How to Build an Addictive Dialogue Flow for Your Chatbot

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The best chat flows are precise, well mapped-out, and on-brand. Here are 7 tips to help you build absolutely addictive chatbot conversations.

Map out different types of dialogue flows

Your virtual agent is here to think about every which way a conversation could go down. To automate this process, make sure to plan for where your customer could get lost, or require a prompt. Think about what information you want to ask the customer for, but also build in prompts that allow them to easily click to select their preferred option. The more thoroughly this is done, the easier it will be to build dialogues later on.

Rhythm is it — even in chatbot conversations

Keep in mind that natural dialogue consists of short, long, and medium-length sentences. It’s important to vary your sentence lengths, but also try to keep your sentences short and punchy. A good rule to go by: your bot’s responses shouldn’t be longer than three lines of text on a mobile device.

Tie your chats into an omnichannel strategy

Consider and respect your user’s time investment into the chat. If a question can be answered in a few different ways, select the least complex and shortest one and go with that.

Another thing to consider with time investment is that the more time and energy a user has invested into a solution, the greater the pain of having to start over. Use escalation flows as well as CRM and backend integrations to ensure seamless hand-offs between channels and agents.

Remember your brand DNA

Anyone can write a chatbot dialogue. But composing the dialogue in a way aligns with your brand’s DNA — tone, style, and unique personality — is where the real challenge lies. With our multilingual virtual agents, you can adjust language settings for specific dialects and the level of formality in your virtual agent’s tone. Use these settings as a departure point for customized dialogues that speak your customers’ language in every way possible, including industry and target-group specific phrasing.

Personalize chat conversations to improve your customer experience

Customer satisfaction is increasingly tied to personalization. Begin by analyzing your historical data to pinpoint what your customers care about most. Then, customize your chat flows by fetching personalized data from your CRM or back-end systems, including location, display name, login status, and the type of device used. Don’t worry about your customers’ privacy, as Ultimate’s automation platform is entirely GDPR and SOC 2 compliant.

Discover how to measure the most important customer service metrics in the Ultimate Customer Support Academy.

Don't wait, escalate

Deflection is great, but not at any price: In some industries, like fintech or igaming, escalating immediately may be crucial to your brand identity and customer satisfaction. Depending on your industry and brand, different escalation strategies may work best.

Test your chatbot dialogues before (and after!) going live

Test your dialogues from your customers’ point of view before going live to find and improve any flaws in the dialogue flow that you may have missed. Testing will also allow you to collect data on your live conversations and improve the chat flows accordingly.

From staying on-brand to the right escalation strategy, to personalizing your customer experience: With these dialogue building tips in mind, you’ll have a virtual agent with a sparkling personality, ready and waiting to provide helpful answers to your customers in no time.

Happy scripting!

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