Chit-chat in FAQ Bot

What is chit-chat?

In chatbots as in real life, chit-chat is the light conversation or small talk that greases the wheels of an interaction. Greetings, farewells, questions about how you are, where you’re from, your favourites…these are all examples of conversational chit-chat.

Modes of conversation when chatting to a bot

When users chat to a bot, they generally chat in two different modes:

Functional – they’re trying to complete a task, get information or an answer to their question. Generally, the domain specific content in your knowledge base, plus chat forms and engagements, help users to meet their functional needs.

Chatty – they might be testing out or exploring your bot. This mode is generally more playful, and involves typical conversational elements and perhaps off-topic questions! This is chit-chat.

How does FAQ Bot handle chit-chat?

Brand new FAQ Bots come already set up with conversational intents, including greetings, farewells, and questions commonly asked of bots (and people) – What’s your name? Where are you from? How are you? Tell me a joke.

FAQ Bot uses AI to match what you say to these common conversational intents (or to other questions set up in your knowledge base). So whether you say hey, hi or hello, the bot knows it's a greeting, and responds accordingly.

Why bother with chit-chat?

While chit-chat may seem frivolous, it does play an important role. Chit-chat helps your bot be more memorable and engaging, and it's one way (along with design and tone of voice) to give your bot some personality. And, some have argued, personality is the new UX:

“People project human traits onto everything — but now these objects talk back. Whether you like it or not, your users will still assign a personality to your bot if one hasn’t been explicitly designed.”

Better to take control of that process with a well-designed personality for your bot. And one of the best places to express that personality is in chit-chat.

Steel & Tube's chatbot Stanley has some material fun

Customise your chit-chat in FAQ Bot

FAQ Bot comes set up with almost 30 common conversational intents. All the work of thinking of variants is already done, and default answers are included, ready to customise and make your (bot’s) own. You can even add multiple response variants, allowing you to express your bot’s personality and surprise and delight your customers with different answers.

Are you ready to create a chatbot with personality?