The Bot 101 [ Part 3 ]
Dear Bot community members, thanks for reading and sharing your valuable feedbacks on the Bot 101 – Part 1 & 2; where we talked about CUI, VUI, bots evolution, types of bots (personal bots, text bots, biz bots, and more), bot platforms (Slack, Facebook, Alexa, Kik, Email), Bot Anatomy, Human Involvement, Conversations and AI, Rich Interaction, Context and How to handle the Memory of bots.
And in the Part 3, we’ll be taking and discussing more around bots discover, installation, engagements, monetization, design process, use-case definition and explorations.
The bot ecosystem is still very young and it’s not overly saturated. Hence the each of the discovery pointers will help us to enhance the bot.
Bot Directories: It’s just a websites or in-chat product brief case where we can search for, get information, configure and install bots. We have many examples such as Botlist, Facebook Directory, Kik Bot Shop, Botlist, and more. With help of the directories we can able to get all in one Chatbot information’s from technology, sales and to marketing.
App Review Process: All the bot directories are having their own style of Bot App review process, usually it will take more time than expected as it will be going to be manual.
Direct Installation Link / Magic Link: Direct installation link is something user will use to install our bot platform on their devices, and the link also helps to promote the bot platforms. Depending on our bot’s design we’ll need to pick the right permissions to request from the user.
QRCodes: Bu using this methodologies we can use mobile to scan the code and we can install the bot using the given QRcode. Many chat bot have QRCodes for their installation, but esp the CNN Messenger and H & M Kik are popular.
@Mentions: It actually refers to someone in the chat conversations. It usually trigger some sort of notifications given with the context and answer the users.
Bot Referrals: This is awesome concept, when a single bot can’t able to answer the user intent, then it might able to refer the other one. Example, if user ask I need ride from the airport to hotel to flight booking bot, then it might refer to his friend LyftBot to help the user. And the potential for the bot-to-bot referral is very huge.
Hence in the near future Bot directories and stores are going to become bigger and more sophisticated, and developers and designers are going to have better tools available to capture the intent of their bots and offer them as solutions to users’ needs.
Let’s explore Engagement Methods, available in the Bots.
Givens is the legacy relationship with any apps: Install the app > Love it > Become Proficient > Grow tired of it > Install another APP > Fall in Love > Uninstall the Original App > Repeat the cycle
What could be the tips to have great App, Create a great first impression >> Keep on adding value >> Continue evolve our design.
Interesting 4 ways to approach bot engagement in through the below process by leveraging hook model.
Once we have designed our bot, then we’ll explore the challenge of monetization from our bot; and we will deep dive in few bots which is already monetizing in different ways and learn from their designers’ experience.
Let’s make the one thing very much clear, which is bot is a type of user interface for user experience and it’s one of the way to expose products, services, and a brand; and only way to have money from bot is we should be bot builders, whereas end user will not pay anything.
Subscription might be one of the options with free, basic and premium, e.g. growbot.
Ad serving has been the bread and butter of many businesses in today’s world, but Bots are in a unique position when it comes to ads, as it will build a personal relationship with the user, it can create a great impact in giving personalized add to have fine-tuned lead and better through rate. eg. Kik
Data – Bots can collect a lot of data about user interests and preference, through engaging in a conversation, and even playing game with the user. E.g. Swelly
Selling Goods & Services – Bot can also become one of the great and connected channel to sell their goods and services. E.g. Lyft, Uber
Referral Fees – Bot can refer what to buy and which services to consume . E.g. Kip, Telegram.
Closing thoughts, we should only considered to charge the customer for bot, only if we’ve reached a product/market fit for our services and products.
Design Process Overview: Now let’s our-self move from theory to practice, let’s explore an actual use case in the series of The Bot 101 [Part IV ] but let’s have high design process overview now. And the below listed are is no single process that works for everyone and every needs of Bot. It’s just an lay out a process that works for many use cases, but we should explore and figure out the best process for our bot needs.
Thanks for the reading the Part III of The Bot, and we will be having the final Part IV in due course. We will talk about the final thoughts and deep dive on all steps in the fourth series of Bot 101; like Use Case definition, Conversation Scripting, Designing & Testing, Bot Building Overview, and Analytics & Continuous Improvement.
And the conclusion is bots are a great new hammer, but not everything’s a nail; so we need to explore which use cases are better for this new and great interface. And with bots any enterprise or business can have their engagements with higher degree and value; hence the right bots are bringing best values.
Ref. Designing Bots, Amir Shevat
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