Explore ways to leverage the
Bots in IM feature (conversational intelligence) for spontaneous customer support.
Let's create a bot that will help you attend to your customers around the clock.
Bots work all day every day to provide your customers with comprehensive support— they can effectively respond to customers, ask the right questions at the right time, and deliver quick answers to common questions.
Build your bot in minutes using the Guided Conversations (GC) builder or Answer Bot to address simple customer questions and issues. Then, plan for your agents to take over when more complex issues need attention.
Getting started
To create your first bot:
1. Go to
Setup (

) in the top bar.
2. Select the
Instant Messaging channel.
3. Navigate to the
Preferences section.
4. Click on the Bots sub-tab.
5. Under the Associate a Bot section, click Let's Get Started.
6. Select Guided Conversations or Answer Bot under the Configure Bot accordion.
7. Click Next.
8. Select the respective bot or click Create Bot (if no bot has been created for the selected option).
- Click Create GC Widget and follow the steps in this doc to create a GC widget. Or Create Answer Bot and follow the steps in this doc to create a Answer bot.
9. Click Next.
10. The next step is to associate a Business Messaging channel where you can leverage your conversational bot for better customer support. Associate a channel by selecting it from the drop down list. Then, click Save.
An error message will be shown when there are no channels to be associated. In that case, please refer to this help doc to create an Business Messaging channel in Zoho Desk and continue the process of configuring the bot.
11. Continue bot configuration by checking that the default selection, All Visitors, is highlighted, ensuring the bot attends to all visitor conversations.
12. The final step is to ensure the availability of the configured bot is set to Always.
You
should assign the bot to a unique audience. This will help you prevent
the same customers from receiving answers from the same bot.
Note about Answer Bot responses
When Answer Bot is used in a Business Messaging channel, responses are generated by Zia using the organization’s knowledge base. Zia analyzes the customer’s question and returns a relevant response based on the knowledge base articles that have been trained in the model.
In some cases, the response generated by Zia may include Thumbs Up and Thumbs Down icons below the message. These icons are part of the response generated by Zia. The Instant Messaging (IM) module does not provide built-in feedback components and does not capture, store, or process any data related to these icons.

Note: The Thumbs Up / Thumbs Down icons may appear only in responses generated directly by Answer Bot. When Answer Bot responses are delivered through Business Messaging channels, these feedback icons may not be displayed.
Supported GC Blocks in the Business Messaging channel
Build your bot in minutes using the Guided Conversations (GC) builder to address simple customer questions and issues in your configured Business Messaging channel. First, make a note of the blocks supported in Business Messaging for leveraging the Blended Conversations feature in Zoho Desk. How to dissociate a bot:
1. Click the
Setup icon (

) in the top bar.
2. Under Channels, click Instant Messaging.
3. Navigate to the Preferences section.
4. Click the Bots sub-tab under the Associate a Bot section.
5. Click on the horizontal ellipsis in the right corner of the bot you want to dissociate, and then click Dissociate.
6. Click Yes, Dissociate in the confirmation dialog box. The bot will be dissociated
1. Click the
Setup icon (

) in the top bar.
2. Under Channels, click
Instant Messaging.
3. Click
Business Messaging on the Instant Messaging page. The channels in your Meta business suite will be displayed.
4. Click on the horizontal ellipsis in the top-right corner of the channel you want to delete, then click
Delete Channel.
5. Click
Yes, Delete in the confirmation dialog box. The channel will be deleted.
Once deleted, you will not be able to send or receive messages in the channel. Though chats will remain intact (read-only), they cannot be transferred or blocked. The configured business page for the deleted Business Messaging channel will be dissociated, and the same page can be used to re-configure another channel. The channel ID associated with the bot will be deleted.
Under IM -> Preferences -> Bot Listing, the bot's status will be disabled.