Hello there! Want to create bots but don't know how to do it? Here are the top 6 easiest chatbot platforms to use: a beginner's guide.
What I'm talking about in this post
When we use the word chatbot we talk first of all about dialogue and conversation. This is the real revolution brought about by digital communication, a revolution that has profoundly marked the approach of both brands and, above all, users. It is no longer conceivable to work only on input, perhaps playing on effect commercials or aggressive campaigns. Today the consumer wants or rather demands, a confrontation with companies, trying to establish a relationship with them.
A true paradigm shift that has consequently marked the evolution of technology and communication tools. Chats have in fact gone from being an essential element of people's daily lives to a fundamental marketing tool for brands. WhatsApp, Wechat, Messenger just to name a few.
An activity, that of dialogue and relationship, yes very useful, but also demanding on the company side. A commitment that has led to the development of useful solutions to automate and make less burdensome this type of activity. Chatbots are perhaps the most important innovation in this sense.
Chatbots, or chatbots, are nothing more than programs capable of simulating a conversation between a robot and a human being. These programs work as chat users themselves or as staff of companies, giving answers to users using the chat.
Chatbots work thanks to rules, patterns, or artificial intelligence, allowing people to interact via chat, without human intervention. Not only customer care: request for services, advanced CRM systems, information about news, offers, promotions are just some of the activities that a chatbot can perform.
The added value of chatbots is that they are active 24/7, bringing enormous advantages to users and savings to brands. The evolution of these tools allows you to create truly useful conversations based on a wealth of information and experiences. The chatbot recognizes elements like tastes, interests, age, and language to offer the right answer. The evolution of machine learning makes many bots able to "learn" and improve use after use. Not bad, I would say.
Just try, for example, the chatbot of KLM or Pizzahut to understand the potential of this tool. There are even those who have exploited its flexibility of use to make it a storytelling tool. This is the case of Burberry that, thanks to a chatbot, has launched the campaign "The tale of Thomas Burberry".
Realizing them requires programming knowledge, but in recent months many platforms have been created that allow even those who do not write a line of code to create their own chatbot. Here are the best ones.
Born to create chatbots dedicated to Facebook. Just have a business page and we can create one to communicate with our users. In a simple and immediate way, Chatfuel lets you create a real chatbot with all the necessary functions. Inserting automatic responses, links to contents, or web pages are some of the functions we can implement. It is also possible to send push messages to those who have contacted us, keeping the relationship alive.
A practical example? List the rooms available in a certain period in our hotel, guiding them step by step in the online booking. Or report the most read articles or categories of our blog, as I did for my Facebook Influencer Marketing Italia page.
Through Messenger, you can get news about me or the book, contact me or read the latest articles on my blog. All this is done in a few hours.
You can also "train" our bot teaching it how to act in the best way situation by situation and making it more and more performant. Also usable for Telegram, Chatfuel is a tool that you absolutely have to try.
All platforms dedicated to the creation of chatbots for Messenger. Chatbots-builder is a tool that makes the simplicity of using its strength, making it possible for anyone to create their own. It only takes a few steps to create a chatbot, choosing from the many functions available.
Very interesting, and dedicated to the less experienced, are the templates, "drafts" of vertical chatbots on different sectors and uses (web agency, restaurant, hotel, blogger) to be completed with your own content. Each one is made to meet the needs of the sector: the restaurant has the command to book, the web agency to show services and portfolio. Also in this case the times (and the possibility of error) decrease drastically.
This is how very "simple" bots are born, but it is possible to make them more complex depending on the needs and efforts in building them. I tried to make one for the page of Open-Box, my agency and the result, despite the few hours spent, is more than satisfactory. It's a very well-done tool that allows even non-developers to create chatbots. Sequel's added value is the wide range of supported platforms: in addition to Messenger, it's possible to create bots for Kik and Telegram.
What makes Sequel stand out is its ease of use. The wizard allows you to create chatbots quickly, providing the user with a set of preset templates that adapt to the needs of brands and professionals.
Another interesting feature is the one that allows the customization of chats with the inclusion of colored texts and GIFs.
The NPL feature allows you to create very natural conversations, a feature that, combined with training, makes the bots more and more "human".
Botsify is a tool to create chatbots dedicated to Facebook Messenger. Again, no programming knowledge is required, allowing anyone, really anyone, to create their own personal bot.
A list of templates related to different uses makes it easy to configure a chatbot, as it is equally easy to manage media files such as images, videos, GIFs.
The learning ability of the system constantly improves the performance of the bot, ensuring an excellent user experience.
Userbot is one of the most innovative platforms for bot creation and usage. The development of the bot is made simple and quick, but giving the possibility to users to add numerous options and customize it according to their needs.
Userbot integrates with the main channels used by users today: website, Messenger, Telegram, iOS, Android, on other CRMs. A single bot, but many possibilities of use.
The real gem of Userbot is Deep Learning and the use of Artificial Intelligence to analyze messages. This is how it is able to recognize the type of problem, understand the users' state of mind and automatically choose the most suitable response. UserBot is able to understand natural language and any errors that happen while writing in chat.
Because it's not enough to have a chatbot, the important thing is that it falls into its role in the most human way possible, putting users at ease and improving their experience.
Here's a tool I love. Smooch is a connector between platforms like Slack and Zendesk and messaging apps (Line, Facebook Messenger, Kik, WeChat, and others). Translated it means that you can converge communications coming in on Messenger or website chat, for example, on Slack. A way (I assure you from experience) to make message management and customer care faster and easier. I make converge on a dedicated Slack channel the messages that arrive on one of my Facebook Page.
In addition to its core business, Smooch allows creating chatbots that can be connected with the channels used. So we'll have a bot that will respond to chats by automating the most common workflows, such as collecting form data, scheduling, executing payment processes, or any feedback.
Here is perhaps the best-known tool to create chatbots without programming knowledge. no of the most effective and well-known tools. ManyChat has the merit of being a tool with great potential, but also very easy to use, an element that makes it at the door of even fewer pro users.
The user is guided step by step, depending on the needs thanks to the drag'n'drop builder (as you can see in the video tutorial).
Among the most relevant features, I point out auto-posting and scheduling of messages.
There is no doubt that Facebook is investing a lot in the chatbot issue. It has made it one of the major innovations of recent years and it was therefore unthinkable that it didn't move to give support in the creation of the bots themselves. Thus, a dedicated platform was born, one that is more advanced than the tools found online, but at the same time more complex to use.
In fact, it is necessary to activate some tools before being able to create the bot: Messenger plugin, Messenger codes, and links, customer correspondence, structured templates, welcome screen. Not always intuitive to tell the truth.
To overcome this increased complexity, Facebook provides users with a comprehensive guide and most importantly several useful famous case studies to analyze.
If you're looking for a really pro tool to create chatbots, API.ai is for you. Dedicated to both developers and non-developers, it allows you to create advanced bots both in terms of functions and performance.
Advanced yes, but with a high user experience. It only takes 3 steps to create your own bot. Once it's set up, you'll have to provide the bot with textual examples of how people can talk to it. On this basis API.ai will train the bot for us, making it capable of having the best conversation with users. The use of machine learning is a notable plus.
Multilingual support and a wide range of supported platforms complete the offer:
The Turin-based company specializing in Bots has recently released a new bot for use in Whatsapp. The system allows in a simple and intuitive way to manage in a completely automatic way the sending of messages, images, videos, and links through the well-known messaging app.
Instant News (WhatsApp) was in fact created as a platform to automate the sending of informative newsletters. This Whatsapp bot can also be integrated with other software and platforms (Zapier and WordPress for example), so as to make its adoption and use very flexible.
I think (and I believe) that a few lines are enough for you to understand the potential of chatbots. Excellent tools to automate processes and make them more performant, putting us in a position to give constant support to users. Their flexibility and ability to learn have transformed the use of chat from conversational channels to places where we can propose more complex services, including sales.
Advantages that, however, must not make us lose sight of an essential element of online communication and chat: the value of the relationship with users. A value that can hardly be totally separated from the human presence and that, if neglected, risks to bring us only problems and bad results. There are activities that cannot be carried out by bots, just as it is not at all conceivable to totally eliminate the human component.
The most virtuous examples, in fact, foresee an intelligent coexistence between bots and human personnel: one proposes automated services, the other intervene on issues that go beyond the machine. An excellent example of this is the activity of the aforementioned KLM.
Let's talk about specific software for this. We have chosen 6 of them. Here are the best platforms to create bots: they are all easy to use and full of useful features.
1. Faqbot
Faqbot offers advanced customer support options and aims to do away with classic FAQ pages on sites, replacing them with chatbots. Companies can install their own FAQbot page on their website and Facebook in just two clicks, so the user can interact with the company's FAQ via chat or messages. It is a SaaS (Software as a Service), so no programming skills are required to use the service. Just log on to the site and register.
2. Api.ai
Api.ai is one of the most widely used platforms for creating chatbots. It offers human-like conversations thanks to the continuous development of machine learning based on natural language. It can also be integrated into all social networks and is super easy to use and implement.
3. Botsify
Several plugins are available on Botsify to integrate chatbots on any platform. The advantage is that you can create bots without being an expert in the field thanks to an intuitive and simple drag and drop interface. To get started you can do the free trial by registering with your email address or logging in from Facebook.
4. Paquebot
With Paquebot.io anyone can create their own bot community via Telegram, without the need for servers or programming knowledge, but only through the simple interface of the messaging client, but also Messenger, Line, Skype, and WeChat. To learn more about the risks and benefits of Telegram bots here is the Neomobile guide to disable them.
5. Pandora
Pandorabots is one of the most popular and long-running chatbot hosting services in the world, so much so that it inspired the movie "Her". The platform offers both text and voice chat support and is used in a variety of fields: advertising, virtual assistants, e-learning, entertainment, and education. Chatbots created on Pandora find their way into messaging apps, games, social, and platforms for teaching and research.
6. ManyChat
This is another bot that runs on Facebook Messenger, and it is mainly used in marketing, sales, and customer support. They like it because you can use it for free and it's easy to install. No programming skills are required - just register, sign in and start using it.