Bots can play an important role in any online business. However, as bot technologies advance, so do chatbot problems. To fully appreciate the issues, the first thing to consider is what problem does your chatbot solve?
- Are you using or planning to use bots to:
✅ generate and qualify leads?
✅ automate bookings and registrations?
✅ drive sales?
✅ provide customer support?
✅ improve customer satisfaction?
✅ boost website conversions?
✅ increase your ROI on remarketing?
✅ collect feedback?
✅ improve user experience on your website?
Or maybe you have another purpose in mind?
Common Problems
In this article, we’ll take a deeper look into the common chatbot challenges faced by users.
Common ConvertoBot Problems
We’ll then review the specific problems faced by users of ConvertoBot. We’ll also dive into the features that our users request.
And we’ll explore the solutions we developed for these common chatbot challenges.
Here’s an overview of the most common ConvertoBot issues, which we’ll explore in more detail.
What are the potential obstacles?
- The Flaws Of AI bots
One problem is that artificial intelligence is in its infancy. AI bots use natural language processing (“NLP”) to try and understand comments from users. This is what allows them to attempt human like conversations.
NLP is a concept that’s rapidly evolving but is not quite there yet.
For a small business, developing an AI is difficult. Instead of improving customer experience, you may end up frustrating them.
There are bot platforms that support machine learning, but they can involve a lot of setup time. So it’s common for small businesses to use bots as simple conversational flows with limited user input.
Think of it as taking your visitors down a particular path of a conversation through questions and multiple choice answers (a “bot conversation flow”).
At times you might need them to enter information into the chat, for example, their contact information.
Although it’s not a natural conversation, it’s still highly interactive and requires the user to engage with your bot before they can proceed through the chat.
- Operating Within The Rules Of Social Media Platforms
Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp are powerful bot messaging platforms and can generate results with high ROIs.
However, they have a set of rules on what you can and cannot do. These rules are regularly changing as the bot industry is relatively new and rapidly evolving.
For example, let’s imagine that you’re building a Facebook Messenger bot, and you’re using Facebook Advertising to drive traffic to your bot (“Click-to-Messenger Ads”).
Your initial chat block must be 150 characters or less to be approved by Facebook.
There are also restrictions on promotional messaging to your leads acquired through your Facebook Messenger bot.
For example, let’s imagine you want to send a promotional broadcast to your subscribers on Messenger. You can only send promotional broadcasts to subscribers who interacted with you on Facebook Messenger in the previous 24 hours.
- Confusing Your Users
The ROI of bots can range from 200% to as high as 20,000%, depending on their role. We discuss this in more detail in this article, which focuses on how much a chatbot cost.
But if your bot isn’t well planned out and doesn’t follow best practices, it could confuse your users. For example, should you make it clear that your bot’s not a real person?
Also, how do you build a chatbot conversation flow so that your bot’s actually achieving your goal?
At ConvertoBot, we provide step-by-step video training and the best chatbot examples, to help our users get started and avoid common chatbot problems. We build new conversational bots examples weekly so that we cover as many industries as possible.
We also have easy-to-use bot analytics allowing you to set goals and assess how your bot is performing.
What are the most common problems?
- Using A Bot Platform Which Restricts You To Either Website Bots Or Social Media Bots.
It’s common for a beginner to use either a chatbot website (keep your visitors on your website) or a Facebook bot (the conversation is on Facebook).
A common problem with a bot on a website is restrictions on how you can follow-up with a lead.
For example, you may want to follow-up through an email drip campaign for marketing purposes. To achieve that with a chatbot website, you need the visitor’s email. Without their email, you can’t reengage with them.
You cannot reengage with them through a Facebook message, for example, unless your bot also works with Facebook.
Similarly, if you’re using a bot platform that specializes in social media bots, you’re restricted to social media channels. You can’t complete the bot conversation flow on your website.
As your knowledge grows you may appreciate the flexibility of a bot platform that supports both a chatbot website and social media bots.
At ConvertoBot, we support both types of bots. Here’s a breakdown of our bot service pricing plans.
There’s a more in-depth discussion of our chatbot pricing here.
- The Language, Tone & Layout Of The Bot Doesn’t Follow Best Practices
Bots are relatively new on the scene. As we learn more about them, we refine our guidelines and best practices to help us achieve our goals more efficiently.
If you’re new to using bots, we strongly recommend you invest a few hours in understanding:
– what kind of language to use in your conversation bot
– what tone to use in your conversation bot
– how to plan a bot conversation flow
– the basics of conversation design
Don’t be daunted! It’s an area that is simple and easy to understand.
At ConvertoBot we provide step-by-step training on all of these topics. We also offer many chatbot examples.
There are many examples of a conversation flow in a wide range of industries and use cases. You can easily edit them and install them on your website or social media in minutes.
- Finding Chatbot Examples To Help You Get Started
There are many bot platforms that don’t provide enough website chatbot examples or chatbot templates to get started.
Quality templates can save you a lot of time when you’re getting started.
For example, are you a digital marketing agency, or a chatbot agency, with multiple clients?
A platform which has many chatbot website templates, or Facebook chatbot examples, is a great resource for a chatbot agency. They can adapt those templates for each client.
Or maybe you’re looking for a bot to use in-house? Finding a chatbot template for your industry or use case is a good starting point.
At ConvertoBot, we add free chatbot templates weekly for both website chatbots and social media bots. You can see our wide range of chatbot examples here.
How to setup bots – what are the problems?
- Integration Issues
One of the most common questions from a new user relates to integrating bots into websites.
Perhaps you’re using a website builder platform, and you want to know whether your builder is compatible with a bot platform?
With ConvertoBot, integration on a website is straightforward.
You simply need to copy and paste one line of code. We explain it in this short article here.
If you’re a WordPress user, we have a chatbot WordPress plugin you can use to simplify the process. We also have dedicated apps, for example, a Shopify chatbot app.
If you experience any issues, our dedicated support team are at hand to solve them. We’ve yet to encounter a single user who hasn’t been able to integrate our website bots.
Chatbot integration with Facebook is an even simpler process. All you need to do is connect your ConvertoBot account to your Facebook Business page to get started.
- Setting Up Goals
Part of the setup process, often overlooked, is setting up chatbot goals. Without measuring the goals, it’s difficult to know how well your bot’s performing.
The first part of the process is understanding your chatbot goals.
They may be:
- lead generation
- sales
- providing support
- collecting feedback
- automating bookings
- social sharing
- or many others.
They may be a combination of chatbot goals. For example, in e-commerce, in one chatbot conversation flow, you can:
✅ drive more sales
✅ increase email newsletter signups
✅ boost social shares
✅ provide support
Or you may want to use a different chatbot conversation flow for each of those purposes and, therefore setup individual chatbot goals.
You may want to integrate your bot with Google Analytics, Google Ads or Facebook ads, or another advertising or analytics platform you use.
If you’re using a bot platform, it should have robust and easy-to-understand analytics. At ConvertoBot, we have a chatbot analytics dashboard for both a chatbot website and social media bots.
We also have integrations with Google and Facebook for advertising and analytical purposes.
We have native integrations with a wide range of marketing automation tools and an integration with Zapier, which connects to over 1,000 apps.
You can see which integrations are available with our different bot service pricing plans.
What chatbot problems am I likely to face?
- Chatbot Flow Design Issues
Your chatbot conversation flow design is crucial. A well-planned flow will help you to achieve your chatbot goals.
However, without planning and following best practices, your bot may be poorly designed. It can lead to a high bounce rate (% of users dropping out of the bot conversation flow without taking action).
At ConvertoBot we’ve worked on a wide range of B2B chatbot examples across different industries. We add new examples weekly to help our users in their particular industry.
- Passing Data From Your Bot To Your Apps
If you use a chatbot platform to build your bots, it’s essential to research the integrations they offer.
For example, let’s assume you’re using a bot for marketing purposes.
The average business owner uses multiple applications for marketing. You may use an email marketing service, like Mailchimp, or a marketing automation tool like Infusionsoft.
You’ll likely need to pass data collected by your bots e.g. lead contact information, to your marketing tools.
A robust chatbot platform should offer a wide range of native integrations to help pass data from your bots to your other apps.
At ConvertoBot we offer:
✅ many native integrations to popular applications.
✅ integration with Zapier, which allows you to connect to over 1,000 apps.
✅ integrations with Google and Facebook for advertising and analytical purposes.
You can see which integrations are available with our different bot service pricing plans.
What are the cons of bots?
- AI bot Technology Has It’s Limitations & Involves Complex Setup
Bots are relatively new, and if your goal is to build AI bots, be aware of the limitations of AI at this early stage.
It can take a lot of setup time to build an AI bot. And even then, it may not function as well as you want it to, which can leave your users feeling frustrated.
However, if your goal isn’t to build AI bots and you only need a basic (but effective) chatbot conversation flow, setup is simpler.
Your bot may have less functionality, but it’s less likely to have errors that can frustrate users. It can still achieve an extremely high ROI.
The ROI of basic conversation bots can range from 200% to as high as 20,000%, depending on their role. We discuss this more in this article which focuses on how much a chatbot cost.
- Can Confuse Your Users
One common question we receive is: should I make it clear to my users that it’s a bot?
The short answer is yes.
Bots can be so effective that sometimes users think they’re talking to a human. It might leave them frustrated if they ask questions which your bot can’t handle.
It can also depend on the complexity of the bot. If you’re using a bot to generate a lead, you might have a basic chatbot conversation flow to capture the lead information.
However, if you’re using a customer support bot, you may need a more complex conversation bot.
There is the potential to confuse your users in a more complex flow if they’re unsure whether they’re talking to a human or a bot.
How do I solve the most common chatbot problems?
- Pick A Robust Chatbot Platform
Choose a platform which:
✅ has the best chatbot examples or templates to help you get started with good bot conversational flows
✅ offers multiple chatbot integrations with other applications to allow you to pass data from your chatbots to your apps
✅ has easy-to-follow chatbot analytics to measure your chatbot goals
✅ supports both website chatbots and social media bots
✅ has comprehensive training supporting a wide range of business cases
At ConvertoBot, we offer all of the above. 😊
There’s a more in-depth discussion of our chatbot pricing here.
- Be Cautious About Using AI Bots
AI bots are still in their infancy. The technology behind AI is evolving rapidly.
At this early stage, for a small or medium business, an AI bot may present more challenges than offer solutions.
Provided you have a robust chatbot conversation flow, you can achieve many goals for both marketing and customer support. You don’t necessarily need an AI bot.
Read this article for more guidance: What’s The Best Chatbot For Your Business?
- Choose A Platform Or Service Which Offers Dedicated Support & Quality Training
If you’re using a chatbot platform to develop your bots, quick and dedicated support can be an essential factor in your success.
Also, look for easy-to-follow training, which actually offers value and develops your understanding of bots. That’s something we pride ourselves on at ConvertoBot.
You can open a free account and assess the value of our training.
Common ConvertoBot Chatbot Problems
Below are some of the common chatbot problems faced by users of ConvertoBot. We’ll explain the solutions we developed for these common chatbot challenges. Our development team adds new features regularly to tackle any issues.
I need a platform which supports “multi-channel” bots (website chatbots and social media bots)
When we first built ConvertoBot, it was a chatbot website platform and didn’t support Facebook Messenger bots. We have since enhanced our platform so that it supports Messenger bots, and WhatsApp bot.
I want a specific chatbot integration so I can pass data from my bots to my other apps
In the early stages, we focused on native integrations with marketing automation and email autoresponder service.
The common problem was that our customers had specific integration needs for their particular apps.
However we soon discovered that the most efficient solution to cater to a wide range of our customers is integration with Zapier. It allows them to connect with over 1,000+ apps.
You can see which integrations are available with our different bot service pricing plans.
I need a chatbot for appointment booking (or meetings, webinars, events etc.)
A common problem in the early stages of our journey was that customers were unable to use our chatbot for appointment booking (or meetings, webinars, events etc.).
As it was a popular feature request, we have since developed our chatbot for appointment booking.
We have multiple integrations with popular calendars such as Google Calendar, Microsoft Outlook Calendar, Apple Calendar, and more.
I require a more sophisticated AI Bot
The vast majority of our users need bots with basic functionality to achieve marketing goals and offer customer support.
It involves limited setup time, and with one of our chatbot examples, you can be up and running in minutes with a chatbot conversation flow.
We are working on developing our AI bot features to cater to those users who need more advanced functionality.
However, it should be noted that AI is still at an early stage when used with bots, and there are many flaws. In our experience, use it with caution.
I want a chatbot platform which supports a multiple language bot
There’s a significant demand for chatbot technology across the world. However, at first, our platform only supported bots in English.
However, we soon addressed this issue, and our bots now work in any language.
I’d like to zoom in and out on the chatbot builder
Larger bots involve more chat blocks, and we’re aware that being able to zoom in and out is a common problem noted by our users.
It’s a feature that’s in the development phases. However, there’s a solution in the meantime: you can use the zoom function on your computer.
I need a persistent menu
A persistent menu is useful for bot builders who want to present information to their users throughout the chatbot conversation flow.
This feature is available in our Facebook chatbots and is in development for our website chatbots.
I need to customize the design of my bots fully
We allow many design alterations for our website chatbots. But what we don’t support, at this stage, is custom CSS.
It’s a feature that’s on our roadmap for the foreseeable future.
I need a solution to email the contacts acquired by my website chatbots and social media bots
You can solve this chatbot challenge by using a third-party email marketing or marketing automation service.
We offer many native integrations and a Zapier integration, which provides a connection to any popular email marketing service.
I want my bots to allow multiple responses
It was a common problem in the early stages. However, we addressed this issue: both our website bots and social media bots allow multiple responses by the user.
So if you present the user with a number of choices they can select multiple options.
My bot visitors should be able to re-visit earlier parts of the chat
We don’t currently support this feature. The reason we didn’t develop this is that a natural flow of a chat is one way: it moves forward.
Going backward is counter-intuitive in our experience. It changes the definition of a chatbot conversation flow.
We are, however, aware of this issue and it’s on our roadmap for the near future.
I need my bots to also work with live chat (human chat)
There may be times when you want a human to take over a conversation or maybe work in conjunction with the bot.
For example, you might use a bot to ask several automated questions and generate a lead. You can then transfer that lead over to a member of your sales team to complete the action.
After feedback from our community, live chat is available for both social media bots and website chatbots.
I’m on the Agency Plan and need a website template to market my chatbots
We offer a website template within our Business/Agency plan. It’s simple to edit and showcases our bot examples.
You can also add bots you build to the website in a few clicks.
I need a white label chatbot agency
We offer a full white label version of our bot platform. It’s a high-level service that involves us setting up the white label for you.
We only need a few things from you (such as logo, business URL etc.) and we can set it up in a few hours.
With the white label you can create unlimited sub-user accounts. They will login and see your brand. None of the code will refer to ConvertoBot.
The only limitation is that, for obvious reasons, we don’t include our training videos. Also, we don’t allow your sub-users. to create their own sub-user accounts.
Contact us to find out more about it and discuss which business models will work for you.
You can also book a demo to get a walkthrough of how the white label would look.
I’m on the Agency Plan and want to transfer chatbots between my sub-user accounts
After user feedback, we have enabled this feature to simplify client management. It’s particularly useful when you’re selling the same chatbot to multiple clients.
I need a Shopify chatbot
A common problem for our e-commerce users was that it wasn’t possible to install our bots on their Shopify stores unless they had certain premium Shopify plans.
So we developed a Shopify app to make the process a lot simpler.
Considering The Various Chatbot Problems, Are They Still Worth The Money?
The short answer is yes because bots can generate an impressive ROI. The estimated ROI of bots can range from 200% to as high as 20,000%, depending on their role. (Source)
If you’re using bots for marketing objectives, a 200% ROI or more can be a realistic goal. If you’re using customer service bots, then you can even achieve an ROI in the thousands.
For example, imagine that a customer support bot reduces your customer service hours by an average of 15 hours a week at the rate of $12/hour.
Over the year, that will save you $9,180. If that bot costs you $500, that’s an ROI of 1,836%.
To achieve that kind of ROI, you need a chatbot platform that has a wide range of features to support your business needs.
After extensive feedback from our users, at ConvertoBot we’ve built a wide range of features for both social media bots and website chatbots.
You can explore those features by getting started with a free trial.
Articles you may also like:
- “How Much A Chatbot Cost?” – A Beginners Guide
- How To Make A Chatbot With A High ROI: Ultimate “How To” Guide
- ConvertoBot Chatbot Pricing: Starter vs Professional vs Agency
- What’s The Best Chatbot For Your Business?
- ConvertoBot Review – Is This The Best Chatbot?
- Get A Vital Competitive Edge With A WhatsApp Bot
- 7 Reasons Your Business Needs A WhatsApp Chatbot In 2021
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