How to Build Your Chatbot with WideBot
ICYMI: we launched a new WideBot this month! New branding, upgraded platform, yet the same amazing quality in our products.
Ever since we started WideBot, we had several visions, but one of the most important ones was providing a premium technological service for anyone, even people without any technological background; anyone can easily build their chatbot without feeling stuck, confused, or lost.
It could take you a few minutes to build and launch a fully functional chatbot through WideBot, and through this article, we are going to guide you on how to.
How is it possible?
The WideBot platform uses a drag-and-drop interface that is meant to make the bot-building process simple, effortless, and fun.
As a result, building a chatbot solution becomes simply moving element A to section B rather than writing endless, advanced lines of coding.
The idea of a no-code technical service comes from the platform using a simple, more visual interface on the front-end rather than working with programming.
Ready to build your chatbot? Let’s go!
Step 1: Get started and sign up.
Start by going to our website and signing up by clicking on Get Started for Free. To create an account on the WideBot platform, you have to connect your account with your Facebook account.
Once you’re done connecting to Facebook, click on “ Build new experience” to get started.
Step 2: Choose how you’d like to start building your chatbot.
We have two options for your convenience: you can either build your chatbot from scratch or choose a relevant template to get you started.
Below you’ll find a comparison between both that’ll help you decide which to go for.
| From scratch | Template |
| Takes more time as you will cater for every single detail and you’ll start with a blank template.
Building your bot from scratch ensures an even more unique experience for your users and is the best option if your industry is not included in the templates. |
Takes less time because it’s already ready and you just have to customize it to fit your needs.
Templates are industry-based so you can pick the template that works best for your business and start working from there.
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For a clearer example, below is what starting a bot from scratch looks like:
And this is what starting a bot from a ready-made template is like:
Here, we are using the E-commerce template. As you can see, all flows are ready-made with simple variables that you can change to customize your bot to be ready within minutes.
Step 3: Set your bot up
First things first; name your bot and choose the page it’s meant to be associated with. You can click on “Playground” to skip this step, but you have to do it, either way, to be able to launch your bot.
If you cannot find your page, try renewing your Facebook. Note that you need to be an admin on a page in order to be able to connect it to a chatbot.
You will then be asked to write the welcome message, which is the first message your user will see before interacting with the bot. Afterwards, you’re all set to start building your bot.
More about the platform features
Before we dig deeper into the building process, let’s take a moment and focus on the features we have and how you can use them to build your bot. Below are some of the most important features we have explained.
Stand-alone features:
| Feature name | Use-case | How to Use |
| Broadcasting | You can use this feature to send unified messages to your some of or all of your audience. You can also schedule these broadcasting messages to be sent on a specific time and date or repeated. Not just that, you can actually track your messages’ performance! | Just click on Create New Broadcast, choose its name and type, choose the audience then time and you’re good to go! |
| Train | You can use this feature to train your bot to respond to specific words said by the user when typing outside of the flow. For example, you set a scenario for the word “hello” and its derivatives so when the user sends it, it directs him to a specific flow. | Just click on Add New Scenario, write the user text and how the bot’s response will be et voila! |
Features inside Settings
| Feature name | Use-case | How to use |
| Team Collaboration | Add your team members and work on the bot together | Go to settings, scroll over to Bot Team, click on Assign a New Admin, copy the link, and send it to them within 24 hours. Each link is made for one person, and the link will direct them to create an account first then to the invitation. |
Features inside Playground
| Feature name | Use-case | How to use |
| Handover | Use this feature to transfer the conversation from the bot to your team and back when needed. | Check our handover documentation for the full guide on how to set up the feature through our platform and through Facebook settings. |
| User Input | Use this to receive input from the user and save it to an attribute. | Just click User Input, choose the attribute and its condition and you’re good to go! |
| Go to Flow | This feature can be used to redirect the user to a specific flow. | Click on Go To Flow, and choose the flow and add any filters if you’d like and that’s it! |
| JSON API | This feature is more on an advanced, technical side. You can use this feature to add integrations to your flow. | As this requires deeper technical knowledge and setup, you can read all about it in our integration and JSON API guides. |
Step 4: Set up your flows
Before we get started, we should define some terms you’ll come across a lot while using our platform:
| Flow | A group of messages. Your bot is basically made up of different flows that connect to each other. |
| Playground | The area where you use drag-and-drop to build your bot. |
| User Attribute | A variable you insert and it collects data during the conversation. For example, if your flow says: “Hello, {{first-name}}” and the user’s first name is stated as Ahmed, the bot’s message will instead automatically be: “Hello, Ahmed” |
| Persistent Menu | The menu below the chat with the bot whose location doesn’t change. You should always include essential options in this menu for a better experience for your users. |
| Quick Reply | A quick reply is a button that leads to a flow. The difference between a quick reply and a button is that you can add an infinite number of quick replies and the bot can save your users’ quick reply choices as an attribute for later use. |
| Button | A button leads to a flow, but it is only limited to 3 buttons per message and is only meant to direct the conversation. |
| Delay | Delays make the bot respond later than the usual immediate response. This makes the conversation feel more human and controlled. |
Time to start building!
So once you’re done setting up the bot, you can start building your bot through Playground. Through the section highlighted in blue, you can add folders and organize your chatbot. You can add flows when adding folders or quickly when you need to while setting quick replies and buttons.
You can start adding messages for the flow using the section highlighted in orange. These messages could be text, visuals, or a feature from the ones in the features section above.
You can add quick replies and buttons from the arrows in blue and orange depending on your needs whether you need that button just to direct the conversation or you’d like to use the data the user chooses.
You can add flows as you go and as you need to.
Below is an example built from scratch for an e-commerce seller.
It can be as simple as you need it to be! Just add what you need to automate and you’re good to go.
Step 5: Test and publish!
Once you’ve built the bot you want, click on the test button to get redirected to Messenger to test your bot first-hand. Finally, Tweak and edit until you’re completely satisfied with your bot experience! If you’ve connected your page at the beginning, you don’t need to do anything else except publish the page if you already haven’t.
If you haven’t connected to a page, you’ll need to connect to be able to launch your bot.
Post-building step: Analyze
You can track how your bot is performing through the Analytics tab that simply shows you which users are reachable and which have blocked your bot.
Moreover, you can always track your bot’s performance by analyzing your messages. The messages completely handled by the bot are automatically moved to the Done folder in your page inbox, and you can review the messages to analyze if there are dead ends in the conversations or places where people get stuck or confused, and you can then edit your bot to enhance the experience and so on.
Ready? Go!
And that concludes our step-by-step guide for you to build your chatbot on WideBot platform. Now that you know everything in detail, you have no reason to wait any longer.
