Step-by-Step Guide for Chatbot Conversation Design [Free Template]

So you’ve probably heard the news that you’re being replaced by a chatbot. Good!

Now you have more time to do other important things, like chatbot conversation design. 

Why should you care? 

• 77% of customers say chatbots will transform their expectations of companies in the next five years
• 68% of customers said that they’d had positive interactions with customer service bots in the past
• 55% of consumers are more likely to do business with a company if they could text them.
• In 2022, companies will save $8 Billion with enterprise chatbot solutions.

Obviously, chatbot marketing is a MASSIVE growth opportunity, with no signs of slowing down. 

Zuckerberg himself has said that messaging is the foundation of Facebook’s future. If Facebook’s Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger integration wasn’t a clue, you should be paying attention to chat messaging apps.

What Is Conversational Design?

Chatbot conversation design is a way to guide the chatbot interaction using anticipatory and suggestive questions and answers. 

The best practice for this is to use a chatbot with a live operator takeover option to supplement your chatbot sequence. 

The next best practice to follow is to use a visual chatbot builder. 

Doing this allows you to see the conversational flow or “tree” and also take advantage of any Facebook Messenger templates. 

When you sign up for Customers.ai, you are given the option to start a chatbot from scratch or utilize a template. 

How Do You Make A Chatbot Conversation?

You make a chatbot conversation by creating a diagram of your chatbot conversational flow. 

Start with a greeting message, ask a question, provide multiple choices for answers, and mockup what your chatbot will say in response to each answer. 

Whether this is your first try at designing a chatbot conversation or if you are a seasoned chat blasting pro, Customers.ai has you covered with this step-by-step guide for chatbot conversation design. 

Unicorn Level FREE Resource: Chatbot Conversation Design Guide

This fantastic tool from the Customers.ai Chat Marketing Master Class covers all the bases to create a mind-blowingly effective chatbot conversation design. 

Grab your copy of our chatbot conversation design guide and let’s start your pre-qualifying, lead gen and nurture, customer serenading chatbot conversation design today! Here’s how to do it in a few simple steps. 

Chatbot Conversation Design Guide Step #1: Know Your Brand Persona

Start your chatbot conversation design and ROI-quadrupling adventure by considering your brand’s voice or tone. Make the chatbot visually appealing and customized by adding your brand elements and your custom logo.

What’s your persona? Let that shine through as you customize a template or craft a chatbot from scratch. 

The next thing is to ask yourself, what is your goal? 

Chatbot Conversation Design Step #2: What Is Your Chatbot Designed For? 

You must have a goal in mind for your chatbot, and you can use that purpose to shape your chatbot conversation design and include a CTA. 

Your chatbot masterpiece might serve for one or more of the following: 

• Lead collection
• Customer service
• Lead qualification
• Educational resource
• Lead nurture/engagement

Or are you getting strategic with instant ROI driving direct response marketing campaigns?

When you click the “Step 2” tab in the ‘Chatbot Conversation Design Guide’ you will see some tips on how to start drafting your chatbot conversation design. 

At the bottom is “Chatbot agent brand and tone of voice” which asks you to rate a scale of 1-10 how professional or casual your brand is. 

Are you all business and no fun, exuberantly entertaining, or somewhere in between? 

This is a more in-depth look and elaboration of Step #1. 

Extremely important and insightful for even the DIY chatbot conversation designer. 

Chatbot Conversation Design Step #3: Choose Your Channels 

Where do you want your chatbot to live? Don’t just stick to one channel! Go Multi-Channel with Customers.ai’s OmniChatⓇ chatbot. 

Harness the cost-reducing, customer-inducing power of deploying the same chatbot autoresponder and drip sequence across various messaging platforms: SMS, Website, Facebook Messenger, Instagram Messenger, and more! 

Choose one of the following six options: 

• Chat on your website
• SMS text marketing opt-ins
• Facebook page send message button
• Facebook posts that DM to commenters
• Instagram story mentions
• Instagram DM

Once you’ve logged into your Customers.ai OmniChatⓇ dashboard, head over to the “Chatbot” menu to get started and follow the prompts to select your chatbot’s channels. 

But before getting ahead of yourself, continue through the Chatbot Conversation Design Guide until you have collected all of the information you need. 

Chatbot Conversation Design Step #4: What Lead Info Are You Capturing? 

Once you’ve got a lead in your chatbot magic funnel, what kind of information do you want to capture for your lists and remarketing? 

Here are some ideas to choose from that are all super easy to accomplish using a good chatbot conversation design.

• Email
• Phone
• Address
• Company name
• Customer question

It ultimately depends on your unique sales process and internal workflows.

The fact that you are interested in using a chatbot for lead gen is telling that you probably want their email, phone, and perhaps company name. 

However, the order of priority matters. If there is one piece of info you must have to follow-up at all, such as email, come out swinging with that question right away. 

Whether you have a Facebook retargeting strategy that you’d like to make more conversational (and profitable!) or an email list to build out — chatbots are your new best friend. 

Customers.ai makes chatbot conversation design easy. With our advanced visual chatbot builder, you can choose from blocks of dialogue as a foundation for your custom chatbot conversation design. 

Or perhaps you’re interested in pre-qualifying leads. You might try a chatbot conversation design similar to this example: 

These Facebook Messenger templates are all readily available to you within your Customers.ai OmniChat dashboard. 

Chatbot Conversation Design Step #5: Are You Using Paid Ads? 

It would be unwise not to. Nothing can compare or beat the 100% conversion rate and low CPCs of Click-to-Messenger ad campaigns. 

Once you get that prized opt-in, which is astoundingly easy with Facebook Messenger and a Customers.ai autoresponder, there is so much you can do! 

From chat blasting (email marketing’s cool and successful younger sibling — send push notifications!) to customer service or FAQ bot. It’s a safe bet you will save time and money. 

Besides, chatbot conversation design is fun! This is marketer’s bread and butter… unless you don’t like making sales? 

Whichever killer chat marketing strategy you choose: Click-to-Messenger ads or Sponsored Message ads, you’re going to get a better ROI.

The best way to do that is by utilizing Customers.ai for a chatbot conversation flow design that crushes leads and slays customer service 24/7. 

Chatbot Conversation Design Step #6: Decide Where To Send Lead Data

Now that you’ve got a crazy awesome custom or 1-Minute-Lead-Gen Bot rip-roaring through Facebook for targeted contact info, where will you send this glorious list of leads? 

Most likely a CRM of some sort, email marketing platform, or spreadsheet. 

Here’s how to send lead data from Customers.ai straight into Google Sheets.

And you can connect and automate just about anything using Customers.ai and Zapier. 

Now that you’ve completed all of the steps in the first tab of our Chatbot Conversation Design Guide, click the second tab labeled “Tips for drafting content.” 

What Are The Questions Your Chatbot Will Ask? 

Deciding what questions to ask is a foundational part of the chatbot conversation design process. This is how you will engage your customers or leads. 

In the Customers.ai Chatbot Builder, you will be able to create a directory of dialogue folders that contain your various campaigns and chatbot creations. It’s time to get organized! 

Make your chatbot conversation flow more engaging by dropping in some of our sweet little widgets, from lead forms to funny GIFs, images, or pre-filled questions. 

If you are going to have multiple questions in your chatbot conversation flow you will want to decide on some CTAs for the buttons. Which you should be able to use your answers from the prompts in our Chatbot Conversation Design Guide. 

Frequently Asked Questions And Responses

You will quickly find out that people do not always follow your chatbot design framework. They like to say and ask things that don’t always compute.

This is where you get to use your clairvoyant and intuitive skills you gained when you reached unicorn nirvana — why else would you be reading this right now? 

With keyword triggers, you can take an educated guess and predict what your prospects or customers might say or ask your chatbot. 

You can route different keywords to trigger different dialogue paths, creating a very human-like chatbot conversation design. 

So if someone mentions the word “hours” or “pricing,” your bot will know what to do! 

Furthermore, you can use keywords on different messaging automation channels, all within Customers.ai, such as SMS keywords for text message marketing.

Jot down some of your most commonly asked questions and use that as a starting point to build upon. Perhaps launch an MVP chatbot supplemented with a live agent takeover to start learning what people tend to ask your bot. 

Get creative and give users some options. It’s like building out one of those “Choose Your Own Adventure” books. Remember those? 

This adds an additional layer of engagement. It guides customers down the correct path of follow up questions, buttons, and content rounding out your conversational chatbot UX. 

Save Your Leads As Contacts And Segment With Customers.ai

The big payoff! You’ve put your blood, sweat, and tears into building the perfect chatbot conversation flow design (or lazily clicked a few buttons to copy and paste a template — work smarter, not harder!). It’s time to save your bounty: oodles of captured leads’ contact info!

You can easily segment and remarket all from within Customers.ai, your one-stop chatbot-shop. But you can also send contacts to a sheet, CRM, or email marketing app. 

When you’re all done, don’t forget to take your chatbot for a test drive! 

If you’d like to test one of our chatbot templates, here is a live demo for you! 

How Do You Become A Conversation Designer? 

Chatbots are the future of digital marketing. We’ve already established that with Mark Zuckerberg’s stamp of approval. 

Because of the massive shift to Messaging apps across all social platforms, it’s pretty clear there will be some new industry job titles and positions that revolve around chatbot conversation design. 

If you’ve gone through the steps in our Chatbot Conversation Design Guide, you are already a conversation designer! Own it! This is everything you need, right here. 

When you’re ready to go after your Chatbot Ph.D., we have the Chatbot University, Marketing Summits, and Facebook Group to further your chat skills and mingle and learn from chat blast masters.

Important Next Steps

FAQs about Chatbot Conversation Design

Q: What is chatbot conversation design?

A: Chatbot conversation design refers to the process of creating interactive and engaging conversations between users and chatbots. It involves designing the structure, flow, and language of chatbot interactions to provide effective and efficient communication.

Q: Why is chatbot conversation design important?

A: Chatbot conversation design plays a crucial role in creating positive user experiences. Well-designed chatbot conversations can enhance user engagement, provide helpful and relevant information, and guide users toward desired outcomes. It helps ensure that interactions with the chatbot feel natural, intuitive, and satisfying.

Q: What are the key elements of chatbot conversation design?

A: Key elements of chatbot conversation design include:

1. User personas: Understanding the target audience and creating user personas helps tailor the conversation design to match their needs, preferences, and communication style.
2. Conversation flow: Designing a logical and coherent conversation flow that guides users through different stages of the interaction. This involves anticipating user intents, designing appropriate prompts and responses, and providing clear navigation options.
3. Language and tone: Choosing the right language and tone of voice for the chatbot that aligns with the brand personality and resonates with the target audience. This includes using appropriate greetings, greetings, and providing helpful instructions.
4. Context awareness: Designing chatbot conversations to be context-aware, allowing them to remember previous interactions and personalize responses accordingly. This helps create a seamless and personalized user experience.
5. Error handling: Designing effective error handling mechanisms to handle user input errors or misunderstandings. This involves providing clear error messages, offering suggestions for correction, and guiding users back on track.

Q: How can I create engaging chatbot conversations?

A: To create engaging chatbot conversations:

1. Keep it concise: Use clear and concise language to deliver information and avoid overwhelming users with lengthy responses.
2. Use visual elements: Incorporate visual elements such as images, buttons, or cards to enhance the chatbot conversation and provide visual cues for users.
3. Provide options: Offer users multiple response options or quick replies to streamline the conversation and make it easier for users to express their preferences.
4. Use conversational design patterns: Utilize conversational design patterns such as acknowledging user input, providing confirmation, and offering next steps to create a conversational flow that feels natural.
5. Incorporate personality: Infuse the chatbot with a touch of personality that aligns with your brand. This can make the conversation more engaging and memorable for users.

Q: How can I test and improve my chatbot conversation design?

A: Testing and iterating on your chatbot conversation design is essential for continuous improvement. Some strategies to consider:

1. User testing: Conduct user testing sessions to gather feedback and insights from real users. Observe their interactions, note pain points, and incorporate their feedback into refining your conversation design.
2. Analytics and data analysis: Utilize chatbot analytics and user data to gain insights into user behavior, preferences, and areas of improvement. Analyze user feedback, interaction logs, and metrics to identify patterns and optimize your conversation design accordingly.
3. Iterative design: Adopt an iterative design approach by making incremental changes and improvements based on user feedback and data analysis. Test new designs, measure the impact, and iterate based on the results.
4. Continuous learning: Stay updated with industry trends, best practices, and advancements in chatbot technology. Attend webinars, read case studies, and engage with the chatbot community to learn from others’ experiences and incorporate new ideas into your conversation design.