10 Tips on Creating an Addictive ChatBot

Stefan Kojouharov
Chatbots Life
Published in
12 min readSep 5, 2016

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Over the past few months, I have been making bots, a lot of bots. Here are some of the things I have learned making 10+ Chatbots.

Tip 1: Chatbot First Use Cases

For thousands of years, we solved problems directly through conversation, Chatbots are a throwback to this simpler time.

Chatbots, in their current form, don’t provide as rich a GUI experience as apps. As a result, the value presented by a conversational interface needs to be utterly simple in order to be truly leveraged.

There are two main reasons why anyone would use a chatbot:

  1. Conversational: When an App can’t do it because multiple variable inputs are needed to solve the problem.
  2. Simplicity: When a bot offers the most immediate and direct solution to a person’s problem.

This should lead you towards ‘Chatbot First Use cases’ which require multiple conversation inputs and can solve problems in a more direct way than apps or offer superior simplicity.

You can’t download an app for all your problems, however one day you might use a bot.

Examples:

DoNotPay: Chatbot Lawyer that Can Fight Parking Tickets for You

How to Properly Leverage Machine Learning

Artificial Intelligence is still in its infancy and there is a long way it go.

When it comes to Machine Learning, it excels in areas where the epistemology of the field is clear and well defined. For example, Machine Learning can be used to a great effect in fields like Medicine, Hiring, and Law but will fail in areas where there are no definitive boundaries, eg: Negotiating, Creative Problem Solving, Communication, Management, etc…

Great Use Cases for Ai & Machine Learning:

  1. Ross Intelligence : ROSS is an A.I. lawyer that helps human lawyers research faster and focus on advising clients.
  2. Predicting Cancer: Computers trounce pathologists in predicting lung cancer type, severity.
  3. Gradberry: No more applying. Gradberry uses AI to evaluate developers by checking their code and matches them with ideal company.

Tip 2: Seeing the Future… WeChat

For a number of months now, Facebook has been quite transparent and obvious in their goals for Messenger Chatbots. Ultimately, they hope that Messenger platform will resemble WeChat and Facebook has even urged developers to look at WeChat as the model.

So what does this mean? Well let’s take a quick look at some of the things you can do on WeChat:

  • On-Demand Service via Text: Via WeChat you can get just about everything on-demand with a simple text message. Need to get you place cleaned? Hire a plumber? etc… You can do it instantly via text.
  • No-Lines, No Waitresses, No Cashiers: WeChat has revolutionized the restaurant experience. You can now order and pay for you meal via WeChat. When you enter the restaurant, you simple pick up your meal and enjoy! (Currently, Allset is doing this, more below)
  • Virality: Grouping so many functions together in one app allows everyday things to go viral.

The Coming Restaurant Revolution

According to Stas Matviyenko, Founder and CEO at Allset, “The restaurant revolution is here. New technologies are changing the traditional restaurant model and the ways restaurants interact with their customers. We see more and more restaurants who want to bring ordering and reservations directly to where people spending a lot of time chatting with friends. Facebook has created a great opportunity for businesses to offer a whole new experience to their customers.”

Tip 3: Test & Go Live in minutes using Smart Loop

Smart Loop allows you to build bots in 10–15 minutes with or without coding! This is the ideal middle way, as it allows you to quickly make an MVP and then build it out after your use case has been validated without starting over. Furthermore, you can actually add code right in Smart Loop and it has its own NLP layer which uses Rasa Core.

I strongly recommend using SmartLoop to:

1. Test Your Concept: Is your bot solving a painful problem people care about?

2. Usability Testing: How usable is your bot? Does the flow make sense? Where do users drop off?

3. Advance your Copywriting: Can you get to the ‘Aha Moment’ right away and provide value as quickly as possible?

Once you know what to build:

  1. Very Easy to Use and Minimal Programing: You can create add custom code to any flow!
  2. Instantly Deploys to Multiple Platforms: FB Messenger, Website, SMS, etc…
  3. NLP Included: Smart Loop uses Rasa Core behind it’s firewall and is also available as an on-premises solution should you need one. The Rasa Core technology is based on Tensorflow, so ultimately it’s like using Google’s Dialogueflow without the risk of exposing your customer’s data to a 3rd party.

Goal is to release as fast as Possible, gather insights and feedback, and iterate quickly towards a product people love.

HOW TO GET PEOPLE HOOKED ON YOUR BOT

The Goal of most consumer facing products is to solve a person’s needs over and over again. In order to do this effectively, you have to place your product in front of the person at the exact moment of need and solve the person’s problem. This can be very hard, however there is a solution.

We need to solve the need enough times, so as to become the automatic response when the need reappears. In this way, our products become the defacto solution, the automatic response to need. When done correctly our products become habit forming and we become owners of the most valuable asset class, “mind estate”.

TIP 4: Triggers

It’s important to note that people come from the inside out. They generally have a need (which was triggered internally or externally), look for ways to satisfy their needs and then the need subsides.

When we experience a trigger we do one of two things: look for a solution or ignore the pain. When a person is looking for a solution, our product needs to be easy to find and easy to use.

Chatbot Activation Model

TIP 5: Action

Once your product has become a potential solution to a person’s problem getting a person to take action depends on two major factors: motivation and ability.

Activating a User:

  • Motivation: Focus on pain points that are really painful. The less painful the problem the harder it will be to activate users.
  • Ability: How easy is to to find and use the solution?

A habit is formed after a person has satisfied a need a number of times so that the behaviour has become automatic. You have to consider under what situations your product would be needed (the triggers) and how to become a solution in that moment. Once your the solution a few times, can you make this behaviour automatic?

Great solutions are often very satisfying, so much so that they release dopamine. Not only is your problem solved, but your brain then doubles down and rewards you chemically.

TIP 6: Variable Rewards:

Solving the same problem in the same exact way can introduce a new problem: boredom.

This is what most routines look like and why most of us find routines so unappealing. We try to solve this problem by being spontaneous, taking trips, new relationships, etc. What if our products solved our problems in a very reliable, consistent way yet were somehow spontaneous?

Research shows that dopamine surges when your brain is expecting a reward. Introducing variability multiples this effect, creating a focused state which suppresses areas of the brain associated with judgement! This is why some people can play Slot machines all night long.

Give your bot variability! Facebook does this by making sure that your feed is different every time you see it… even if you only have 10 friends.

Getting People Hooked on your Bot

TIP 7: Investment

It’s like any other relationship… the more time, energy, you have invested in a product/solution the greater the pain of having to move to new product and start over.

This makes certain types of products very difficult to leave (eg: Facebook) because we have so much time, connections, pictures, etc invested.

The more invested your users are the less likely they are to leave.

If you enjoyed the Hook Model, I strongly recommend checking out ‘Hooked’ by Nir Eyal.

COPYWRITING FOR CHATBOTS

One of the most critical elements to creating a great bot is copywriting. The right words can keep your users engaged for hours while the wrong ones will leave them running for the hills.

Chatbot copywriting

Tip 8: Be Simple in a Complex World

How does the Military prepare for war and get each of their soldiers to execute the plan?

…After all, it is impossible to tell a soldier exactly what to do on an ever changing battlefield.

The Military solves this problem of complexity by focusing on their Core Objective. The most fundamental question they ask is: “If we can only accomplish one goal what would it be?”

This focus on the core allows Generals to strip out anything that is not essential and have a single minded focus. The Generals determine what the Goal is and the soldiers figure out how to accomplish the goal.

Your chatbot should have a single minded focus and anything that does not adhere to this focus should be stripped away.

TIP 9: Be Concrete Like TRUMP

Have you ever wondered why, Donald Trump won the Republican Primary? There are many reasons, but one of the big ones is Word Choice and Concreteness.

If you examine Trump’s word choice and speaking style you will notice a few things almost right away.

  1. Concrete Words: He uses words that you can instantly visualize and which are 1–2 syllables long. For longer words, he actually swallows them!
  2. Ending Strong: Often times he will land on a word that he repeats a number of times and wants to impress upon you.
  3. Short and Sweet: Almost all of his words and sentences are very short.

Why Does it Work?

It works mostly due to the Low Cognitive Load it requires to understand Trump. Even if you are trying to tune him out, you can not help but to understand his message.

Conversely, compare this to Elon Musk or Stephen Hawking talking about Artificial Intelligence and Black Holes.

Do’s and Don’ts

  • Use Concrete Words that you can visualize like ‘wall’
  • Use Short Sentence and a lot of white space.
  • Use Short, 1 Syllable, Words.
  • Try to keep your character count low. User should be able to read the entire message effortlessly.
  • Don’t use jargon
  • Don’t use concept words like ‘personality’.
  • Don’t send multiple messages, with multiple button options.

Tip 10: Get & Keep Their Attention

Your Brain’s guessing machine, is constantly trying to predict what will happen next.

The best way to get someone’s attention is by breaking their guessing machine. As soon as your user’s guessing machine is broken, you will have their undivided attention!

In this moment, the brain is sending a ‘Pay Attention’ signal. This signal is very powerful as the brain is looking for an answer!

The brain‘s model of reality was broken and shown to be incorrect. This offers you the great opportunity of fixing their model and imprinting a new model in their mind. When done properly, the person will learn something and you will have ‘mind estate’.

Don’t let this opportunity slip by or solve the problem via gimmickry.

To keep an audience engaged, you have to continuously open new knowledge gaps and close old ones. This will keep your audience glued simply to find out what happens next.

Use Comedy:

All comedy essentially breaks your guessing machine and helps you see the world from a different perspective.

  1. Comebacks: A comeback is when a comedian tells you something unusual and later in the show ties his story back to this ‘unusual phenomena’.
  2. Missdirections: Comedians will often mislead an audience into making the wrong assumptions and they show them the right ones.

According to Arte Merritt, whose analytics company Dashbot.io has processed more than 33 million messages between bots and people, “About 12% of Facebook bots on our platform have had users ask the bot to tell a joke or say something funny.”

Be Credible

Ironically, it is the one thing that everyone thinks they have, but most do not! Most messages fail due to lack of credibility.

The best way to address the issue, is via a ‘Try Before you Buy’ approach.

BONUS: Connect Emotionally

We live in a relationship focused work and connecting on a deep level is key.

Relationships are taking center stage and bots offer a great opportunity for personalized relationship marketing.

How to Connect on a Deeper Level:

  1. Benefit of the Benefit: Don’t sell features but instead focus on the true benefit.
  2. Focus on the Emotions: Your bot should make your audience feel certain target emotions.
  3. Your Mission & The WHY? There must be a bigger reason why you are doing ‘x’. What is your mission, your why?

From 1997: See Steve Jobs on ‘Marketing, Values and Why Apple’

What is the One thing People Want that they Rarely Get?

People like to show smart and value they are. They want to be seen as knowledgable and how do most people respond? They knock them back down, they correct them, they compete with them.

Validation is almost always conditional, which leaves us wanting it even more!

One of the best things you can do, is validate people and give them unconditional positive regard. This will, in turn, foster a very strong connections and relationship.

Unconditional Positive Regard: Like psychologist, bots can give unconditional positive regard to people using them which in many cases will foster a very strong emotional connection and feelings of love.

Appealing to the Ideal Self Image:

We all have an ‘Ideal Self Image’… you know the person we really want to be like one day.. a more perfect version of us.

We actually try to live up to this image and often times judge our own behavior based on it.

When Crafting the Perfect Message it is important to:

  1. Consider Who the Audience IS
  2. Consider Who the Audience Wants to Be

You can use the “Why” to connect your core mission, values, and message to your audience’s Ideal Self Image.

About Stefan

Stefan Kojouharov is a pioneering figure in the AI and chatbot industry, with a rich history of contributing to its evolution since 2016. Through his influential publications, conferences, and workshops, Stefan has been at the forefront of shaping the landscape of conversational AI.

Current Focus: Currently, Stefan is channeling his expertise into developing AI agents within the mental health and wellbeing sector. These projects aim to revolutionize the way we approach wellness, merging cutting-edge AI with human-centric care.

Join the Journey on Substack: For exclusive insights into the development process, breakthrough experiments, and in-depth tutorials, follow Stefan’s journey on Substack. Join a community of forward-thinkers and be a part of the conversation shaping the future of AI in mental health and wellbeing.

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Chatbots

Resources:

Berger, Jonah. Contagious. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2013. Print

Chip, and Dan Heath. Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die. New York: Random House, 2007. Print.

Eyal, Nir. Hooked. New York: Penguin, 2014. Print.

Ries, Al, and Jack Trout. The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing: Violate Them at Your Own Risk. New York, NY: HarperBusiness, 1993. Print.

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Building AI Agents since 2016. Today, I am creating AI Agents for Wellness & Personal Growth and Sharing my Insights. Join me at: stefanspeaks.substack.com/