Here are the same basic four steps to build a bot with a bit more hand holding:
Gobot is ambidextrous. Use it primarily as a sales bot, a help bot, as a combination sales and help bot, or just for its knowledge base capabilities alone. How you want to use Gobot will affect the settings you choose so we suggest you give this thought in advance. For example, if you want primarily a help bot, rather than a popup sales bot, you probably want a "Need assistance?" tab or button residing on your site at all times, which upon click opens your help bot. If you are interested in a sales bot, however, you probably want to consider bot settings that allow you to trigger the appearance of your bot on your site at the most ideal time, e.g., upon cursor exit or upon scroll to a particular point on your website. With this kind of sales bot there would be no "Need assistance?" tab or button on your site. Of course, your sales bot can still offer assistance and access to your full Gobot knowledge base but if you have it popup under certain conditions it won't reside on your site at all times to address questions as needed. One option is to create a help bot that resides on your site at all times and also additional sales bots that appear only under predetermined conditions. You can learn more about coordinating multiple bots here. In the meantime, and with that background, let's dig in a bit further into each of the 4 steps for building your bot.
STEP 1: CONFIGURE
Click on the bot icon in the navigation bar - this will bring you to your bot dashboard. Next, click on the New Bot button in upper right hand corner of your dash (alternatively, if you are already in bot builder mode, click on the Create New Bot button in the lower left hand corner of screen). This will open the Bot Settings screen. Fill out the form in the Bot Settings screen (which defaults to the General tab) field-by-field with the requested information. This is where you tell Gobot what you want to call your bot, what website you want your bot to appear on, and when you want your bot to appear. We need to take care of this basic administrative step before we start the process of telling our bot exactly what to say to our website visitors, which we do in the Script step below. OK, let's do it, after clicking New Bot proceed step-wise through each field in the Bot Setup screen as follows.
GENERAL TAB
#1: Create a Bot Name and enter it in the first field. This is your internal file name for your bot, which will appear in the list of bots you create in the left panel of the main screen once you save and close out of the Bot Setup screen.
#2: In the second field, enter your Bot Display Name. This is the bot name appearing in the bot header shown to your website visitors, e.g., "Conversation with Dave's Lumber". We suggest using your company name in this field.
#3: Next, associate your bot with a new or existing Campaign. This will help you organize your bot list. So, for example, if you plan to run a promotion during the holiday season and you've designed a bot that only runs on or around Christmas you may want to call your campaign "Christmas Promotion".
#4: Here is where you choose how your bot runs. If you choose "Remains on your site at all times", a tab (e.g., a "Can I Help You?" tab or button or bubble) will appear on your site, which upon click by your website visitor will trigger your bot. This mode provides your website visitors access to self-help, among other things. You can control the look and feel of the tab or button or chat bubble under the Style tab of your Bot Setup page. If you choose "Pops up under certain conditions" your bot will appear upon your website load. You can also control when your bot popus up by setting your desired conditions under the Advanced tab. This type of bot is more typically used for sales or marketing purposes.
#5: If you plan to script your own bot leave the box in this field unchecked (you will then start with a blank center build panel). If you want to start with a bot template (either a Gobot template or one that you created), click the template box and select a template from the pull-down menu. Note that when you choose a template you will port over all of the template settings. This may change some bot settings you may have already chosen.
#6: List the website you want your bot to appear on. You can choose for your bot to appear site wide, on a particular URL, or on any URL including a keyword you supply. If you are using a template this is the key field that you will need to fill out because many of the template triggers will already pre-selected for you. We suggest that copy and paste your website URL directly from your browser rather than attempt to type it (many people mistype or forget to include the http:// or https://).
You can set the look and feel of your bot by clicking on the Style tab towards the top of the Bot Settings page. Under the Style tab you can control the background/accent and text color, as well as the transparency and positioning of your bot. For more detail click here.
You can set advanced triggers for your bot by clicking on the Triggers tab towards the top of the Bot Settings page. Use advanced triggers to finely control when your bot appears to your website visitors, e.g., only to first time visitors or during the holiday season, etc. For more guidance on the trigger settings, click here. Note that the triggers vary depending on whether you chose "Pops up under certain conditions" or "Remains on your site at all times" under the General tab.
Under the Language tab you can select whatever language you want for your bot. When you choose a language other than English you will be given the opportunity to alter the machine translations provided for all text built into the chatbot (some of which your bot may or may not be using). When you script your bot you are also free to type in whatever language you desire for your bot. Make sure to type your bot in the same language chosen under the Language tab. Click here for more information about language options.
NOTIFICATIONS TAB
Under the Notifications tab you can select the frequency at which Gobot notifies you of its engagements with your visitors, including collection of emails. You can also opt to receive a transcript of your conversation.
GOOGLE ANALYTICS TAB (coming soon)
You can also connect your bot to your Google Analytics account by clicking on the Google Analytics tab. Google Analytics will populate a number of important analytics, e.g., how much longer visitors are staying on your site as a result of their engagement with Gobot. We highly recommend you integrate with Google Analytics but perhaps not on your first or second bot; give yourself some time to get a feel for how Gobot works first. When you are ready to learn more about the Google Analytics integration, click here.
Click Save and Continue. This will close the Bot Settings form and bring you back to the main bot builder screen. You will note that your bot is now listed in the left hand panel under the campaign you chose or created.
STEP 2: SCRIPT
Let's begin scripting your bot! Drag a Text box from your tool palette in the right panel into the center panel. This action will transition the right panel from a tool palette into a text editor window. In the right panel enter a message, e.g., "Welcome to my website!", in the box below the message "Insert or Edit Text Below". You can also add an emoji if you are feeling bold! Click the Save button in the right panel and the "Welcome to my website!" message will appear as a text bubble in the center panel. Consistent with conventional messaging format, the text line appears on the left side of the screen and it will appear on the left side of the Gobot message screen when it appears on your website. Responses from your website visitor, e.g., smart buttons, will appear on the right side of the screen (but for simplicity we do not include a button in this example).
Drag the Text button from the right-hand panel to the center panel:
Type your message in the right-hand panel and watch it appear in the chat bubble in the center panel:
Click Save and your message option palette reappears in the right-hand panel:
Repeat for as many text lines your script requires. You can reorder the text bubbles in the center panel by dragging them to the desired location. For this simple bot example we will stick to a basic text line. However, you can make for a more elaborate bot by including multiple choice questions, buttons, polls, email requests, surveys, video, images, giphy, among other things. Click here if you want to explore Gobot's right hand panel tool palette in more detail.
The above script example is really short. Ultimately when you start building longer bots, you will note that they become more challenging to read. To mitigate this effect, you can use the +/- magnifying glass icons in the lower left hand corner of center build panel to zoom in and out of your script. You can also use the adjacent collapse/expand buttons in the same location to minimize multiple choice branches allowing you to more readily see the different branches to your conversation. Click here for tips as to how to best deal with longer bot scripts.
STEP 3: TEST (optional)
Test your bot by clicking on the Test button on the bottom of the center panel. This should open up a new window showing your bot run on the intended website. The test run will not actually load on the intended website - it is just shown in the background for testing purposes. Towards the bottom of the test page you can opt to customize the color and transparency of your bot and also shift the appearance of the bot from the right side of the screen to the left side. You will note that your bot appears in the lower right hand corner of the screen by default except when you have requested handoff to a live chat provider, which will automatically shift your bot to the lower left hand corner of the screen. Click the x in the upper right hand corner of the page to close test mode.
STEP 4: PUBLISH
Publish your bot on your website by clicking the Publish button on the bottom right of the center panel. This will open a window with instructions. Click on the Publish button in the window and then the Install Gobot button, if you haven't already installed Gobot on your site. If you are using an app on a supported platform, e.g, Wordpress, Shopify, etc., then all you need to do is click Publish.
Open a new tab and load your website (the one you listed in the Bot Settings page) and watch your bot run! To study your bot analytics, return to the Gobot builder site and click on the Analyze tab in the right hand panel or the Responses button in the left hand panel under each bot title - more on that here.
IF YOU HAVEN'T DOWNLOADED OR INSTALLED GOBOT YET:
If your bot will be running on a WordPress or WooCommerce site, and you haven't already downloaded Gobot from the WordPress plugin directory, click the WordPress button and follow the directions to complete the WordPress integration. The directions will direct you to login to your WordPress site, download Gobot, and then return to the Gobot site to publish your bot. You can find more detail about WordPress integration here.
If your bot will be running on a Shopify site, and you haven't already downloaded Gobot from the Shopify app directory, click the Shopify button and follow the directions to complete the Shopify integration. The directions will direct you to login to your Shopify site, download Gobot, and then return to the Gobot site to publish your bot. You can find more detail about Shopify integration here.
If your bot will be running on a Weebly site, and you haven't already downloaded Gobot from the Weebly app directory, click the Weebly button and follow the directions to complete the Weebly integration. The directions will direct you to login to your Weebly site, download Gobot, and then return to the Gobot site to publish your bot. You can find more detail about Weebly integration here.
If your bot will be running on a BigCommerce site, and you haven't already downloaded Gobot from the BigCommerce app directory, click the BigCommerce button and follow the directions to complete the BigCommerce integration. The directions will direct you to login to your BigCommerce site, download Gobot, login to the Gobot site to copy the Gobot code snippet, return to BigCommerce to paste the Gobot code snippet in your BigCommerce website code, and then return to Gobot to publish your bot. You can find more detail about BigCommerce integration here.
For custom sites, click on Install Gobot and then on the Copy to Clipboard button to copy the Gobot code snippet you will need to add to your website html code. Paste the code before the closing <body/> tag on each page where you want Gobot to appear.
If you click on Install Gobot the screen below appears:
AFTER PUBLISHING:
After publishing, you can make further changes to your bot but you will need to save your bot and publish it again after your edits are complete. At any point you can pause your bot by clicking the Pause Bot button on the bottom of the center panel (this button is only present after your publish your bot). If you pause your bot you can make it live again by clicking the Make Live button (this button is only present after you pause your bot).
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