WFH Tip : 15 What are Zobot responses and how can they be used?

The Zobot is a bot development platform on Zoho SalesIQ, using which you can build very compelling chatbots to automate customer interactions. It automates the process of interacting with your website visitors and helps you maintain the presence of a helping hand, even when all your operators are busy and can't respond. This post will talk about the different types of responses that can be used in the Zobot.

Before we jump in and start learning about the different types of responses, let us build ourselves a little example. Let us take the example of a common e-commerce store and assume that a Zobot called E-com Bot has been deployed on the website to answer customer queries. We will look at how each response type will help the bot during different scenarios during the conversation.

Suggestions:

Every conversation between a Zobot and the visitor consists of a couple of exchanges. Sometimes visitors might get a feeling that the conversation is getting monotonous and might not feel like typing out the response to a question. To handle situations like these and to make efficient conversations, the bot can display response suggestions in order to save the time and trouble spent in manually typing out responses.

For instance, the bot can display a list of products - say household appliances, clothes, shoes, books, etc. that are available in the store and allow the visitor to choose the one that they want to buy. This response type is an array and so you can stack more than one suggestion. They only accept collection as their value and the collection can only have a list of strings separated by commas. Learn more.

Skippable:

Some questions may look/sound unnecessary to some visitors and they might want to skip to the next part. It could be a casual question or a question about an extra detail that the visitor is not willing to disclose. In this case, skippable can be used.This response type can be used with all the input cards. It displays a skip button to the visitors along with the input widgets, using which visitors can choose to skip responding to the particular question. Say, the bot asks the visitor to choose a color for the product that he/she wants to buy and the visitor isn't very color-specific, then that question can be skipped by clicking on Skip. Learn more.

Field name:

There is always a lot of information that needs to be recorded during the course of the conversation for future use. field_name can be used in your bot scripts to update the visitor name, email, phone number, etc. inside SalesIQ. Other details like ID, city, etc. can also be updated using the field_name. This can be useful in an online store scenario - the bot can collect details like name, contact number and location of the visitor in case an order has been placed and the visitor wants the products delivered to a particular address. This information can also be used later for follow-ups. Learn more.

Note: All information other than visitor name, email and phone will be updated in the custom info section of the particular visitor.

Validate:

Validation of information given by visitors is an aspect that has to be paid attention to. Sometimes, when visitors send invalid information, it becomes difficult to follow-up or send them information about updates. The Zobot can validate the information that was given by the visitors while placing an order using validation to make sure there are no discrepancies in the data. Learn more.

Call To Action(CTA):

As the name suggests, these are buttons that can be added to bot replies and can perform different actions in your client with Client Actions. These are similar to response suggestions but the options do not disappear once the response is submitted by the visitor. They will still be able to take a look at the options inside the chat window. The CTA is currently supported in text reply, single product and multiple product cards. Learn more.

Questions:

As the name implies, this response type is used to feed a collection of questions that the bot will ask the visitor when he/she lands on the website.This is a response type that is specific to the SalesIQ Scripts platform. It is an array of objects in which each question is an object. You can include any number of questions in the array. This response type can be used when the bot inquires about the needs of the visitor before placing an order. It can collect details like the category of products that they want to shop, the price range, color options, quantity, etc. and display a filtered list of products based on the answers given. This can make it easier for the visitor to choose the product and place an order. It accepts only a collection as the value. The collection, in turn, must have at least one map. Each question map in the array has the following keys : name, replies, input and suggestions. Learn more.

Actions

The activities that are performed by the bot while responding to visitor queries are called Zobot actions. They accept only text as their value and the values can be one of the following - reply, forward, operator_busy, context, block, pending and end. Say, the visitor wants to buy a home appliance on the online store and wants to talk to a human operator about the discounts available, delivery procedure and payment options. The bot can use the forward action to connect the visitor to a human operator who can handle the query. If the bot is performing actions like generating an invoice for the order that was placed, it can use the pending action to do so while also keeping the visitor informed about the process. These actions can also reduce the work done by your operators in half and improve the efficiency of customer support teams. Learn more.

Context:

Contexts in the Zobot are those that make bot conversations with visitors more flawless and human-like. The context_id is a unique identifier for any context that is available in the context handler of the Zobot. You can use the context action in case you want to use a set of questions in a particular context to invoke/perform an action. context_id accepts only text as the value. The value must be the name of the corresponding context handler block.

For example, if you want the bot to create a lead in Zoho CRM using the name, email and phone number of the visitor who has placed an order, you can specify questions to get these details from the visitor in the same context. Learn more.

Delay:

Sometimes visitors might not need the help of the bot while they're browsing through the website. In this case, the bot can end the chat. When you don't want the bot to end a chat session abruptly, you can schedule a delay for the end of a chat. This response keeps the chat live for a while in case visitors decide to come back for a question. If the visitor does not need the help of the bot to choose products and place the order, the bot can end the chat after a set period of time. Learn more.

Note: The delay will be unscheduled if the visitor types a message/ sends a message/ agents join the chat/chat is handed off to the agent.

To learn more about the types of responses, start building your own Zobot right away. We also have Sample Scripts that use all of the response types mentioned above. For more information, check out our Help Documentation.

What are actions and how they can reduce operator workload?

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

Regards,

Michelle

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