How I cloned myself using a chatbot.
Wouldn’t it be great if we could clone ourselves into a robot and have it carry out tasks for us? What if this bot knew everything about us and could act on our behalf. Though that sounds like a great robot, but the technology isn’t there yet. So how can we clone ourselves or create a robot version of ourselves?
AI Powered Chatbots
One way that we can do that now is with AI / natural language processing, and chatbots. This technology gives us a way to create bots that can understand a conversation either through voice or text and return a response. If done correctly these bots can respond in a way that almost makes them seem like humans. Over the years we’ll see this technology in customer service, marketing, and media bots.
So let’s get back to how I cloned myself into a chatbot. I wanted to create a chatbot that would allow people to learn about me. So I built Joey Bot! This chatbot could be used to educate potential business partners, and social media followers.
Check out this video below to see how my Joey Bot chatbot works.
Click here to try Joey Bot on Facebook Messenger.
So let’s go over the steps to clone yourself into a chatbot:
1. Export your brain
The first step was to define what I wanted my bot to do. I wanted this chatbot to be able to hold a conversation and let people ask questions to learn about me. I didn’t want to force the user through a logic flow but rather try to address a lot of the questions I thought a person would ask me if they were first getting to know me. So I searched for some lists of questions that people typically ask each other when they first meet. View the list. Also, I logged back into match.com (yes, I have an account 😜) and looked at the questions they ask to build out a profile.
I then added all these questions to a google doc and also added other questions I thought people might ask me. One important thing to remember about training an AI/natural language processor is that you have to include alternate ways that someone would ask you a question. So for example, someone might ask you, “Where do you work?” OR “What do you do for a living?”. Try to think of all the different ways someone might ask you a question and list them under the main question. View my questions sheet.
So for my Joey Bot my goal was to educate users about myself but also give someone a way to get my contact info or set up a meeting with me. I also defined some questions that someone might ask and would lead to a meeting. For that, I created a link that allowed a person to automatically schedule a meeting with me. You can do this using meetingbird.com.
2. Build your chatbot
So now that you have the basic content of your bot it’s time to give it a body, not a physical one but more of a software body. For this, I’m using Recime to build my chatbot (I’m a co-founder of the company 😀). The beautify of this chatbot builder is that with Recime we can quickly build the chatbot, add custom features and deploy it to Facebook Messenger, Viber, Telegram, and add it to your website.
Create an account on Recime and start a new chatbot project. Once in the build tab you 1st want to define your “start” and “default” message. The “start” message is the 1st message a user sees when they start your chatbot. Use this message to say “hi” and explain what your chatbot can do.
The “default” message is used when the chatbot doesn’t understand or have an answer for a user. Use this message to remind a user that they are talking to a chatbot and give them a way to get back to a menu or start over. You can even start a flow to have the user send you an email.
For most chatbots, I believe there should be some type of main menu. This gives your chatbot structure as well as gives your users a starting place. Think of it as a navigation bar on a website. For my chatbot I identified 3 sections, predefined questions and answers about me, links to all my social media accounts, and a feature to schedule a meeting with me. Quickly sketch out your basic chatbot flow so you can build this out.
Now that your bot has a brain and a body it’s time to test your bot and make sure it feels human and can properly answer your questions. You can test your chatbot at any time by clicking on the “Test The Bot” button in the bottom right. Use this to get a feel for the chatbot flow and make sure you’ve connected the correct intents.
3. Build the chatbot’s brain
So now it’s time to upload your bot’s brain. Take your list of questions and answers you defined earlier and begin to create an intent for each one. Once you’ve created the intent, go into the Expressions tab and add all the ways someone could ask you that question. By adding expressions you are training the AI to understand the questions a user might ask.
Now go into the responses area and add the content to answer a user’s question. Try to add photos, gifs, and emojis to make your answers more engaging.
Now that your bot has a brain and a body it’s time to test your bot and make sure it feels human and can properly answer you questions. You can test your chatbot at anytime by clicking on the “Test The Bot” button in the bottom right. Use this to get a feel for the chatbot flow and make sure you’ve connected the correct intents.
4. Give your bot life
Now click on the “Publish” tab to connect your chatbot to a Messenger channel. You can log in with your Facebook account to link to a new or existing Facebook Page, and also deploy to Viber, Telegram, or your website. To add your chatbot to a website you can take the javascript code and embed it on your website.
Now that your bot is live you can link it up around the internet. For me the channels that I believe my bot would be most useful are on Facebook Messenger, and my personal website. To make sure people can find my bot I’ve added links to my chatbot on my personal Facebook profile, Twitter bio, LinkedIn profile, email signature, and added the chatbot to my personal website. Also, I’ve added a QR to my business cards that links to my Facebook Messenger chatbot.
Click here to try Joey Bot on Messenger
So there you have it. With a chatbot, you can clone yourself and allow it to help you educate prospects about yourself and set up a meeting. This same concept can be used for businesses as well. Imagine taking your frequently asked questions and a section of your marketing or sales process and adding it into a chatbot. You could add this to messaging channels where your customers/users are and you can add this to your website. The bots automate customer service and also some of your marketing or sales.
For now, chatbots won’t totally replace a human but for some tasks, we can use bots to work for you 24/7 and automate a percentage of work. If you’re interested in creating a bot for your company or startup shoot me an email at joseph@recime.io and we can chat about automating or extending your company with chatbots.
