bot
- In Admin Center, click
Channels in the sidebar, then select Messaging and social > Messaging.
- Click the name of the channel you want to edit. The widget’s edit page opens.
- Click the Responses tab.
- At the bottom of the page, click Add a bot.
Note that upgrading a bot as described here does not disable the default messaging response. You need to publish the bot to enable it. Until then, the default messaging response remains active.
Creating a new bot
Creating a bot means you’re adding the ability to use the bot in a channel’s messaging configuration. Until you add a bot to a specific messaging channel and publish it, the default messaging response remains active for that channel.
To add a messaging bot
- In Admin Center, click
Channels in the sidebar, then select Bots and automations > Bots.
- Click Add bot at the top of the page.
- Enter a name for the bot. This name is displayed at the top of the widget where the bot is deployed.
- If you’re using multiple brands, use the drop-down to select a brand to apply to the bot.
- Click Create bot at the bottom of the page.
A basic bot is created, and is opened to its Answers tab. This bot remains in draft mode until it is published and connected to a messaging channel.
Publishing a bot to a channel
Whether you are using the out-of-the-box bot, or building a new bot with custom answers, you’ll need to publish that bot before it appears in any of your messaging channels.
Publishing a bot to a channel means that any other messaging response – either the default messaging response, or another bot – is removed from that channel, and replaced with the newly published bot.
Until you publish a bot:
- If you have not yet published a bot, the default messaging response remains active.
- If you have published a bot, the last published version of that bot remains active.
- Any unpublished answers remain , until they’re published or altered.
Both out-of-the-box and customized bots are published through Flow Builder.
To publish a bot flow to a channel
- In Admin Center, click
Channels in the sidebar, then select Bots and automations > Bots.
- Hover over the bot you want to work with and click Edit in Flow Builder.
Note: If you are adding a bot, as described above, the bot automatically opens in Flow Builder.
- Make any changes necessary to the flow, then click Publish.
- If the bot is not currently published to a channel, the channel selection screen opens. Select one or more channels to connect to your bot and click Publish to selected channels.
- If the bot is already live on a channel, it is updated in that channel with any changes made to it.
Cloning a bot
You can create a copy – or clone – of an existing bot, then use it as the starting point for building a new bot.
To clone an existing bot
- In Admin Center, click
Channels in the sidebar, then select Bots and automations > Bots.
- Hover over the bot you want to update and click the Options icon (
), then select Clone.
The bot is copied and added to the end of your bot list, given the same name as the original bot and appended with (copy).
After you’ve cloned the bot, you can build it by adding, editing, or deleting its answers as needed.Deleting a bot
If you are no longer using a bot, and do not plan on using it in the future, you can delete it.
To delete a bot
- In Admin Center, click
Channels in the sidebar, then select Bots and automations > Bots.
- Hover over the bot you want to update and click the Options icon (
), then select Delete.
The bot is removed from the bot list. This action cannot be undone.
Updating general bot settings
You can update the following general settings for a bot:
- Name
- Brand (if multiple brands are enabled on your account)
- Channel connection
To update a bot’s name and brand settings
- In Admin Center, click
Channels in the sidebar, then select Bots and automations > Bots.
- Hover over the bot you want to update and click Settings.
- In the General tab, update the Name and Brand as needed.
- Click Save.
The process for connecting a bot to a channel varies slightly, depending on whether the bot is Live (already connected to a channel), or still a Draft (not connected to a channel).
A bot must be connected to one or more messaging channels before it can be published and made available to your end users, and each channel can only be connected to a single bot.
To connect a bot to a channel
- In Admin Center, click
Channels in the sidebar, then select Bots and automations > Bots.
- Hover over the bot you want to update and click Settings.
- In the General tab, scroll down to the Channels section.
- If the bot is a Draft, you’ll see the channels available for connection:
Click the checkbox to select the channel(s) you want to connect to the bot.
-
If the bot is currently Live in a channel, you’ll see the currently-connected channel(s), as well as any other channels available for connection:
Update the channels selections as needed, using the checkboxes.
Note: If the selected channel already has a bot connected to it, that bot will be disconnected from the channel and replaced with this new bot.
- If the bot is a Draft, you’ll see the channels available for connection:
- Click Save.
Managing bot language settings
You can select a single language for a bot, or configure it to speak in multiple languages for an improved customer experience.
For more information, see Managing languages for a bot.
49 Comments
Is there any reporting available around what inquiries didn't resolve the issue for the customer when using AnswerBot? We'd like to be able to capture this information so we can add it to our Help Center articles.
Same as Jon, a custom avatar will do like the company's logo or the brand being used for the widget. We're also looking at the Shrek avatar lol!
How hard would it be to implement a Shrek avatar?
Just kidding... I think the request (in our case at least) would be to add any sort of custom avatar from a picture. Maybe a company logo or an agent's face. Something like that. Shrek may be applicable to some companies.
@... When will it be possible to customize the feedbackflow? The automatic translation does not match our communication style (eg. the knowlegde is power?? line). By the way the option to transfer to an agent is missing in that automatic feedback. The only choice is to start over or rephrase the question...
The team and I are attempting to configure this now. The main issue we see is that where we have departments handling different business components (sales, support, billing) there's not a way to hand off to a particular department.
I may want to have a certain widget location be handled by a different agent as well (on a sales page/form for instance) .
Are there any immediate plans to allow the flow builder to send chats to particular departments, or is that handled via a different piece of functionality? Thanks!
Hi Jon,
As of the moment, there is no native way to add the step "request a callback" in flow builder, but we understand your need for this functionality so I will be marking your comment as Product Feedback.
We truly value customer feedback and your voice and votes in the product feedback topics in the community help influence future Zendesk functionality.
Utilizing different bots depending on the location on your app is not possible not unless you are going to utilize different brands with their corresponding Messaging widgets.
Hi Ricardo,
It's not possible for agents to interfere with customers that is currently on a bot flow.
Hi Raphael,
Natively, it will not be possible for answer bot to extract articles from another brand. However, you can utilize the Make an API call steps to extract those needed articles. But it won't be automatically extracted depending on the key words your customer have provided. It will just be contained on that particular step.
Hi, Not able to do chatbot on social media correctly. I need a way to capture the same as web chat minimum data, email, and full name, If somebody has experience with using bots on Social media conversational channels please help
We would like to provide an option to request a call back and then gather information using ticket fields. Is there a way to do this?
The flow would be Talk to a human > Request a callback > Please provide the following information: "Issue, Phone #, etc" (using fields) > Create ticket and then we could tag the ticket and create a callback view.
Is there a way to change the name of the answerbot to something else?
@... Hi Daniel, thanks for the update. Is it possible that the 9 month roadmap for Flow Bilder is shared. So it's clear to us what's coming?
Thank you for reaching out to Zendesk Support.
In regards to your concern, yes it is possible to add more than 500 Answer Bot resolutions to your plan. Kndly check our article, About Answer Bot resolutions for more information about this.
Thank you and have a wonderful day ahead!
Kind regards,
Is there a possibility to avoid answerbot to plug an external bot ? Have you some links to share about that ?
Hi Trey,
Flow Builder only works on the new Web SDK today and it does require you to enable messaging and making the upgrade to agent workspace.
Just to clarify, if we want to enable messaging so we can use Flow Builder capabilities with Answer Bot, do we have to use the messaging feature or can we just use Flow Builder?
We already use Answer Bot and would just like the enhanced functionality; we're not ready to use messaging with agents at this time. Thanks!
Hey Jordan,
It doesn't look like this is possible at this time, however, our Product Managers are looking to have this functionality available in the future.
Let us know if you have any other questions!
@...
Thank you for reaching out. Some default texts are English-Only (also cannot be changed in English) so these should be localized in other languages. The page itself is ok to be in English.
Regards,
Hey @...
Shiyu from the Zendesk product team. When you speak of localisation, are you referring to localizing the entire flow or only certain messages inside a flow. Thanks
¡Hola Natalia, muchas gracias por tu pregunta!
Lamento mucho informar que no es posible modificar el mensaje que menciones. Está codificado en el sistema y no se puede editar. Es un mensaje automático que se envía después de preguntar si el Bot ha sido de ayuda, y el cliente responde que sí.
Pero esto es una muy buena sugerencia. Le puedo recomendar crear un Feedback Post en nuestra comunidad. Puede explicar su escenario y mientras más tracción tenga este post, más oportunidades existe de que nuestro equipo de Desarrollo decida implementarlo en el futuro.
¡Espero que esto haya sido de ayuda!
Anton Verhelst
If you are talking about the Zendesk Answerbot - it exists in two different forms currently. Legacy and through Messaging / Flow builder.
For the legacy version here are instructions to turn it off: https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408846786714-Disabling-Answer-Bot
For messaging / flow builder: https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408829224858-Disabling-messaging-for-web-and-mobile-channels#topic_wdl_2lp_mrb
and
https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408838909210-Using-Flow-Builder-to-create-bot-flows#topic_vnd_rcy_fnb
For marketplace bots these are disabled in admin > apps > manage
Hi,
Is there a way to change the avatar for the Answer Bot?
Hi, Team!
Working on creating flows now and I'm a little stuck.
I only have two options for the form:
When I type in "Order ID", nothing populates to choose from. Any ideas?
Miranda Burford
Plus one on being able to add a custom avatar to the Bot - it was the first thing my team asked when I did the demo - we wanted something like this ;-)
Hello @...,
In this scenario, with Flow Builder, we cannot use external bots.
You would need to use Answer Bot because the integration is built around it.
Thanks @.... That's good to know! 🤣
- Miranda.
@... - Chiming in on the comment from @..., for the same reason we would be interested in using placeholders to provide the language translation in the register we are using with our end users. And so, we would be interested as well in what the 9-month roadmap will have in store for us.
Hi there, If we have 500 Answer bots/month in our plan, can we add more? Can we get a cost for that?
Could you make the bot start before an audio or an image sent? Unfortunately, currently, if customers send an audio or an image via WhatsApp, the flow does not start. Could you include an improvement like this?
Hi Marcel,
We are looking into ways to improve agent routing with Flow Builder on the 9 month roadmap. In the meantime, you may be able to achieve what you need by configuring data capture as part of the agent transfer step. For example, you could create a drop-down ticket field that has the values of your example, "sales", "support" and "billing" and then you can set up routing rules so that messaging conversations with those ticket field values go to the appropriate agent group.
I hope that helps!
Mis siguientes preguntas son estas ..
quedo atenta a una pronta respuesta :
flow builder
1.-Se pueden cambiar las frases parametizadas ( Un ejemplo en ves de decir -- hablar con un humano yo quisiera poner-- hablar con un especialista)
2.- Existe manera que al cerrar el bot no quede como tikcet
3.- calificación disponible todo el tiempo en ves de al ultimo
4.- enviar encuesta de satisfacción y cerrar chat después de inactividad.
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