Messenger Bots: Zero to Hero

An hands-on intro to building bots on Messenger Platform.

By Niwamanya Nicholas Bob at Developer Circle Kampala

Transcript

1. MESSENGER PLATFORM CHATBOTS
2. What is a chatbot? A chatbot is a computer program that simulates human conversation or chat through artificial intelligence or using predetermined responses to defined questions. This can be via auditory or textual methods. Types of chatbots Depending on how the bots are programmed, they be can divide into two large groups.
3. Simple chatbot (work according to pre-prepared commands) Simple chatbots work based on pre-written keywords that they understand. Each of these commands must be written by the developer separately using regular expressions or other forms of string analysis. If the user has asked a question without using a single keyword, the robot can not understand it and, as a rule, responds with messages like “sorry, I did not understand”.
4. Trained (smart or advanced chatbot) Smart chatbots rely on artificial intelligence when they communicate with users. Instead of pre-prepared answers, the robot responds with adequate suggestions on the topic. In addition, all the words said by the customers are recorded for later processing. However, the Forrester report “The State of Chatbots” points out that artificial intelligence is not a magic and is not yet ready to produce marvelous experiences for users on its own. On the contrary, it requires a huge work:
5. What can chatbots do? 1. Improve customer service 2. Streamline the shopping process 3. Personalize communication 4. Improve a response rate 5. Automate repetitive tasks
6. How to build a chatbot There are 4 main stages; 1. Define the goals. 2. Choose a channel to interact with your customers 3. Choose the way of creation 4. Create, customize and launch We have two approaches to building a bot; 1. From scratch 2. Leveraging existing platform
7. Building from scratch This method requires work with code, manual integration with messengers and customization. Advantages of this approach are: 1. Full compliance with your needs. 2. Control over data the bot receives. 3. The possibility to make corrections easily. 4. Best for a customer-facing chatbots.
8. Using existing platforms This method does not involve the use of code. Disadvantages of this approach are: 1. limited configuration. 2. Dependence on other services. Some of the platforms include; Chatfuel, ChattyPeople, Botsify, Smooch.io, api.ai, wit.ai, motion.ai etc.
9. Why choose to build for Facebook Messenger 1. There are now more than 1 billion people on Messenger every month 2. Create ads that open up a conversation 3. Discovery (messenger codes and shortened urls e.g m.me/VictoriaBelleCo)
10. What Do you need? 1. A published facebook page. 2. A facebook developers account. 3. A facebook app 4. A fully qualified url with ssl 5. Hosting space Others - Privacy Policy - Ngrok for testing locally - Programming language - Intergrated development environment(text editor)
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