‘No Code’ Chatbot: uncomplicating the creation of a bot

If you are interested in chatbots, have read about it them, talked with one of the smart little robots and even used one to solve a problem, you probably think they are a way to improve customer services in your company.

However, building a bot seems to be extremely complicated, a process that requires many professionals, a lot of code, plenty of IT development, a multidisciplinary team and primarily a massive investment, correct? Nope, Wrong.

Thanks to No Code (and Low Code) platforms, you can build a chatbot yourself even if you have little or no IT knowledge, and in the following paragraph we’ll explain how:

What are No Code and Low Code platforms?

For the longest time, IT projects required allocating highly skilled professionals and spending many hours working on each of the many areas involved in the process. This impacted companies’ daily routines and finances, due to the great investment of time and money, but also individual projects themselves, which were often discarded or considered unfeasible.

No Code and Low Code platforms emerged to coordinate this, offering simplicity in software development. Through them, people with little or no technical knowledge or profile are able to develop products such as websites, applications, and even chatbots.

No and Low are similar, but not the same. No Code are platforms with visual tools that are simplified to the point that anyone with any basic interest in programming are able to understand and work them. Whereas Low Code platforms require a little more of a basic programming understanding, however people with even the smallest amount of technical understanding are able to use them and and get the job done.

The key to the success of a project is understanding when and how each code should be utilized.

Benefits of a No Code chatbot

No Code and Low Code tendencies are still taking their infancy and new, more comprehensive platforms and tools are emerging all the time. And that’s taking into consideration that many of the options which are already on the market are reasonably effective, even within the corporate context.

This ease of access represents a real revolution. Making it possible for anyone to develop an application, a website, and a chatbot – or, several! -And this new, accessibility has had many impacts, let’s take a look at some them:

Construction speed

Agility, the main benefit of No Code platforms bring to a business. As anyone can develop them, goals are achieved in the most agile way possible.

Little manpower

Seeing as No Code platforms are virtually intuitive, you do not need a large number of professionals focused on any one project.

Autonomy for other sectors

Projects involving IT, usually have high demands and requirements. Using a No Code platform to create a chatbot gives you more autonomy for other sectors to work on other projects and consequently lightens the load for the IT team. And, believe me, they will thank you for it.

Low-cost

The equation is simple:

Intuitive tool + Free platforms + Optimal resource allocation =

Increasing efficiency and cost reduction.

How to build a No Code chatbot

The first step is to focus on the customer’s persona. The basic questions will guide all the choices in the topics we list below. First of all, answer the following questions:

1) Who do you want to talk to? 

2) How do you want to talk? 

3) What do you want to talk about? 

4) In what way do you want to talk?

After answering these questions, you will be in a position to coordinate your chatbot for it to achieve the goals you want. With this concept in place, it will be easier to advance through the items below.

Channel selection

Here you must choose where your chatbot will be. Some of the most popular options are: the company website, Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp. Your choices will be limited by the options that your chosen platform offers. It is even possible to use all these channels – with adaptation, of course, to the conversational flow!

Platform Choice

It’s time to choose the platform you will use to create the interface of your chatbot. There are many such platforms available, And best of all: most are free, (they only charge if you upgrade the service quality) and are very simple to use.

Currently, the most popular platforms are ManyChat, ChatFuel and Brazilian Blip.

AI Options

Artificial Intelligence may or may not be an ally in the process of building a No Code chatbot. On most platforms, there is the option to integrate many of the Artificial Intelligence available in the market, to make your bot learn more and more through user interaction.

If you want to better understand how chatbots work with Artificial Intelligence, check out our blog post: Artificial Intelligence and Chatbots: Teaching the Machine to Think.

User-Centric Conversation Design 

Conversation Design enables you to build a content strategy that will engage the customer, that is, focused on providing the best possible experience for the consumer to stimulate interactions.

In cases where chatbots don’t use AI, it is important to think about how the conversational flow will affect the user with regards to understanding questions and providing the expected response to the bot. In such cases, the process becomes easier when the questions require a low amount of answer options (if they are smart, then better yet!)

Learn more in our blog post: The importance of Conversation Design in Chatbots we which explains in more detail how the process works. Access via our blog.

Constant updating of the conversation flow

This step happens after the chatbot is up and running. It is through interactions with users that the team can generate new insights to further refine the bot’s conversational flow.

How can a No Code platform impact your business?

What we can predict that in the next few years there will be a real revolution in the way we sell and consume IT. Platform technology is proof of this.

No Code is democratic: it caters for the small entrepreneur who only has a Facebook fanpage to the staff of large corporations that need to approach their clients through a scalable service.

By uniting No Code platforms with Design Thinking, the great advantage is being able to prototype and test an idea,  which may seem very good in theory but don’t always work in practice, much more easily and quickly. In this sense, the No Code favors innovation and delivers value to the customer.

The more companies that follow the path of innovation and become more agile, the more meaningful the use No Code platforms become, especially with regards the creation of chatbots, which are projects (and processes) that require the participation of professionals from various sectors.

Increasingly, No Code is becoming the key to removing impediments between ideas and solutions and delivering a true digital transformation within corporations.

To better understand how your business can go through this change, access our ebook Design Thinking and Agile in the context of Digital Transformation. Download it now and dig deeper into the topic.