Creating Chatbots

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.

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. Once chatbots have been created, you will be able to configure their workflows.

Configuring Name and Website Settings

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.

Important: You must have a tracking code enabled on your site to activate your chatbot.

To enter and configure chatbot data, do the following:

1. Click Chatbot in the left toolbar.
2. Click Create.
   
   

    

3. Enter a workflow name for the chatbot.
4. Select the website that the chatbot will be set to in the Select a website drop-down menu.
5. Select either of the following:

   	Option		Description
   	Show chatbot on all pages		Displays the chatbot on every page that is part of the website.
   	Show chatbot on specific page URL		Displays the chatbot only on certain specified website pages. Enter the specific page URL in the field. The URL must include a trailing / forward slash if there is one in the live URL.   Note: If you select this option, but leave the field blank, the chatbot will appear on only the homepage of the website.

   
   
   

    

Optional: Excluding URLs and Directories

Optionally, to prevent the chatbot from appearing on specific web pages, do the following:

1. Click Exclude URL/directory.
2. Enter a webpage URL, including a trailing
   / forward slash if there is one in the live URL.
3. Repeat as necessary with Exclude additional URL/directory. ABC
   

    

Configuring Audience Settings

Once you have entered and configured basic information, you can determine who will be interacting with this chatbot. 

This is based on the various types of lead attributions available in Lead Gen & CRM.
Important: You can only have one active bot of each audience type per page, unless the audience type is set to a custom field.
To configure chatbot audience settings, do the following:

1. Click Next.
   
   

    

2. Select one of the following audience types and 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:

1. Enter a display name for the chatbot.
2. Click    Update Avatar.
3. Select the desired image file on your local machine and upload the file.
4. Select one of the following placement options:
   • Bottom-left
   • Bottom-right 
     

      

5. Click Select a Theme Color. Enable or disable the Enable gradient checkbox. 
   • Select one of the available colors
   • Enter a hexadecimal color code
6. Enable or disable the Include welcome message at launch checkbox.
7. Click Save.
   
   

    

Important: By default, created chatbots will be branded with Powered by Lead Gen & CRM. Agencies have the option to configure this setting.

Navigating the Main Chatbots Page

The Chatbots page is where all your created chatbot workflows are located.  Click Chatbot in the left toolbar to access the Chatbots page.

Once a chatbot is saved, it will be nested under the site it is associated with. If there are multiple chatbots that have an audience set to custom fields, they will be placed at the bottom of the chatbot list for that site.

At any time in the main chatbots page, you can:

• Click the Website drop-down menu to view chatbots associated with a particular website.
   
• Click the Activity drop-down menu to view active or inactive chatbot workflows.
   
• Enter the desired chatbot name in the Search Chatbots field to search for chatbots.

The main Chatbots page displays certain information about your available chatbots:

Note: The Search Chatbots function will only display matching chatbot names for the selected Activity status. You may need to select Active or Inactive to view relevant search results.

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:

1. Click Chatbot in the left toolbar.
2. Select the desired website domain from the Website drop-down menu.
3. If necessary, select either Active or Inactive from the Activity drop-down menu.
4. Hover over the chatbot. Click    Options. 
   
   

    

5. Select from one of the following options:

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. Click Chatbot in the left toolbar.
2. Click Create.
   
   

    

3. Configure the chatbot's name and website settings.
4. Click Next.
   
   

    

5. Select the Leads with the following custom field value audience type.
   
   

    

6. Select the desired custom field from the Custom Field drop-down menu.
7. If necessary, select the desired information for the custom field in the drop-down menu that appears. 
8. Click Next.
   
   

    

9. Configure the chatbot's appearance settings and click Save.

Important: The following custom field formats are available for use with chatbot audiences:

    •   Bit
    •   Boolean
    •   Checkbox Group
    •   Country
    •   Drop-Down
    •   Radio
    •   State

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—Lead Gen & CRM 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. Click Chatbot in the left toolbar.
2. Ensure you have created at least two chatbots with the Custom Field audience type.
3. Select the desired website domain from the Website drop-down menu.
4. If necessary, select either Active or Inactive from the Activity drop-down menu.
   
   

    

5. Scroll to the bottom of the Chatbots page.
6. Click and drag the custom field chatbots in the priority order you want.
   
   

    

Important: Custom field chatbot prioritization requires at least two chatbots with the Custom Field audience type.

Removing Chatbot from Website

You can delete the chatbot entirely, exclude it from specific pages, display the chatbot on only one page, or use custom settings to keep the chatbot on your website but hide it from visitors. 

Delete Chatbot

To delete an entire chatbot, start from the Chatbot section in the left toolbar. 

1. Click on Chatbot in the left toolbar
2. Click on the       Settings icon next to the chatbot you want to remove, and then select Delete. 
   
   
   
   

Exclude Chatbot From Specific Pages

To exclude a chatbot from a specific page, or many specific pages, go to Chatbot Settings and enter the URL in the Exclude URL/directory (optional) section. 

1. Click on Chatbot in the left toolbar
2. Click on the      Settings icon next to the chatbot you want to remove, and then select Settings.
   
   
   
   
3. Scroll down and click Exclude URL/directory + in the Edit tab. 
   
   
   
   
4. Enter the path of the page you want to exclude.
5. Add as many excluded URLs as needed, then click Save.
   
   
   
   

Display Chatbot on One Page

You can select Show chatbot on all pages or Show chatbot on specific page URL. To display the chatbot on specific pages only, select Show chatbot on specific page URL and enter the URL. This will hide the chatbot from all other pages. With this method, only one page URL can be entered. To display the chatbot on many pages but not all pages, select Show chatbot on all pages instead, and then exclude the pages where you want it hidden. 

1. Click on Chatbot in the left toolbar
2. Click on the      Settings icon next to the chatbot you want to remove, and then select Settings.
   
   
   
   
3. Select the Show chatbot on specific page URL toggle. 
4. Enter the path you want to specify for the chatbot to appear. 
5. Click Save. 
   
   
   
   

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 web pages. 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 z-index value is 9999, which means that it will be placed underneath header bars with a z-index value of 10000. In order for the chatbot's header bar to display properly, all elements on that webpage must be set to a z-index value of 9998 or less.

For more information on configuring your webpage's CSS theme, contact your administrator.

Note: Constant Contact offers Professional Services to assist with custom coding.

Questions?