Chatbots simulate real-world conversations to interact with humans. Through these interactions, they have varying levels of complexity. 

However, how do chatbots work, how does it generate automatic conversations? And how can chatbots simulate human conversations?

Ready to reveal and simplify chatbot conversations from beginning to end? Let's demystifying the magic behind it.

The computer program responds in the way it’s been programmed to respond, based on keyword detections, if-this-than-that sequences, or more sophisticated NLP (natural language processing) applications with pre-defined responses based on detected intents.

Depending on its complexity, chatbots may use AI (Artificial Intelligence), specifically NLP to better comprehend, adjust, and react to messages. The closer the conversation simulates a human interaction, the more complex it becomes and the higher-level of AI is needed. With these high-level AI systems, the automatic conversations with chatbots can feel more real than you might expect.

A chatbot is a pre-trained system, with the ability to chat with any customer around the clock about questions, concerns, requests or FAQs. Some use keyword detection, some use real artificial intelligence.

They all try to simulate human-like conversations without the necessity of a human, in a fully automated way.
Chatbots are most commonly used on popular messaging apps such as Whatsapp and WeChat due to the large presence of customers using these platforms but can also be found on LiveChat windows floating over websites.

Through more cycles of initiation and response (like an actual conversation), the user’s desired task should be completed or his desired question should be answered. Again, the chatbot’s complexity and AI capability play a big part in what the chatbot can do for the user and how realistic the automatic conversation feels.

If neither desired task or question is fulfilled, the chatbot may refer you to another resource (like another website, a FAQ, a human agent) to get the job done.

Interactions also differ depending on what platform the chatbot is plugged-in, whether that be Slack, Whatsapp, WeChat, Line, Facebook Messenger, your own website, etc.

Facebook Messenger might be so far the most popular channel where you can connect a chatbot to serve your customers 24/7/365 through fully automated conversations.

In one of the next articles, we will shine a light on chatbot builders, and what is required to create one.

Every chatbot out there is only as good as its training and its human AI Trainer. Real artificial intelligence - sorry to disappoint you - does not exist <<yet>>.
The most simple ones will look at the incoming message to detect a “known” keyword, to which they have a scripted response. If none of the keywords which had been trained are detected, the chatbot will simply not be able to understand and mostly you end up with “Sorry, I did not get that” or “Please choose from these options a, b or c”

Even the more sophisticated ones, using neural networks, speech recognition, and machine learning, require to be trained by human AI Trainers. Their job is to make sure that a predefined scope of possible queries is correctly classified, and trained into the AI. The more inputs (training data) with a bigger variety, the higher the success rate for the AI to correctly understand what the user is asking for.

From Siri to Alexa and all similar versions out there, trying to excel at everything never worked out.
Hence, go niche! Pick a specific industry, focus on a specific set of topics and queries.

Don’t try to answer how the weather will be in Kansas when your business is a flower shop in Sydney.

It all comes down to quality over quantity. The better your chatbot is able to understand what your users are telling you, the better your customer service will be. As a result, customer satisfaction will increase and you’ll be able to form stronger connections with your customers.