How to Make a Chatbot from Scratch?

Steps and opportunities of self-learning chatbot development for business purposes, launch Subgraph solutions and develop customer-oriented chatbot strategies.

Build a chatbot for your Business from scratch 

As new technologies arise and artificial intelligence develops, chatbots offer a completely new way of communication between enterprises and clients. The increasing demand for messengers only supports the rapid development. Since each company has its own standards and needs, they need to find the perfect individual chatbot strategy.

The research says that more than 35% of clients prefer using chatbots to get a quick answer. This means that more and more customers rely on and trust chatbots. They like it because it gives support in real-time.

A chatbot might help to boost your business, attract new clients, increase sales, and general brand popularity. However, before implementing the technology, it is crucial to make a chatbot strategy map, based on the possible usage options. In this article, we will discuss the main principles of the chatbot working process. We will give an answer on how to implement a chatbot, and how to build a strategy that will function decently.

An example of a perfect implementation strategy. 

Principles of chatbot implementation 

By 2026, the global chatbot market expectedly will grow over 10 billion dollars. Hence, is the gold rush in chatbot development. In general, chatbots proved to be a vital part of the business strategy, especially during the global pandemic, when the communication with clients was all led through the internet. Here are some reasons why it is worth developing a virtual assistant.

• It will help to make the brand more interactive and accessible 24/7. The most obvious advantage is round the clock, worldwide customer support. The bot will familiarize the customers with the website. Furthermore, it can answer their questions and solve issues. Chatbots can process thousands of clients at a time. Moreover, they are self-learning, which makes them even more intelligent with time.


• It collects customer-related data. The bots can analyze the input information. You can use it to optimize the processes on the internet and mobiles. For example, you can show them information and products they recently searched for.


• Server operations optimization. The chatbot can also optimize working processes. For instance, JP Morgan saved 360 000 hours that the lawyers spent on proofing the credit agreements. Now, with a chatbot, it takes them only a few seconds to process the agreements.

Such technologies of artificial intelligence as GPT-3 and TensorFlow, allow the bot to support the conversations, which can partially substitute the human workers. An important part of an intelligent chatbot is the training on real data. A self-learning chatbot can collect information according to the algorithm and develop without any help. However, the first thing to do is to develop the chatbot strategy.

Examples of successfully implemented chatbots on artificial intellect. 

First steps to develop an implementation strategy. 

The advantages of using a chatbot strategy

The solution chatbots provide gives unceasing client support. The true aim of chatbots with artificial intelligence is to automatize the communication so that the users feel like they communicate directly with the brand’s CEO. A clear strategy gives a lot of benefits, and we collected the most important one to show you their significance.

Simple scalability 

Unlike your real-time support, chatbots can easily scale and process the inquiries during peak hours, without any need to spend more money on clients as additional resources should be applied.

Lower operating costs.

Predictably, chatbots will save about 7.3 billion dollars for the entire world. Building a strategy will save the enterprises' money that is usually spent on hiring new workers, their salaries, training, and infrastructure.

Client support optimization

Chatbots can work from dusk till dawn, they attract interest to the brand and give custom offers that increase the general quality of service.

Main advantages of chatbot usage, according to recent statistics and forecasts. 

8 steps to implement a successful chatbot strategy 

The implementation of any new strategy into your business should be well planned, discussed, and estimated. A well-thought template is a basement for your AI chatbot strategy. Regardless of the sector of business, the steps are all the same, and it is a perfect formula of success for them. Let’s look in detail at those steps to strategy implementation.

Define your business aims 

Building the aims and goals is the first and the most important part of building a strategy.  Try to visualize the best scenario for your target audience, the actions you want to motivate them to do. This is a wonderful way to make the most out of a chatbot. While defining your aims, remember what are the strong features of the chatbots and see how you can benefit from them.

• Cut the expectations time. Chatbots are the best way to guarantee a fast response to the client since no one likes to stay in the queue.


• Increase customer satisfaction. Chatbots can interact with the clients 24 hours, 7 days a week, they can give a response in real-time on the common questions. Getting an instant answer boosts the level of customer satisfaction enormously.


• Make up your sales pitch. Automatize the sales funnel with the help of chatbots. It will find you new leads and clients. Then they will be redirected to a proper team that increases the sales pitch.

Normally, the enterprises implement bots to increase sales, automatize the support, and increase the presence of the brand on the internet. You should always take your client's needs into consideration to build a successful strategy.

Define the target use-cases 

The early phase of your chatbot strategy should cover the segmentation of your audience. This will help you find out who is going to use the bot. Furthermore, you will get insights on how to improve the relationships between the client and your brand. The more thorough the research, the better the result.

Defining the usage scenario is crucial for any purpose, whether it is sales, support, or common visit. When you have a general portrait of your client, you will instantly increase the value of your strategy. To understand what are your use-cases, try to get the answers to the following questions:

• What are the most common questions of your clients;


• How can you structure the bot streams to increase the quality of your service;


• What backup solutions should be offered to the client?

Each decision made after this should meet the client’s needs. Do not even try to go further, without knowing who your audience is.

Each sector has unique requirements for the bots.  A good example of a chatbot with a specific audience is ORC. IKEA developed ORC to collect data about their clients. This bot is friendly, it uses emojis and gives proper and numerous questions.

Choose a relevant platform

The best way to choose a platform for your chatbot is to see what your clients tend to use. However, do not underestimate the importance of choosing the platform. It will all depend on the needs of your business.

You can choose an existing platform, this will save you time and effort. If the use-cases of your business are unique or complicated, we can develop an individual platform. Customized solutions are always better since they meet both: client’s and the company’s needs. Furthermore, any changes can be introduced if needed.

The main criteria to choose a platform are:

• Accessibility. The platform always offers chatbot templates for customer support. It simplifies the development and implementation processes;


• Zero codings. Zero codings help to develop a chatbot with less effort and time for better communication with clients;


• The possibility to redirect the client to a human assistant. The platform that offers a live chat and a chatbot help to process the conversations better (the bots work on simple inquiries, while the more complicated ones are on the support team);


• Security. The bots collect a lot of data from the clients, they save the messages, which oftentimes contain confidential information. Hence, it is important that the platform is secure, and maintains the privacy of user data.

If you choose the platform according to these criteria, you might expect your project to be highly effective.

The right balance between live chat and chatbot

If you implement the chatbot strategy for marketing and client service, a 100% automatization is barely possible. However, if you are strongly dependent on one of the channels, you might get into scruples. This is why the right balance between the live chat and the chatbot is a sound decision.

Both communication channels provide a better understanding of the audience, this is why companies are often advised to combine both channels to provide a higher level of client service. The business function can be balanced by using both platforms to provide the clients with automatized support.

Companies that focus on instant answers and 24-hour accessibility can use chatbots as the main means of communication to answer the most common questions. More complicated discussions that require additional knowledge should be transferred to the live chat operators.

Develop the set of skills of your artificial intelligence 

The main aim of bot solutions should be customer-focused, and the results should be effectively delivered to the clients. As a result, repeated actions become automatic, and the support agent can focus on more important tasks.

The main idea of chatbots is to avoid repeated actions, it is not about cutting down the staff members. Human support is important because it helps to understand the context and get a positive experience.

The support team should understand that a well-developed bot means success. Hence, they should find and introduce new answers to the bot which will increase the general level of client satisfaction.

The support team staff should focus on improving the art of communication of artificial intelligence. They should work on training it and teaching the bot new skills and profound knowledge.

Make a road map

An effective bot strategy should provide successful cooperation with clients within the use-cases.

Creating a road map is an important step to enhance the user experience. This helps to understand how to improve the general experience, which will lead to a higher satisfaction level. The aim is not only to achieve the best results, with the help of a chatbot. It is also about making a good impression on your clients, which makes them more satisfied.

• Understanding the client. Study the intentions of your clients according to their inquiries to develop better strategies for communication. It will also help to understand where the bot should be applied.


• Find the best possible structure for bot streams. After you know what are the intentions of your clients, the stream can be started according to the use-cases. This will help to provide better answers. Moreover, it will cut the possible options of human actions.


• Create a subset of clients’ intentions. Search for the subsets that lead to the most relevant results that are easy to understand and comprehend. Clear use-cases based on the road map and data help to grow and provide a better experience.

It is vital to research the most common options of usage and then to use the data to develop the bot. As the company gains experience, it should be transferred to the bot as a lesson.

Develop the chatbot streams for special use-cases 

After you have the road map of the client, the next step in the chatbot implementation will be understanding the way the bot manages the users under different scenarios. The bot should attract users with instant solutions.

You may divide the complete scenarios into small steps to create the bot stream. You can introduce such actions as individual greetings, data collecting, and solution offers.

Since the steps are connected, you can make the bot really talkative, which will guarantee excellent quality of client service. You can use the following advice:

• Add visuals. Make the stream look interactive. Use videos, emojis, and GIFs (interactive visual effects are processed 60 thousand times faster and cause a higher interest on users’ side);

An example of visual effects for interactive communication

• Simplify the structure. Focus on developing a well-structured stream of bots. For this purpose, you can use the typical use-cases. The bot will be more productive because it will direct the clients to the right way);


• Define the alternative scenario. When you develop a stream of bots, define the step, where they can easily ask the human assistant for help. In case the user needs to speak to the support agent, there should be an easy way to do it).

This will bring the bot and the clients closer, which will improve the positive experience.

Check the productivity of your bot 

One of the most important aspects is checking the productivity of your bot. Testing the bot will help you understand how they boost your business and assist to achieve the business aims.

If you have the right indicators of your bot’s effectiveness, you can estimate the way your customers see the bot. Are they satisfied with the answers? Does it help them to navigate through the platform? Always improve productivity and effectiveness, search for any possible issues in the workflow.

Here we have the key indicators that help to estimate the productivity of the chatbot.

• Redirects to human assistants. Basically, it is the number of conversations the bot passed to human agents. This shows whether the bot’s answers are satisfying or not.


• Successful conversations. These are the conversations led only by the bot. They normally end successfully.


• Unsuccessful conversations. These are the cases when the bot didn’t manage to give a proper answer. It will show where the bot should be improved.