Building a bot no longer requires programming. There are platforms that let you build a whole conversation by dragging and dropping, and Chatfuel is one of the best known.
This part covers the practical steps from opening an account to having a working bot.
Before you open any tool
The most important step happens on paper, not on a screen: draw the conversation first.
Write: what the customer arrives saying, what we reply, how many options we give them, and where each option leads. That drawing saves you hours of aimless work inside the tool.
The basic steps
- Open an account and connect it to your Facebook page or WhatsApp Business number.
- Build the welcome message. The first message has to say who you are, that this is an automated reply, and what the options are.
- Build the blocks. Each block answers one topic: prices, hours, location, delivery.
- Link them with buttons. Each button leads to a block.
- Add keywords. If the customer types "price" or "how much," send them straight to the pricing block.
- Put a human exit in every block.
Start with five blocks only
Do not try to cover every possibility on day one. Cover the five questions you get most, and leave the rest to human handover.
A simple working bot is far better than a complex one you spend a month building and never launch.
Write the replies in normal language
An automated reply reads as stiff if written formally. Write the way you actually reply, and keep sentences short.
And make every reply contain a next step: either complete information, or a question, or a button. A reply that ends with no direction stops the conversation.
Test before you launch
Try the bot yourself from another account, try typing odd things outside the script, and see what it does.
And have someone else try it — they will usually type things you did not expect, which exposes the gaps before your customers find them.
Watch the first week
After launch, read the conversations every day for the first week. You will find questions you did not anticipate and places where people get stuck.
Every uncovered recurring question equals a new block to add. A month of that and the bot covers most cases.
Do not forget the data
The bot can collect a name, a number and the customer's need before handing over to a human. That saves a lot of follow-up time.
But be careful: ask for the least information possible, and make clear what you will use it for. Asking for a lot of data in the first message makes people leave the conversation.
Connect it to the rest of your work
A bot on its own replies. The real value comes when it connects to what follows: sending the data to a file or a system, alerting someone when there is a serious enquiry, and recording where the customer came from.
That connection turns the bot from a reply tool into a sales tool.
In short
Draw the conversation on paper first, build five blocks only for the most frequent questions, write in natural language, and put a human exit everywhere.
Test it yourself and with someone else, watch the first week and add what is missing, and connect the bot to a follow-up system.
This is part of a series on automation — which also covers the types of bot, and the reasons to use email automation.