Author: Laxman Pednekar

Chatbot, nowadays, is one of the most commonly used terms in many businesses. Many of us turn a blind eye and think of it as another technology that has no real practical application. Well, if appropriately designed, they add real value to the business or area where it is implemented. Therefore, designing your chatbot UI is important to satisfy the users. Here, in this article, we are going to discuss some of the major tips for designing chatbot UI along with examples. The important thing is that you should know what your chatbot user interface means, its role, and its expectations.  

Chatbot UI: What does it mean? 

The Chatbot User Interface (UI) is a set of graphical and linguistic components that enables communication between humans and computer interaction. User interfaces are of many types and chatbots are language user interfaces that help users to communicate based on their own terms rather than the computers. Anyhow, the communication capabilities of the chatbot will be different based on the UI you create. A chatbot user interface that depends on predefined answers like button options has a limitation on the questions a user can ask and the language it can understand. On the other hand, there are contextual and rule-based chatbots that are specifically built to learn and respond to different textual and voice inputs.   

Chatbot UI design tips 

A chatbot UI design aims to create communication meaningful and smooth. Here are some of the design tips for crafting the best chatbot UI.  

Understand the platform   

Before embarking on the design process, designers should have a good understanding of the limitations, abilities, and opportunities of the platform on which they operate. It is significant to be realistic and aim for a balanced plan with design limitations. Better ideas may come from the product team for the chatbot design, but if the platform does not support the UI components, the conversation flow will fail.  

Identify the chatbot’s purpose  

It is important to define the purpose of your chatbot because it affects the design of the chatbot you create. For example, the chatbot you create for the human resources department is different from the chatbot you create for the Insurance sector. Therefore, Chatbot designers should start by recognizing the value a chatbot gives to the end user and referring to it throughout the design process. This is where UX designers add great value in shaping the purpose of the chatbot through user-centric design techniques. The purpose can also be repeatedly expanded based on user feedback.   

Set a voice tone  

Users generally know that chatbots have no emotions but they would still prefer the responses of a bot to be humane rather than robotic. For a chatbot to be accepted well, thorough research should have been conducted on the intended audience so that the designer can shape the bot with the appropriate personality. It is important to be aware of how tone can affect a user’s experience. By selecting a clearly defined sound tone, designers can view the data of all conversations that are initiated by the bot.  

Create user flow  

A chatbot flow decides the way a conversation should take place and it is important for designers to think about the possible questions the users may ask and the various answers the chatbot should give. Chatbot flow is a series of paths that can trigger a user’s responses. Building your whole chatbot flow in a single path is not a good idea but creating unique paths for various situations makes it easier not just to understand your flow but also to edit it in the future. When you have finished your flow, polish the messages on the nodes. Ensure that they match the personality of your bot.  

Guide the users  

One of the main principles of chatbot UI design is to give users the guidance they need to know where they are in the system and their expectations of them. It is important in a conversation for each question to be very clear so that the bots can understand what kind of information should be provided. Instead of open-ended questions, select the closed question to keep users in the flow. Moreover, to avoid dead-end conversations add buttons that provide specific answers to the user.  

Anticipate misunderstandings  

A creative solution is one of the best alternatives a designer can find to avoid misunderstandings. Designers should create fallback situations assuming that users cannot understand technical terminology, and hence error messages must be expressed in simple language to make sure that nothing is lost in translation. One way to avoid misunderstandings is to change the way the chatbot gives responses. Many failed responses can be created to give meaning to an actual conversation. Moreover, the response of a chatbot can direct the user to the current flow strategically. An alternate button can also be provided to bring the user to the conversation whenever a chatbot fails to understand.  

Track and analyze user behavior  

A chatbot needs to be tracked and analyzed to improve repeatedly. An analytic platform can be used to track data for chatbots as it give information on the way chatbot is used, where they failed, and how users interacted. They also give information related to the total number of users, most used flows, and words from users that the chatbot could not understand. Conducting surveys is one of the best methods to collect user data on satisfaction. This was very useful in trying to improve our chatbot automation and understand the user’s pain points. 

Chatbot UI examples  

Lark – a healthcare chatbot  

Lark is designed to assist patients and it is a contextual chatbot that initiates conversations with users similar to that of humans, through the mobile application. Lark is a friendly, kind, and humorous chatbot that attracts adults, its biggest customer. There are voice, chat, and button options through which users can interact with the chatbot. The chatbot user interface used in Lark gives adults control over their health and is easy to use without any assistance. The green color which is used as the primary color of the chatbot indicates rest, serenity, and good health. Lark’s messages go well with the calm color scheme as it is inspiring and mood-lifting.   

Replika- self-help chatbot   

There are many human-like chatbots in the market and Replika is one of the best among them. Replika is a contextual chatbot that can easily understand and analyze human conversations to the level where it starts to imitate the user’s way of speaking. This clever chatbot was built to serve the role of a companion to those in need. Moreover, the conversational tone and mood of the chatbot can be adjusted by the user according to the topic or mood the user chooses. That chatbot can also be given a name by the user to make the companionship more personal. To continue the conversation, users can choose from a wide range of topics or problems they want to discuss. It even helps you write a song and then gives personal badges as it understands more about the user. The chatbot can be accessed through the web or mobile and the user interface is customizable, which enables users to change to different modes and customize the background. The user interface of Chatfuel emphasizes building a personal and comfortable “environment” to have conversations.  

Erica – a chatbot for banking  

Erica is a chatbot designed for banking but it is similar to Siri. It is used in Bank of America to assist customers in making commands in the form of text or voice, thus making it easy for the customers to check anything related to banking activities. The chatbot uses text, images, and graphs to show the customer their account balance, spending habits, and recurring rates. Erica has a navy-blue color interface that symbolizes trust and authenticity, and it uses emojis and compliments to give a human touch to the conversation.  

Benefits of Custom Chatbot UI  

• Offers you a customized and branded Customer experience.  
• Interacts with consumers more like humans resulting in improved customer experience
• Manages multiple tasks with multiple levels of difficulty.  
• Helps to handle more than one customer at a time. 

Wrap Up  

Most businesses are not even in need of a chatbot, but their popularity and fun components make them very attractive. The point is, if you don’t have a proper plan to use the chatbot, then it is better not to spend too much time and resources on that. Instead, define the purpose of a chatbot so that it will not be limited to a talking website accessory. It can provide a voice to your brand to help consumers with simple tasks. All you need to do is make a list of everything you want your Artificial Intelligence chatbot to get and divide it into ones that fit your resources, time, and consumer needs. Decide where to use it, like whether it should be only on your website, or should be on different channels, and how to use your chatbot.   

The insurance industry is mostly identified with heavy paperwork, complexities, and legacy processes. Today, the offers and products provided by an insurance company are not enough to set it apart. Customer experience is the only brand differentiator that should not be ignored and support centers are the solution to meet the changing customer requirements. However, such customer support centers are expensive as well as obsolete because the customers find it difficult to access the support assistants through calls and messages. In addition, large customer service is required for a large number of customer requests, ensuring 24/7, individual interaction across multiple digital channels and different languages. AI chatbots are the best solution to meet these standards of customer experience. 

Use Cases of Chatbots in Insurance 

Here are some of the major use cases of chatbots in the insurance sector: 

Customer support and awareness  

Based on the profile and inputs of the customer, the customer service chatbots can create awareness among the customers about the working of the process in multiple carriers, compare, and suggest optimal policy. In order to conduct end-to-end processes without interventions, insurance companies should be ready to assist customers in an interactive and secure manner. Customer service chatbots increase conversions by interacting with all visitors and engaging them on your website or any other channel. 

Lead profiling and conversions  

Research shows that if a response is not given to a customer’s question within 5 minutes, the chances of it becoming a lead are reduced by 400%. Such situations can be avoided with the presence of an insurance chatbot as it not only increases the lead conversion but also makes the user happy with an immediate response. Moreover, chatbots can provide relevant details to the customers depending on the input and queries they give. This data will help the sales team as it offers a complete context of what an active user is looking for and move forward accordingly. 

Claim processing and payment assistance  

Chatbots are designed and programmed to resolve issues related to the insurance claims of your customers and to track the existing policies. This will not only encourage the customers to make their upcoming payments but also assist them in making the payment through simple and easy steps across the channel preferred by the customer. 

Rich database  

A long and growing e-mail contact list is important to every business, and insurance companies are no different from that. Almost all chatbots are built to gather the contact details of the customers with whom the bot interacts. Further, the contact details collected by the chatbot are added to the user database for communication through various mediums. 

Reduce workload  

Automation mainly aims at reducing the workload, indeed most technological advancements serve the same purpose. With chatbots being installed in the insurance sector, there is a significant reduction in the workload on the sales and marketing team as they avoid the hassle of having to answer each question individually and concentrate on turning the leads into sales.  

Pre-sales and sales  

According to the studies, almost 53% of customers prefer online purchases if they are given the option to converse with the dealer directly. An insurance chatbot allows you to establish a strong relationship between the customer and the brand. At the same time, it identifies and distinguishes the customers on the basis of their purchase intent.  

Personalized customer experience  

It is obvious that customers like to engage in real-time interaction rather than emailing. The reason is that people often identify websites as static mediums, so any kind of interaction that takes place in the media provides a better customer experience. Providing excellent deals and advice on insurance claims and quota is the actual merit of obtaining customer statistics. Chatbots can also make an appropriate recommendation by monitoring the behavioral patterns and habits of customers. Additionally, it prompts customers to leave positive reviews and gather their feedback. 

Key Features of insurance bot 

Many organizations might have installed chatbots but not all of them may not meet the specific standards a chatbot should have. Here are some of the key features of a chatbot: 

Transactional  

We expect an insurance advisor to give proper assistance in account opening, providing information about the policies and quotas, signing the claims, etc. A virtual assistant is supposed to perform the same functions as an advisor, which can be done by back-office integration of company systems. Such intricate integration cannot be performed by every technology in the market.  

Conversational  

Virtual assistants should be able to comprehend customer queries in a way a human support assistant would do. They must give a proper response after analyzing the context of the message. Whenever the customer reports a query or an issue, there should not be a reason why a chatbot is unable to comprehend it immediately. 

Reliable  

Any misinterpretations or transaction errors can lead to loss of customers and negative reviews. The customers should be able to recognize their insurance company as reliable. Providing a seamless customer experience is one way to gain the trust of the customers and to a large extent, conversational AI chatbots serve the purpose. 

Multi-channel  

It is always better to deploy your chatbots in multiple channels. This gives the customers the opportunity to choose any channel of their preference and convenience – which can be a phone call, WhatsApp message, social media platform, or even a mobile app.  

Wrap Up 

The ultimate goal of any insurance chatbot is to provide a personalized, native, and interactive experience to the customers. Chatbots can minimize functional costs, increase revenue, promote brand engagement, and improve customer loyalty. However, this is possible only if they naturally interact with customers in a way they prefer. As a result, opting for the right development platform is critical to the success of chatbots in the insurance sector as it has to provide reliable and measurable optimal conversational features. 
 

Today personal and professional interactions are becoming more and more digitized. Such digital environments are essential for business-to-customer relationships to nurture. Technology has become more advanced and is getting advanced day by day, thus increasing effective communication between customers and computers. The customer-computer relationships are mostly backed by chatbots and conversational Artificial Intelligence. In this blog, let us talk about conversational AI and chatbots and delve deeper into the relationship between the two. 

What is a chatbot? 

A chatbot is recognized as a digital agent that uses simple technologies to initiate communication with customers through a digital interface. Chatbots are automated to ‘chat’ with customers through websites, social media platforms, mobile applications, etc. They are not complicated to build and do not require technical proficiency. Chatbots can be easily built with both development platforms and can be implemented on digital channels.

What is conversational Artificial Intelligence (AI)? 

Unlike chatbots, conversational AI is not about rule-based interventions, they have a firm structure and mostly relies on ML (Machine Learning), NLP (Natural Language Processing), Input Analysis, and DM (Dialog Management) to offer a more dynamic and unrestricted user experience than chatbots. Conversational AI uses a dialog flow system to provide a more advanced and exceptional service experience in human-bot interaction. Simply put, it refers to a set of artificial intelligence technologies that facilitates’ intelligent’ communication between computers and humans.  

Natural Language Processing (NLP)  

Conversational AI generates responses using linguistic rules and by incorporating machine learning and contextual awareness. Artificial Intelligence can customize the responses given to customers and predict their needs rather than simply interpreting the request of a user. NLP also enables machines to understand and comprehend voice as well as text inputs. Meanwhile, on the other hand, chatbots depend mostly on algorithms and language rules to interpret the meaning of a question and to select a proper response using natural language processing. 

Machine Learning (ML)  

Machine learning enables machines to converse intelligently with the users and to learn and understand from conversations. In Conversation ML, Systems with conversational ML enable machines to use their conversations with users to make future conversation experiences better.  

Dialog Management (DM)  

DM’s mission is to initiate conversations with customers and help them satisfy their needs. It ensures that the necessary semantic representation has been filled and determines the performance of the system. DM reaches out to the Knowledge Database in order to find the exact information the user is searching for. Dialog Management involves the selection of policies and tracking of the dialog state, thus enabling the dialog agent to make tough and powerful decisions.  

Input Analysis  

It helps to evaluate the purpose of the input and then generates a response that matches the context of the situation, which is exactly what a human agent would do while handling a customer query.   Input Analysis allows the machine to provide better recommendations and suggestions after analyzing the input information. 

Conversational AI V/S Chatbots 

We have discussed what Conversational AI and chatbots stand for. Now let us see what is the relation between the two.  

Have you ever thought about what makes a chatbot converse like a human? Well, the credit goes to Conversational AI. Conversational AI, when implemented in chatbots, makes them smarter and more efficient. But the important fact to be noted is that not every chatbot has conversational AI induced in it. There are these traditional chatbots that can perform only a limited number of tasks, which usually involve responding to common FAQs. The increasing needs of large enterprises led to the implementation of conversational AI into chatbots, thus improving their functionality from merely being an answering bot to understanding human language and providing transactional functionality. Conversation AI enables you to perform much more things efficiently rather than translating web content into chatbot responses. 

Differences between AI-driven chatbots and Traditional Chatbots 

AI Chatbot – relies on Natural Language Processing, Machine Learning, and Input Analysis to give a personalized customer service experience. 

Traditional Chatbots – rely on rule-based functioning or programmed conversational flow. 

AI Chatbot – strong and non-linear interactions that go all the way to deliver an appropriate response to customers. 

Traditional Chatbots – linear and pre-set interactions that do not go out of the scope.

AI Chatbot – learn and understand continuously from interactions and rapid repetition cycle. Adapts to the changing customer needs. 

Traditional Chatbots – interpret the input information. The reconfiguration will be necessary to update or revise any pre-defined rule and conversation flow. 

AI Chatbot – scalability is high. The conversational AI interface gets updated while updating the database and pages of the company. 

Traditional Chatbots – take a lot of time to scale. Requires updations, maintenance, and revisions to be done manually. 

AI Chatbot – handles a large amount of data from clients at a faster pace. Gives rapid solutions to problems. 

Traditional Chatbots – rapid response but fails to respond to questions out of scope.  

AI Chatbot – Dialog-focused. 

Traditional Chatbots – Navigation-focused. 

Why do Conversational AI chatbots outrun Traditional Chatbots? 

Looking at the above-mentioned points, one can easily understand that conversational AI is way more interactive and has many advantages than a chatbot. Now comes the question ‘Why chatbots are still in the market?’. The answer lies in the specific needs of organizations with different sectors, sizes, and business models. For instance, let’s assume that you are a restaurant owner and you decided to implement a chatbot on your website. This way your users can easily order food, track the order and give feedback without even talking to the owner or any other representatives. The chatbot will deliver proper service as long as the user remains in the scope topic. Chatbots are enough for small and medium businesses and huge companies which aim to handle a single task. 

Wrap Up 

Most people deem that these two terminologies are supportive and complementary to each other. They can improve customer interaction and experience when these two terminologies are effectively integrated. While comparing chatbots and conversational AI, you will see what makes conversational AI chatbots the best choice for your business. The system takes time to set up and train but once set up, a conversational AI is basically superior at performing most tasks. Therefore, it is highly recommended for businesses to gain better customer satisfaction. 

Chatbot systems are designed to demonstrate how a person behaves when engaged in a conversation and it usually requires constant tuning and testing. In short, chatbots gather the basic details and information to track the products they like the most, by interacting with customers. Website owners can save money, time, and effort they waste on landing pages by simply switching to AI-enabled chatbots that improve customer experience and satisfaction. Chatbots utilize artificial intelligence to understand the queries or requests of website users and test the basic logic model to generate the most precise response. 

Moreover, modern chatbots can collect all information related to the queries of the user by interacting with third-party applications and systems. Such interventions facilitate the promotion of products and services by prompting actions. Chatbots have been used in multiple platforms including Facebook, Twitter, other social media platforms, text messages, etc. but the main purpose remains unchanged – maintain an effective customer-company relationship through meaningful interaction. Here in this article, let us take a look into the major benefits offered by chatbots in many business areas.  

Benefits of chatbot automation 

It’s clear that AI-powered chatbots provide customer support, answer users’ questions instantly, and process requests with little-to-no human help. But have you ever thought of the benefits that chatbots offer to your businesses? There are many and some of the major benefits of deploying a chatbot are explained below: 

Target lead generation  

If a business uses an omnichannel marketing model, chatbots can be used to communicate customized messages with consumers across various platforms in order to create brand awareness and for the promotion of products. Chatbots also increase the possibilities by asking relevant questions and motivating them to submit an inquiry. 

24/7 customer support

Unlike human workers who take regular intervals during work, chatbots work relentlessly by interacting with the consumers, providing answers to common questions, assisting customers in various tasks 24/7. Moreover, bots with machine learning capabilities are constantly learning from customer interactions and over time begin to solve more challenging questions. 

Streamlining online payment services  

Chatbots can facilitate money transactions to provide improved experiences to the customers in payment services that have a chat-based interface. One of the best examples is WeChat which lets customers pay through the app in selected restaurants and shops. Recently PayPal has also introduced chatbots to initiate transactions. 

Cost-effective and less onboarding time  

Sometimes companies assign different duties to employees outside their area of specialization. This can frustrate other employees and may affect their productivity within the company, especially if they lack the appropriate training and skills required for the new position. Fortunately, companies can take advantage of AI-powered chatbots to speed up the onboarding process and save a huge cost, as all the information required for the new employees can be easily accessed and made available in one database. 

Self-learning capabilities  

Advanced chatbots are assisted with Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, which means that they are constantly polishing their knowledge skillset to answer the questions they frequently deal with. It is clearly evident that AI-powered chatbots are capable of analyzing consumer behavior and learning from their experiences. Over time, they will be able to deal with intricate customer problems that usually need the mediation of an agent. 

Free from human errors  

The mistakes human workers make can be very serious and can cost a huge expense to the company itself. Collecting the wrong customer information, providing an inappropriate solution to customer queries can affect the image of the company. Automated chatbots are designed in a way to analyze the situation and give proper solutions to the concerns of customers. Chatbots are programmed with every relevant information to maintain accuracy. 

Guaranteed sales and marketing consistency  

When it comes to marketing and sales, time-bound communication follow-ups play a major role in making an actual difference. These automated chatbots deliver the promotional message to the customers and help them understand whatever the company is offering. 

Handling countless queries  

The major difference between a human customer agent and a chatbot is that an agent can deal with only one consumer at a time. Meanwhile, chatbots can handle various customer queries which not only reduces errors but also makes the communication effective. Minimal waiting time and fruitful interactions are possible with chatbots at the other end. 

Multi-Language  

Chatbots that support multiple languages. This makes it very helpful especially to businesses with global brands and consumers. The user can select the language in which they want to communicate and the chatbot will interact with the user in the selected language. Either the user chooses the language or the chatbot detects the language. This facilitates easy and smooth communication between the company and the customer. 

Endless patience  

A customer agent can lose their patience at some point in time but this is different with bots. The impatience of the agent and customer when solving a problem can be considered a human-related failure. Chatbots have great patience because of the way it is programmed, thus making it easy to solve issues.  

Wrap Up 

An uninterrupted chatbot is significant for an automated system. A smooth relationship between the customer and the company can be established by adopting a good communication strategy and chatbots are one of the best modern solutions for this communication crisis. Chatbots gives detailed and functional documentation of your customers’ biggest pain points, thus allowing your organization to improve products and services. If a chatbot responds correctly to initial questions and fails to lead complexities to a human agent, it results in the failure of providing a customer experience. Therefore, the chatbot you implement should be able to redirect a complex conversation to a human agent when it can’t find a solution. The essence of a customer-company relationship lies in communication between the two and chatbots are designed to serve the purpose of initiating an effective and smooth interaction with the customers.