Chatbots



I have recently been reading up on Chatbots and how to utilize them in our learning solutions. Chatbots as a learning tool are gaining acceptance and traction very quickly certainly helped in part by the buzz around artificial intelligence. But there are still many people who either have not heard about them or do not have a good idea about what they can do.

Chatbots imitate human conversation and are very good at troubleshooting routine tasks.
I once purchased an anti-virus software but ran into some problems with its installation. So, I went to the company website to find out their customer care number or email. As soon as I opened their web page a little box popped up on the corner of my screen asking me if I needed any assistance. I said I did and described my problem and after a few queries received a solution. 
After a couple of days, I started having trouble with another aspect of the program so again went to the website and again came back with a solution. The same thing happened after another week - this was clearly a very bad product that I have since discarded. The third time however, I realized that I was not talking to a person but to a Chatbot. I found the whole experience simply fascinating. The bot’s grammar, sentence formation even rationale was very human like. This company should go into bot development instead of making anti-viruses.

But I digress…

Chatbots are primarily used for automating customer support and handling routine inquiries. However, they are gradually being used in learning and training and learner support as well.
Chatbots can be employed in the following capacity:

  • Provide branching scenarios – There are other software also that can accomplish this but because Chatbots have that veneer (a very strong veneer in case of a well-made bot) of conversing with another person, it makes for a more engaging and perhaps a more memorable experience.
  • Provide student support – This is akin to the stock standard role of Chatbots in handling customer service queries. The Chatbot that I have made can handle routing questions from students such as providing them with their login credentials, resetting their password, changing their details etc. The biggest advantage Chatbots have in this area is that they are available 24/7. This keeps the learners happy and avoids stressing out the support staff.
  • Use as job aids – This is my personal favorite. Chatbots can be very useful as the just in time job aids. No more searching through the procedure manual, just ask your friendly bot about what needs to be done in a specific situation and you have the answer.


But I don’t know how to build a Chatbot you say. Fear not I say.

Although the vast majority of Chatbots need knowledge of coding in order to build them or at the very least to perform really powerful functions, there are a number of Chatbots where you do not need to code in order to build a bot. You may not be able to do really powerful stuff with these bots such as using variables and have a truly free flowing conversation with hundreds of responses - you can do enough to get your task done.

The best bot that I have found that does not require any sort of coding expertise to build a bot is called Snatchbot. You can go to their website to find out more. I am not in any way associated with them but have used their platform to build a few bots. Maybe in a future entry I will talk about how to actually build a bot using Snatchbot.

So have a go and consider the possibilities.

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