This article is a step-by-step walkthrough of the steps required to get a conversation bot up and running in a Web Widget on your website or help center. It includes tasks for both a standard and advanced conversation bot.
A conversation bot is a dynamic, customizable bot that helps guide customers to a resolution. You can deploy a conversation bot to the messaging Web Widget, letting your bot offer 24/7 support on a website or help center.
You can create a conversation bot in any style that suits your organization, from a simple greeting that welcomes customers to your support center before handing them over to a live agent to a complex conversation bot that gathers customer data, routes conversations to specific agents, proactively notifies customers of updates or changes, and more.
This article includes the following steps:
- Step 1: Learn the anatomy of a conversation bot
- Step 2: Create a conversation bot
- Step 3: Configure a fully functional bot using a standard response
- Step 4: Design a more complex, customized bot using answers
- Step 5: Let the bot create answers with generative replies
- Step 6: Test and publish your bot
Step 1: Learn the anatomy of a conversation bot
Your conversation bot’s behavior is determined by how (and whether) you configure itsstandard response, customized answers and answer steps, or use advanced intents.
This section provides an overview of each of these elements:
The standard response
The standard response defines your bot’s basic behavior in response to the question a customer enters into the widget. You can use the default settings, customize them, and, in some cases, activate or deactivate them as needed.
The standard response includes the following configurable sections:
- Start of the conversation(required): The initial welcome message that greets your customers when they open a messaging conversation.
- If the bot can't understand a question (optional): An automatic response asking an end user for more information. This response can be triggered at any time during a conversation if the bot does not understand the end user's comment.
- If a question matches more than one intent(optional with the advanced AI add-on): If an end user's comment could match multiple intents, the bot can offer up to three intents to help accurately interpret the comment. When choosing a match, the bot looks at all possible intents, including those not associated with an answer.
- If there's no relevant answer(required): This response is triggered when there is no answer that matches the end user's question or comment, or an intent selected by the end user as part of the If a question answers more than one intent response, does not have an associated answer.
See Creating a conversation bot for your web and mobile channels.
Answers
Answers are customized responses to questions your customers may have. Creating answers is entirely optional – the standard response works just fine without them. However, they can provide personalized responses that help customers self-solve their issues, deflecting more support requests and freeing your agents to work on the more complex customer problems.
You create answers in bot builder, a click-to-configure tool for customizing more complex bots.Steps
Steps are the parts of an answer that determine how an answer responds to customer input. You combine these steps into answer flows during the answer creation process in bot builder. When a customer’s query triggers that answer, the bot displays the behavior defined by those steps.
You can use the following step types in your answer:
- Send message: Displays a piece of text to the customer during a conversation.
- Present options: Displays up to 10 preconfigured quick replies the customer can interact with during a conversation.
- Show help center articles: Presents up to six help center articles to the customer during a conversation.
- Add carousel: Displays up to 10 informational panels the customer can scroll through, each with a link to an external URL.
- Ask for details: Collects information from an end user during the conversation.
- Ask if question resolved: Asks your end users whether an answer resolves their support issue and offers response options they can choose from.
- Make API call: Presents external data in your conversation or pushes data into an external end-point.
- Transfer to agent: Escalates the conversation to an agent.
- Branch by condition: Adds conditional logic to an answer flow. You can use the logic to personalize a conversation based on an end user's data.
- Add business hours condition: Lets you use your schedule to branch the conversation.
Intents (advanced AI add-on)
Intents are available as part of the Advanced AI add-on. Eligible accounts can use them in a limited capacity without purchasing the add-on.
Intents are predetermined topics that represent customer questions and requests. They are drawn from a set of industry-specific topics developed by Zendesk using our anonymized customer service data.
Intents can be assigned to answers to help you save time and increase bot accuracy. When you assign an intent to an answer, the bot knows to show this answer whenever it identifies the intent in a conversation with a customer.
You can connect intents with answers in several ways, including:
- Applying suggested intents when creating answers, allowing you to build more effective conversation bots.
- Using intent suggestions that identify commonly asked but unanswered questions from customers to help you fill gaps in your bot’s knowledge.
Step 2: Create a conversation bot
Creating a conversation bot means you’re adding the ability to use the bot in a channel’s messaging configuration. As part of this process, you’ll configure branding and language settings.
To add a messaging bot
- In Admin Center, click Channels in the sidebar, then select Bots and automations > Bots.
- Click Manage bots.
- Click Create 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.
- Add a custom avatar (optional). The custom avatar replaces the default bot avatar.
- If you’re using multiple brands, use the drop-down to select a brand to apply to the bot.
- Use the Language drop-down to indicate the language your bot is created in.
- Click Create bot at the bottom of the page.
Step 3: Configure a fully functional bot using a standard response
Settings for the conversation bot’s standard response define the default responses to customer input in a live conversation. These responses can be activated or deactivated as needed and, in some cases, customized.
Configuring the standard response creates a fully functional bot you can publish and use without any other configuration. However, they can refer to custom answers if you have created any.
To configure your bot’s standard response
- In Admin Center, click Channels in the sidebar, then select Bots and automations > Bots.
- Click Manage bots and click the bot you want to work with.
- On the Behavior tab of the bot’s edit page, expand each section and update the responses you want to use:
- Start of the conversation, the bot’s initial response when a messaging conversation starts.
- If the bot can't understand a question, the bot’s default response when it cannot determine an answer that matches a customer’s comment.
- If a question matches more than one intent, the bot's response to a comment that matches more than one answer.
- If there's no relevant answer, the bot's response when the customer's comment does not match any answer.
- If you’re using only the standard response, click Publish bot to add it to your messaging channel. See Publishing a bot to a channel.
Step 4: Design a more complex, customized bot using answers
Answers tell a conversation bot how to best respond to customer questions through the Web Widget or mobile SDK. An answer addresses a single question your customers might ask about. You can build your own answer from scratch or use a pre-built answer template. If you have the Advanced AI add-on, you can use intents to help create and improve your answers.
An answer consists of the steps the bot takes in response to customer input. Each step represents a message the bot can show your customer during a conversation that addresses a single question your customers might ask. Answers are entirely optional but are incredibly useful for adding personalization and complexity to your customer interactions.
You create answers in the bot builder, a click-to-configure tool for customizing more complex bots.To create an answer for your conversation bot
- On the Answers tab of the bot’s edit page, click Create answer.
- Click Build your own answer, then click Next.
- Enter the Answer name. It should be a brief, clear description of the issue addressed by the answer, such as “Password reset,” “Request a refund,” or “Talk to a human.” Then click Next.
- Enter Training phrases. These phrases train your bot to evaluate and understand what information customers are looking for. See Training your bot below.
You can add up to 100 questions by clicking Add question at the bottom of the list. If you have the Advanced AI add-on, you can use intents in place of training phrases. See Using AI-powered intents with conversation bots for more information.
- Click Next. The answer opens in the bot builder, where you can build out the bot’s response.
- Click Add step and create the first step in the answer. Add additional steps to the answer as needed. You need to add at least one step to the answer.
- Click Preview to see how the answer will appear to your end users, then click Done when you’re satisfied with the answer.
- Click Publish bot to add it to your messaging channel. See Publishing a bot to a channel.
You can also add suggested intents to existing answers to improve question-answer matching and create an answer from a suggested intent that identifies possible holes in your bot responses.
See Adding suggested intents to answers and Creating answers based on intent suggestions.Step 5: Let the bot create answers with generative replies
Generative replies let you use AI-generated responses in your conversation bots to address questions from your end users. These responses use generative AI to evaluate articles in your linked help center, then use that knowledge to provide concise answers in conversations with your customers.
To turn on generative replies
- In Admin Center, click Channels in the sidebar, then select Bots and automations > Bots.
- Under Conversation bot, click Manage bots.
- Click the bot you want to use with generative replies, or create a new bot.
- In the Behavior tab, expand the section If the bot finds relevant articles.
- Select Generate a reply. If you’re creating a new bot, this option is selected by default.
When you select this box, any intents without an assigned answer setting will be updated to Generate a reply
- Click the Test bot button and enter phrases the bot can match to existing help center content, to view samples of replies your end users might receive.
- Click Publish bot to apply your changes.
Step 6: Test and publish your bot
Whether you are using the standard bot response or building a new bot with custom answers, you’ll need to test and publish that bot before it appears in any of your messaging channels.
You can test a new bot before publishing it to a live channel using the Test bot button. You can preview any unpublished changes to an existing bot as well.
To test a bot before publication
- Open the bot you want to update and make your edits, or create a new bot.
- On the bot’s edit page, click Test bot. The testing sidebar opens.
- Use the sidebar to start a conversation with the bot. To reset and start a new conversation, click the Reload icon ().
See Testing a conversation bot before publication.
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.
To publish a bot to a channel
- In Admin Center, click Channels in the sidebar, then select Bots and automations > Bots.
- Click Manage bots.
- Click the bot you want to publish.
Note: If you add a bot, as described above, the bot automatically opens in the bot builder.
- Make any changes to the flow, then click Publish bot.
- If the bot isn’t 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.