WFH Tip 12: What are Handlers and how they can help you build a perfect Zobot that can mimic your operators?

WFH Tip 12: What are Handlers and how they can help you build a perfect Zobot that can mimic your operators?

Welcome back to Zoho SalesIQ! The previous WFH tip focused on how actions in Zoho SalesIQ' s Zobot can help reduce the workload of your operators. Today's tip will tell you what handlers in the Zobot are and how they can perform all the functions that your operators perform, compensate for them and reduce their workload. If you're building a Zobot for the first time, here are some tips for you to get started.

THE HANDLERS
The SalesIQ scripts consist of four major handlers inside which all of the actions that have to be performed by the Zobot are defined : Trigger handler, Message Handler Context Handler and Failure handler.



  • Operators usually send out welcome messages to visitors when they land on the website. This message is usually used to welcome new visitors and to ensure continuity with visitors who are already customers of the business.
  • The trigger handler is a piece of SalesIQ script that mimics your operators and invokes a custom action / message that is sent out by the Zobot when visitors visit your site - the trigger is executed only when the rule set in the trigger section matches the visitors criteria.
  • It is a personalised, proactive chat invite that is sent to the visitor based on their type - new, returning, etc. and makes them feel like they are talking to a human which will in turn turn them into prospects. For example, once you enter any showroom, there is always a welcome desk where someone greets you and asks you what you need help with. The trigger handler works in the same way




  • Next, is the message handler. This handles the process of reactive engagement by the bot.
  • Operators always tend to ask a series of questions to build a conversation with the visitor. This is to know about visitors, their past visits, what products they're interested in, etc.
  • The Message Handler is used to keep the visitor engaged with the same type of questions and is invoked when the bot receives a message from the website visitor. This is where the bot makes conversations more engaging and appealing with widgets.
  • The combination of messages received from the website visitor will be analysed and stored in the code already, and the bot will respond to the visitors based on the question they receive from the available answers.
  • The best example that can help you relate better is that of a call centre. You call a support centre and tell the representative that you have trouble with something and then they respond to you with a solution. They do not voluntarily call you. That is also how the message handler functions.



  • During any conversation, a lot of data is collected by operators to perform different actions like creating a lead in CRM or a ticket in Desk, creating a calendar appointment, etc. The context handler in the Zobot eases this job for operators by collecting all of the information required to perform any action(under different contexts) and also does these actions on their behalf.
  • A context is a conversational equivalent to a web form. Webforms are used to collect multiple inputs from the visitor to perform a single action.
  • Similarly, a context is a definition of a web form that collects multiple inputs in a conversational manner and executes an action which is the context handler.
  • It can work in association with the message and trigger handlers, that is, the handlers can return a context instead of a message reply. The context handler is like a form that collects details like name, email, contact number and region to sign you up for a newsletter.



  • Every conversation has the chance of having a failure and operators are bound to handle these and send a message back to the visitor. In some cases, operators not being available during business hours can also invoke failures during a conversation and this is where failure handlers come into action.
  • This handler in the Zobot gets invoked when the actions returned in the other handlers fail to execute.
  • The inputs will be the details of the visitor, the cause of the failure and the previous response for the object due to which the action had failed.
  • This handler will be disabled by default but if you wish to set up failure responses, you can enable it. This can be configured in case:
    • Chats are forwarded to operators when they are offline
    • Operators are unavailable during business hours
    • Operator email is invalid/inactive in the portal
    • Or character limit was exceeded in the reply given.



We have Sample Scripts that use all of the handlers mentioned above. So, what are you waiting for? Start building your own Zobot right away!
For more information, check out our Help Documentation.

Regards,
Michelle