Testing the end user's messaging experience

When you create or update your messaging configuration for the Web Widget or mobile SDK channels, you can – and should – test the setup to experience messaging conversations from the end user's perspective.

The testing processes differ for a widget with a default messaging response and one with a conversation bot. In this article, we'll cover both scenarios.

This article includes the following sections:

• Testing a default messaging response
• Testing a conversation bot

Testing a default messaging response

When you're creating a Web Widget or mobile channel with the default messaging response, the preview panel displays a basic preview of how an interaction might appear to your customers. This is useful for getting a general idea about the customer experience, but doesn't provide a complete picture.

You can preview the full customer experience by launching a separate testing window. You can use the testing window at any point during the widget creation or editing process.

To test a default messaging response

1. Activate and configure a new Web Widget, or open the widget you want to update and make your changes.
2. At the top of the preview panel, click Test it now.

   

   The testing window opens.

3. Click the launcher at the bottom of the window and begin interacting with the widget, as if you were a customer.

   

   When you're done, you can close the window.

Testing a conversation bot

The bot builder's in-product previewer is a great way to get an idea of how your conversation bot works. However, it doesn’t show things like:

• What happens when a user types in a question
• System flows like “I didn’t get that”
• The handover experience to an agent
• How and when triggers run, including Out of Office and CSAT messaging triggers.

In this section, we’ll explain a number of ways you can test your conversation bot's behavior from initiating a conversation to closing a ticket.

• Testing a conversation bot before publication
• Testing a conversation bot in a live widget
• Testing a conversation bot in an unused widget
• Testing your conversation bot without exposing it to customers (Growth, Professional, and Enterprise plans)
• More testing tips

Note: When testing your conversation bot, real tickets will be created, so you may want to let your agents know that you’re testing it before you begin.

Testing a conversation bot before publication

You can preview a bot before publishing it to a live channel using the Test bot button. You'll also be able to preview any unpublished changes. You can test:

• Standard responses, such as greetings or fallback messages
• How the bot matches customer messages to answer intents
• Answer flow steps, including steps that make API calls, vary based on business hours, provide quick reply options, or collect data.
• Bot messages that include rich media, variables, or help center articles
• Transfers to agents, including conversations with real agents. Such conversations create real tickets in Zendesk Support.

To test a bot before publication

1. Open the bot you want to update, and make your changes by adding, deleting, or updating the bot's answers.
2. On bot’s edit page, click Test bot. The testing sidebar opens.

   

3. Use the sidebar to start a conversation with the bot. To reset and start a new conversation, click the Reload icon ().

Usage and reporting

Test conversations created using the Test bot button don't count toward your account's Monthly Active Users (MAU) and don't appear in related Explore reports or dashboards.

Limitations

You can't use the Test bot button to test the following:

• Answers that contain errors
• Proactive messages
• Automatic translation

Testing a conversation bot in a live widget

In many cases, you’ll need to test your bot in a widget that is already in use through a website, help center, or mobile SDK.

When testing changes to a bot in one of these live channels, those changes will be live to your customers as soon as they are published. To minimize exposing these changes to your customers, we recommend the following:

• Open the website or help center in an incognito/private browser window before publishing, then reload the page as soon as the new bot is published. Using an incognito or private browser allows you to start and view a conversation from the beginning, and having it ready to go before publishing minimizes the time it takes to test.
• Publish changes at a time that is usually quiet for your website or help center, to expose the changes to as few customers as possible before verifying the content.

To test a conversation bot on a widget currently in use

1. Open the bot you want to update, and make your changes by adding, deleting, or updating the bot's answers.
2. Open your website or help center in an incognito or private browser window.
3. Publish the updated bot.
4. In the private window, reload the page, then interact with the bot to experience its performance from a customer’s perspective.

Testing a conversation bot in an unused widget

Even if you are creating a new bot for a widget that isn’t currently embedded anywhere, it’s important to note that as soon as you enable messaging on a brand with an active help center – even if you haven’t yet published a custom bot – anyone visiting that help center will see the default response immediately. So again, we suggest testing this during a quiet period on your help center.

To test a conversation bot with a new widget on a help center

1. In Admin Center, click Channels in the sidebar, then select Bots and automations > Bots.
2. Configure the Web Widget and add it to your help center. The default response is visible to your customers as soon as you click Save settings on this page.
3. In a private browser window, navigate to your help center, reload the page, then interact with the bot to experience its performance from the perspective of a customer starting a new conversation.

When you’re done testing, if you do not want to continue offering the Web Widget for the time being, you must deactivate messaging at the account or brand level.

Testing your conversation bot without exposing it to customers (Growth, Professional, and Enterprise plans)

Some account plans have options for testing a bot without exposing it to customers, by creating a testing brand or using a sandbox.

If you are on a Growth or higher plan type, you are allowed to create multiple brands. You can create a brand with a help center specifically for testing purposes:

1. Create a brand to use as a testing environment, and add a basic help center to it.
2. Upgrade to bot-enhanced messaging and create your bot. If you want to use existing bot, you can clone it and activate it on the new brand.
3. Open a private browser window, and test the bot as described above.

Enterprise and higher account plans can use a staging sandbox to create a bot:

1. Follow the steps listed in Testing messaging in your sandbox > Adding web and mobile messaging to your sandbox.
2. Create and publish your bot, then test it in a private browser window, as described above.

More testing tips

There is some functionality, beyond the basic bot you’ve created, that we recommend testing early on:

• Starting and returning to a conversation
• Testing automatic translation

Starting and returning to a conversation

In messaging, we store the customer's conversation history so that customers can leave a chat and return later. Because of this, the bot is disabled once they’ve started speaking to an agent, which can make it difficult to test your bot.

To see a conversation as it appears initially to a customer

• Use an incognito or private browser window to start a conversation as a customer would. This way, you can see the conversation as it appears to a customer starting one for the first time. The conversation bot initiates a contact with the customer, after they’ve clicked the icon to open the widget.

When a customer returns to a conversation, even after a related ticket has been solved or closed, the bot does not initiate the conversation. Instead, the bot waits for the customer to send a message.

To see a conversation as it appears to a returning customer

1. In a private or incognito window, start a conversation as a customer would. Follow the conversation through agent handoff, and have an agent change the related ticket status to solved.
2. Close the private browser window.
3. Open the private browser window again, making sure to use the same browser, and without clearing your cache.
4. Enter a message, and note the difference in how the bot responds.

Testing automatic translation

Automatic translation allows agents to communicate with customers even if they are using different languages. The translation feature is enabled in the Agent Workspace. You can see how automatic translation works from both the agent and customer perspectives. See Supporting multilingual bots and Translating conversations in the Zendesk Agent Workspace for more information.

To test automatic translation

1. Create your bot, as described in the sections above, ensuring autotranslation is enabled.
2. Change your browser language to the language you want to preview in. You can use a plugin like the Locale Switcher extension for Chrome.
3. Open your bot and refresh the page. Note that this won’t work if you already have a conversation with an agent open.