With the advancement in technology, we are seeing the use of chatbots in customer service. Today chatbots can be used 24×7 to attend to the queries of clients instantly. It, therefore, comes as no surprise that the use of chatbots has increased drastically. Today, more than 1 billion people use them regularly. Consequently, it becomes essential to use chatbot scripts to ensure that you provide an excellent customer experience.

Every organization looking to utilize a chatbot must begin with a chatbot script – putting words into your chatbot. Keep in mind: Well-written chatbot scripts are always short and crisp, give a human-like feeling, are conversational, and provide relevant answers to the queries raised by the clients.

In the forthcoming sections, we will look at the various steps involved in writing chatbot scripts. But, before going to that subject, let’s decode the different things to consider before starting writing chatbot scripts.

Points to ponder before commencing chatbot script writing

Chatbots are all the rage right now. They can help businesses increase revenue, improve customer experience, and reduce costs. But chatbots require a significant investment of time and resources to develop.

All that being said, there’s no denying that chatbots can have a significant impact on customer service. So here’s how to get started with chatbot script writing.

Step 1: Define Your Goals and Objectives

Before you get started, you have to define what your goals are. What do you want to achieve with chatbot scripting? Do you want to improve customer service? Reduce costs? Increase conversions? Improve the customer experience?

Perhaps the most important goal, though, is to measure success. Of course, different chatbots scripts are based on different goals, but you want to ensure yours is realistic.

Step 2: Define Your Audience

If you’re selling to B2B customers, there are a bunch of different audiences you need to understand.

Chief among them are buyers and influencers, both of whom have different needs.

Step 3: Define Your Solution

Now that you’ve got a clearly defined audience, it’s time to determine your solution. How can you assist your customers with their goals?

Step 4: Identify Your Pain Points

Companies experience pain points all the time. From inflexible software to poor service, no company has escaped it. With chatbots, you can address pain points in tons of different ways. Also, you can improve customer service, reduce costs, or provide a better customer experience.

Step 5: Identify Your Competitors

You can’t build a chatbot without first understanding your competitors. What are their strengths and weaknesses? How do they attract customers?

When you know how to do that, you can develop a competitive advantage in your product or service.

A well-rounded bot is an asset for an organization

Companies have widely used chatbots to establish a personal touch with their customers. About half of companies actively use chatbots in the operational process. Companies use this technology to improve customer support and increase sales. Having a chatbot improves communications with customers and positively impacts the bottom line in terms of sales and customer loyalty.

Chatbots are the next big thing to lead in customer service because people trust technology more than human advisors. However, this comes at a price because not all chatbots are helpful or pleasant to interact with. Whenever someone needs help or information about a product or service, bots should respond adequately. It is crucial to make sure your chatbot speaks well and is helpful for viewers for you to achieve your business goals successfully.

Conversational Design is Crucial for the Successful Execution of Chatbot Scripts

Conversational design is crucial to successfully executing chatbot scripts. This is especially important when considering that the best conversational experiences start with your business goals and align with your brand’s image.

Conversational design can be complex. But investing in some up-front work on the conversational side will pay off massively down the line. Conversations are at the heart of what people want to do with their assistants. Conversations connect people. If your chatbot isn’t having conversations, then you’re missing out on some serious opportunities.

The conversational design includes giving the user the option to communicate in natural language, allowing the user to ask questions and for the chatbot to respond. It also means being able to personalize the chatbot experience based on the user’s needs.

For chatbots, the ability to understand language is key to extracting meaning from conversational queries. But beyond understanding, chatbots need to understand the intent — that is, they need to correctly guess at the source of the request and then respond appropriately.

Conversational design helps bots do this by providing structure to the queries. By structuring your chatbot’s script, you help it understand the purpose of a question and then use that intent to guide its response.

The conversational design also provides a structure to the responses. A chatbot’s script needs to provide the structure and context that will determine what information the bot must gather and deliver and in what order.

Steps to Write Chatbot Scripts

1. Envision a personality that you want to give to the chatbot

If you’re going to build a chatbot, you will have to decide what kind of personality you want to give to it. There are two basic options: a chatbot that’s more like a human or one that’s more like a machine.

The advantage of a chatbot that’s more like a human is that it can respond in natural language, making it more conversational.

The advantage of a chatbot that’s more like a machine is that it can process and respond to complex questions. The tradeoff is that a chatbot that’s more like a machine can’t incorporate a personal touch.

Deciding on the type of personality you want to give to the chatbot and its brand-based tone will help you create an effective design for your bot.

2. Use different jargon and terminology depending on the industry you are working in

Jargons are essential, especially in this age of ubiquitous “Internet speak.” Appropriate terminology is necessary since bot users won’t be able to hear a human voice. If the words are too incomprehensible, a bot user’s ears will tune out even the best human-like voice.

The use of the right jargon assists in building creditability for your bot. For example, if you are running a bot for ordering groceries, it will use specific jargon to describe how the new items are different from the old ones. Similarly, if you are running a bot for a restaurant, you should use a lot of jargon related to food. If your target audience is tech-savvy, they will better understand and connect to your bot if you use vocabulary and terminology related to their industry.

3. Have a conversational tone of your chatbot script in dialogue form

For chatbots to be effective, they need to act like real human beings. Their responses need to be natural, conversational, and unbiased.

The chatbot script writer’s first task is to write the dialogue that comprises the script. That dialogue should sound reasonable and conversational, not canned or robotic.

To get started, write out a conversation as if you were having a conversation with a real person. Then, think about how you would explain something to a friend.

For example, if you wanted to create a chatbot that customers could talk to about a product, what would your script look like?

Let’s say you wanted to discuss shipping and returns.

Bot: Hey there! Welcome to “brand name.” This is Bob. How may I help you?

You: “Hi, can I order this product?”

Bot: “Sure, how many would you like?”

You: “Five.”

Bot: “Great. When you check out, you’ll see that shipping is $7.50 per order plus tax. After you’ve placed your order, you’ll receive an email with tracking information.”

You: “Okay, sounds good.”

Bot: “Yes, it is. Thanks for ordering, and revisit us!”

The chat flow given above is an example of how your bot conversation should be. Here Bob (the chatbot) talks like an average human and relays a preset conversation flow.

4. Personalize the conversation

The key to success is writing chatbots that customers want to talk to. It takes some practice, but chatbots that understand natural language (and not just keywords) and can make personalized conversations with each customer can go a long way toward giving your customers a positive and helpful experience.

5. Simplify the dialogue delivery in the script

Once you have envisioned a personality and created a chatbot script, the next step is to simplify the dialogs you used in the conversation. Then, you have to reanalyze these dialogs again to ensure that the conversation altogether makes sense.

Here are six steps to simplify the conversation in your chatbot script.

• Don’t reinvent the wheel
• Think like a human
• Don’t interrupt
• Minimize the space between messages
• Polish your conversational language
• Make the conversation fun

6. Prepare for interruptions and misunderstandings

When you imagine a chatbot, you probably imagine a conversation in your computer’s Internet browser. You type a question, the bot responds, and the conversation is over.

However, chatbots are more like AI software. They don’t have human voices or personalities. So when a chatbot is talking to a customer, it has to be prepared to deal with interruptions and misunderstandings. That means, if the customer doesn’t understand something, you need to know how the bot will react.

7. Proofread the script thoroughly

Be sure to proofread your bot’s script carefully. You never know who may be talking to your bot, and grammatical, spelling, and other language mistakes can be a huge turnoff to many. It gives the idea that you do not care enough to pay attention to detail. Unfortunately, those bots may be treated in just the same way!

8. Test the chatbot script

Once you have built a chatbot script, test it to ensure that the chatbot effectively carries out tasks. To adequately test your chatbot, you should execute the script within your organization. This way, you can ensure that the chatbot script you built works well for your internal employees. Once you have completed the internal testing, launch your chatbot as a beta version.

Making your chatbot scripts work like magic for your B2B business

A chatbot can act as a cover for your customer support team and help enhance your organization’s brand image in the longer run. Therefore, it becomes essential to craft a well-written chatbot script that comprehends and resonates with your customers. 

Although it can become tiresome, it can give you enough space to play around with the language and simulate conversations. Always make sure that your chatbot seems to be personable and pleasant.

We would even suggest you select a chatbot name. The trick is to choose a name that is very catchy and easy to remember. We would recommend you to go for a unisex human name. This way, your clients will feel a connection with the bot.

At the end of the day, your clients will be happy to see their questions being answered, and you will have the satisfaction of seeing your chatbot function well. 

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