So, you’ve read our post on the rise of chatbots and are thinking about building your own. Well, we have some good news for you: there are plenty of tools out there online that’ll help you get started. A little tip: even if you end up hiring someone to build your chatbot, it can be useful to play with some of these tools, if only to get an idea of how chatbots work and what they can do for your business.
Chatfuel
If you want to build a chatbot for your Facebook business page and don’t want to do any coding, then Chatfuel is the tool for you. Aside from creating a set of automated responses, you can use Chatfuel to create a bot that offers relevant links, takes reservations, offers specific information, and more. The chatbot used by the Golden State Warriors was created with Chatfuel.
Smooch
Smooch is a major connector app. By that, we mean that you can use it to create chatbots that connect business apps (like Zendesk, Help Scout, Front, Slack, and more) with messenger apps (like WeChat, Kik, Facebook Messenger, and more). This way, you can take customer inquiries from whatever platform they like and respond with the business app of your choice.
API.ai
API.ai is an advanced but simple way to create a sophisticated chatbot for Facebook Messenger. There are three simple steps to creating your bot with API.ai. First, you create an agent. Then, you provide some examples of how people might talk to your bot. Finally, API.ai takes care of the most important step: it “trains” your bot by using your examples and improves the bot’s conversational capabilities. After that’s done, you just need to launch your bot.
Facebook Messenger Platform
This is a bit more advanced than most of the tools we’re talking about, but it’s worth noting that Facebook Messenger has it’s own platform for developing chatbots. You will, however, need the Messenger plugin, Messenger codes, Messenger links, and structured templates. Good news, though: the support offered is awesome. They offer a complete guide to building your bot as well as some case studies about bots that already exist, like the one used by CNN.
Telegram Bots
Telegram is a massive messaging service, and one of the cool things about them is they’ve made it easy to create chatbots for their service. They’ve made their chatbot code all open-source, so it’s easy to plug in your information and make your own bots.
BotKit
If you like everything open-source, then consider BotKit. It supports multiple platforms (like Facebook Messenger, Slack, Twilio, and more) and can be used to create simple conversational bots. One of the cool things about their service is you can use their service to update your library of possible bot interactions without requiring code pushes for updates.
