You can create chatbots that provide support for the questions that your website visitors might have. Chatbots can be customized in both how they look and what they contain to respond to users who fit a particular audience type. This article will detail how to create and configure chatbots in SharpSpring.
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Understanding Chatbots
Chatbots are an automated communication service. They allow users to search for answers about your content, and they provide a series of answers and means of collecting data. With this, chatbots can quickly and effectively navigate users to the solutions for their problems. Failing that, they can automate the process of contacting you for additional support.
Conversations through chatbots use a specific logic path. A chatbot workflow starts with a welcome message, progresses to an initial question, provides specific answers, allows the user to respond, collects any necessary information, and then displays a message that ends the conversation. This logic path best emulates person-to-person communication.
Creating New Chatbots
Chatbots require information on where it will be placed, who will be able to interact with it, and how it will appear. Chatbots cannot be created unless all of this information is entered and configured.
Configuring Name and Website Settings
In order to create a chatbot, you will need to enter basic chatbot data. This includes what name you give it and where it will be located on a website.
To enter and configure chatbot data, do the following:
Option | Description | |||
Show chatbot |
Displays the chatbot on every page that is part of the website. | |
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Show chatbot on |
Displays the chatbot only on certain specified website pages. Requires |
Optional: Excluding URLs and Directories
Optionally, to prevent the chatbot from appearing on specific webpages, do the following:
Configuring Audience Settings
Audience | Description | ||||||
Everyone |
This chatbot will be shown to everyone who visits your site. | ||||||
New visitors |
This chatbot will be shown to anyone who visits your site anonymously. | ||||||
Returning visitors |
This chatbot will be shown only to known leads who are being tracked. | ||||||
Leads in pipeline |
This chatbot will be shown only to leads in an open opportunity. | ||||||
Customers |
This chatbot will be shown only to customers. | ||||||
Custom fields |
This chatbot will be shown only to leads with this custom field value. The available custom field types available for use with audiences are as follows:
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3. |
Click Next. |
Configuring Appearance Settings
Once you have entered and configured chatbot name, location, and audience settings, you can modify its appearance.
To configure chatbot appearance settings, do the following:
Navigating the Main Chatbots Page
The Chatbots page is where all your created chatbot workflows are located. Access the Chatbots page by clicking Chatbots in SharpSpring's top toolbar.
Information | Description | |||
Name |
The chatbot's name. Can be modified in the chatbot's settings. | |||
Audience |
The audience the chatbot is meant to best interact with. | |||
Last Run |
The last time the chatbot had a conversation. | |||
Run Total |
The number of times that the chatbot has had conversations. | |||
Exclusions |
The number of pages or directories that the chatbot is excluded from. |
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Preview |
Opens a webpage with the chatbot. All interactions will be in offline mode. Interactions in preview mode will not push to SharpSpring or send Live Chat requests. Pop-up blockers will prevent the chatbot from loading. |
Main Page Options
There are chatbot options that are available on the main Chatbots page. These options provide different ways for you make certain changes to the chatbot.
To access chatbot options, do the following:
Option | Description | |||
Settings |
Changes the chatbot's name, domain, audience, and design settings. | |||
Edit Workflow |
Edits the visual workflow logic that the chatbot operates on. | |||
Copy |
Makes a copy of the selected chatbot. | |||
Activate/Deactivate |
Activates or deactivates the chatbot. | |||
Delete |
Deletes the chatbot. This action is permanent. |
Custom Field Chatbots
When creating chatbots, you have the option to create chatbots that interact with and gather information on users who meet the criteria for specific custom fields. This means that you can create chatbots that are custom-tailored for those specific interests.
To create chatbots that utilize custom fields, do the following:
1. |
In SharpSpring's top toolbar, click Chatbots. |
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2. |
Click Create. |
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3. |
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4. |
Click Next. |
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5. |
Select the Custom Field audience type. |
Important: The following custom field formats are available for use with chatbot audiences:
• Bit |
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6. |
Select the desired custom field from the Custom Field drop-down menu. |
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7. |
If necessary, select the desired information for the custom field in the drop-down menu that appears. |
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8. |
Click Next. |
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9. |
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10. |
Click Save. |
Prioritizing Custom Field Chatbots
You can create many different chatbots that utilize custom fields. However, there might be times where a user with specific custom field information on their Contact Record meets the criteria for all of those different custom fields. To prevent users from interacting with the incorrect chatbot—or interacting with many at once—SharpSpring prioritizes the way in which users interact with chatbots with custom fields.
Chatbots with custom fields can be set in an order to determine their priority. This priority system allows users to be filtered down through different chatbots with custom fields until they meet the criteria for a chatbot with a specific custom field. This way, custom field information that you deem more important can be prioritized, and users will interact with those chatbots before any others.
To prioritize chatbots with custom fields, do the following:
1. |
In SharpSpring's top toolbar, click Chatbots. |
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2. |
Ensure you have created at least two chatbots with the Custom Field audience type. |
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3. |
Select the desired website domain from the Website drop-down menu. |
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4. |
If necessary, select either Active or Inactive from the Activity drop-down menu. |
Important: Custom field chatbot prioritization requires at least two chatbots with the Custom Field audience type.
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5. |
Scroll to the bottom of the Chatbots page. |
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6. |
Click-and-drag the custom field chatbots in the priority order you want. |
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Regarding Chatbots on Small Screens
When adding chatbots to a webpage, be aware of the potential size constraints of the page on certain computer monitors or screens. In certain cases, such as users viewing your website on a tablet computer, the chatbot might not be able to completely display due to webpage features.
Most often, the chatbot will be unable to display Close in its header bar. This is usually due to how the CSS style is set on these webpages. On these webpages, the floating header's
z-index
value set to a value higher than that of the chatbot's z-index
value.
The chatbot's |