A website chatbot is basically a program that's used to perform an online chat session, through either text or voice-to-voice, rather than giving direct human interaction through a mouse. If you've ever participated in a forum or other online community and had to deal with people, then you've probably participated in a "run of the mill" chat session. These types of messages, unfortunately, are oftentimes the most annoying. In fact, a lot of people have left forums and chat rooms because of this very reason, simply because they were annoyed by the subject matter. You can take a few tips from those who have actually been there and use them to avoid running into this exact problem.
First, if you use the most common program's platform for chatting on the Internet, then your chat bot should not be able to recognize your username and password. Many programs are prone to having problems with cookies, so it's always a good idea to change these every time you log in to ensure that your conversations are protected. This may not be as easy to do as it sounds, though. Some of us have been unable to make this switch simply because our web browsers have no option for automatically changing our passwords. If this is the case, then you need to run the chat bot through the secure portion of a site to ensure that your conversations are protected.
Second, chat bots that are using artificial intelligence to search out chat threads have a tendency of coming up with responses that don't make much sense. It's not uncommon for a bot to reply to a message with "you are cool", only to have a friend subsequently tell the bot to "back off". Because of this, you need to pay close attention to what your chat bot is responding to; especially if you see it responding to visitors to your site. Visitors to your website are the ones that will ultimately end up causing problems for your chat bot, so it's important that you're able to provide them with an experience that makes them want to stay on your website.
Third, chat bots that are using live help features aren't necessarily very good at picking up the subtleties of conversation. For example, if your bot is attempting to connect to a person on a social media site, but the person isn't actually linked to any of their accounts, the bot could end up messaging them with random information based on which social media accounts they're connected to. This can cause all kinds of problems, such as confusing real conversations with fake profiles or causing someone to become very defensive after they realize that their account is actually connected to a different social media site than they were looking for assistance in. Fortunately, however, most chat bots can pick up on just enough of a difference between two people to know that the subjects are actually the same person, and they should be able to handle at least that much.
Fourth, many chat bots use artificial intelligence to determine the most effective response that they can give to certain situations. While chat bots have come a long way in terms of being able to recognize various facial expressions, sounds, and smells, artificial intelligence will always be working to achieve the best response it can from a given situation. However, a website chatbot that's not able to learn how to distinguish between real words and artificial ones, or the different meaning behind certain phrases might actually prevent your bot from responding in the best way possible. In order for your chat bot to be able to handle even the most difficult of conversations, you need to be able to train it through experience.
Fifth, while most of these chat bots were built to chat with other humans, some of them have also been developed to chat with other programs. There are a number of apps on the market today that allow a user to contact bot-pals from across the globe, for a very affordable price (usually free). These programs often link up bot-pals using their own personal channels, so that they can easily trade messages back and forth. Using this service can allow you to get rid of a middleman and give your customers the ability to do business with you directly.
Sixth, some of the biggest chat bots out there have been built specifically to perform specific tasks. Yahoo, for example, has its own chat bot called Hoot. The bot performs keyword searches, related image searches, and the like. When a customer searches for something the bot can tell if it matches a keyword in its database (hence Hoot).
Seventh, you can also purchase software that can be installed right onto your computer that allows you to control your chatbot. This software will let you customize what you want your bot to say when you want it to say it, and how it says it. You can also completely remove the human contact information from your computer and eliminate the need for a human being to touch your computer! Eliminate all the hassles of having to contact potential clients or buyers and have your bot contact them on your behalf.