A Chatbot in a Week
Chatbots! Chatbots everywhere! Better hop on the bandwagon before it’s too late! That may be a bit of an exaggeration, but they can be very cool. Just imagine being able to build a working chatbot within just a week. We have created a workshop in which we build a ‘Chatbot in a Week’.
At Ignation we are big proponents of the Design Sprint. if you don’t know what a Design Sprint is, check out this article.
The sprint is GV’s unique five-day process for answering crucial questions through prototyping and testing ideas with customers. It’s a ‘greatest hits’ of business strategy, innovation, behavioural science, design, and more- packaged into a step-by-step process that any team can use.
We don’t just love Sprints, we also love chatbots, and see the huge potential that they hold. So we got to thinking, how can we combine the fast problem solving capabilities of a Design Sprint, with the rising potential of Chatbots.
Just as a little disclaimer, we are well aware that it’s not possible to build an enterprise level chatbot in a week. Within a week you will have a fully functional chatbot, but it’s capabilities will probably have to be expanded (depending on the complexity of the project).
Why build a chatbot?
Let’s start by answering the question, why build a chatbot? There are a lot of reasons, but I will just state those I believe to be the most important. But let’s kick it off with this quote by research company, Gartner.
“By 2020 customers will manage 85% of their relationship with the enterprise without interacting with a human”
24/7 availability
You can reach most businesses at what time?
Guess…?!?
Business hours!
That’s when you’re probably at work yourself, preoccupied. With a chatbot, this is a thing of the past. You can get in contact any time of the day, instantly.
Handling Capacity / Cost Efficiency
There’s nothing worse than having to go through a myriad of servicedesk menu options, only to have to wait for another 30 minutes until you’re directed to a service desk employee. So frustrating! Chatbots can basically handle an infinite amount of requests. This can help reduce the costs greatly, especially for enterprises with a high number of requests.
Contact options
Research has shown that millennials have somewhat of an aversion towards calling someone on the phone. They feel much more comfortable texting or chatting with someone.
One amazing example of this is the Duolingo app. Duolingo is ‘The world’s most popular way to learn a language’. But they completely understand that learning a new language can be quite the challenge, especially practicing with other people. So they designed a chatbot that talks back to you in Spanish, German, or French.
Work automation
Performing the same repetitive task will become a drag for anyone after a while. Not for chatbots though! They really don’t mind doing the same thing over and over again.
Marketing and sales tools
With the big shift towards online shopping, it’s inevitable that new forms of marketing and sales will arise. There already are some great examples of companies using chatbots on their own website, or facebook messenger, to generate sales.
Why just a week?
Hopefully I’ve convinced you of the possible benefits of implementing chatbots into a business. Now I will try to prove to you that creating it in one week is the way to go.
You might think that it’s impossible to get a working chatbot within a week. The truth is that you can get a lot more done in a week than you might think, as long as you have the support of the most important stakeholders and decision-makers. A requirement of the Design Sprint methodology is that a decision maker is present for the entire duration of the sprint. Within our framework the decision-maker only needs to be present the first and the last day, which decreases the barrier to participate significantly.
Determine Impact
One of the most important contributing factors to doing a Sprint is that you have a working and tested prototype. Within a week you will know whether or not your idea will work. It’s tested on actual users, so you have a clear idea of how they would be using your chatbot.
Minimal investment
Possibly the results of the test show that your target group has no need for a chatbot whatsoever.
That sucks! But at least now you know. You wont be spending extremely valuable resources on a project with no real potential.
Short Market Cycle
Why waste months, when you can have a Minimum Viable Product within a week. We’re just trying to save you some time.
What do you get for a week’s worth of blood, sweat, and tears?
Now that you’re convinced that a chatbot is the way to go, let me explain what you can expect. We’ve got you covered.
Chatbot in a Week was created to help you identify areas of your business to which a chatbot would be most beneficial. In five days we will collaboratively work with you on a chatbot prototype solving one of your business cases. By the end of the week you will have a working chatbot prototype giving you and your end-users the full chatbot experience.
Each business issue is different, and requires a different solution. Chatbots can be used for multiple goals. These goals might require different platforms. Within this Sprint we can incorporate your chatbot in multiple platforms, like Facebook Messenger, Website, IoS/Android app, Slack, you name it!
During 5 intense days we will be working, together with you, on delivering a working chatbot. Following a framework that is derived from Google’s Design Sprint.
The steps are as follows
Day 1: Understand
The first day is all about understanding. After we give you a brief introduction to the world of chatbots, we will look to which business issue a chatbot would be most beneficial. The Persona and Customer Journey workshop will help you identify your target audience, the business case the chatbot is going to solve, and how the target audience is going to interact with the chatbot.
Day 2: Design
The results of the Persona and Customer Journey workshop will be input for day 2, in which a technical design will be set up. The technical design is comprised of a so-called flow-chart in which the conversation structure is depicted. That is how the target audience is going to interact with the chatbot. Most chatbots have integrations with company systems such as CRM or ERP. We will be mimicking these server integrations so we’re able to deliver a tangible product as fast as possible, while still giving the full user experience.
Day 3: Train
Chatbot systems are Artificial Intelligence based systems that need to be trained. Until now we’ve collected enough information and generated enough data to start training the chatbot. With the help from someone in your target audience we will be continuously training and testing the chatbot. Simultaneously our designers will work in close collaboration with you on a design for the chatbot which could either be a design from scratch, or a design complementing your existing app or website.
Day 4: Develop
On the fourth day we will be developing your chatbot prototype. Depending on the complexity of the design and platform, we will be developing your chatbot prototype in a minimalistic design or with the design from day 3. No matter what, you will be having a fully working chatbot prototype by the end of the day that’s being ready to be tested by target users.
Day 5: Testing
On the final day of Chatbot in a Week, we will have a selected group of the target audience test and validate the chatbot prototype. Feedback collected from these users is key to the success of Chatbot in a Week, and will help you in setting the next step towards solving your business case.
We will round up the day with drinks and a presentation. The deliverables created this week: the chatbot prototype, visual design and test results, will be handed over to you and will be yours and yours alone.
Et Voilà
That’s it, a chatbot of your own! Now you/we can easily keep training your chatbot if you decide that you want it to be even smarter.
Below a nifty little slidedeck to explain everything.
