You never get a second chance to make a first impression. Chatbots are no different, and the first interaction with users sets the tone for the entire user experience. When crafting this initial message, I recommend to keep the 3 C’s in mind: Context, Capabilities, and Call to Action.

Context

Context refers to who and where the bot is; it is the foundation upon which everything about the bot is built. Imagine two different bots:

1. Amazon Alexa lives in a little plastic hockey puck on your kitchen counter. You interact with Alexa by saying “Hey Alexa…” and then it makes a little beep to let you know that it is listening.
2. Chase Bank Digital Assistant lives inside your JP Morgan Chase banking app on your iPhone. You interact with it by logging into your bank account, tapping a chat icon in the lower right corner, and then a chat window appears.

One of these bots could be reasonably expected to know your checking account balance without a single message being exchanged.

Context also impacts the topic and tone of the conversation - imagine talking out loud to Alexa about refinancing your home! Different platforms and devices encourage different conversations, and that’s why nobody buys plane tickets on their phone.

Your greeting must also convey that the bot is NOT a human! It might seem obvious to more tech-savvy users, but if your bot is aimed at the elderly, children, medical patients, or less-technical users, you have an ethical responsibility to make the bot obviously non-human. If you decide to make your bot impersonate a human, be prepared:

• Users will find out it is a bot because AI and technology isn’t perfect - outages happen, packet loss, and general AI wonkiness cannot be 100% eliminated. This will betray your users’ trust and damage your reputation.
• Depending on your industry, there may be government regulations that it illegal for bots to impersonate humans.
• Humans are so dumb and limited that you’re doing your users a disservice by handicapping your bot like that! Bots don’t have to type out messages, can look up information instantly, and send rich text and media messages much easier than we puny humans can!

Capabilities

A bot’s capabilities are responsible for the majority of its business appeal. The bot’s greeting cannot list everything the bot can do or knows about, so developers and designers need to prioritize. What do users care about most? What draws them to your business? Put the answers to those questions in your greeting.

When communicating a bot’s capabilities, be mindful of bot-centric language and user-centric language.

• Bot-centric language focuses on the bot itself and what it can do, its knowledge, and its integrations.
• User-centric language focuses on the user experience and how the bot can make it better.

Look into your bot’s “eyes” to determine if a statement is bot-centric or user-centric. OK not “eyes” but “I’s” - if your bot uses “I can…” or “I will…” often, then it is not focusing on the user.

Your chatbot should also present its capabilities as having exceptional value. People are already skeptical of your bot, and giving mediocre reasons to use it are not enough. The best bots hone in on the intersection of “Things that bots do better than humans” and “Things your users care about.” It’s not enough just to exist this space - your bot needs to shout its presence loud and clear!

Call to action

Have you ever opened a new document or a page in your notebook and felt anxiety from the blank, infinite, paralyzing openness of the white plane before you? Conversation designers call that a “blank page moment” and they aren’t pleasant. Your bot’s users feel the same way when your bot asks “How can I help you?”

The last part of a greeting, the call to action, is equally essential and difficult. A good call to action balances guiding newer users with allowing more advanced users to take control. When writing your call to action, I recommend:

• Avoid yes or no questions The call to action should be open-ended, like a main menu. Yes or no questions will get yes or no answers, and these can be difficult for the bot to handle.

• Don’t put words in the user’s mouth Creative button labels are great for engagement, but you can go too far. Your bot should focus on being a good bot, not emulating the user.

• Ground the question in the bot’s capabilities Your bot can provide suggestions or scope to the question to remind the user of what it can do. This is a powerful technique called priming, where words and topics from one message influence the user’s next message.

Case study

Look at the two greetings below - which one does a better job adhering to the 3 C’s?

Both greetings:

• Establish the bot as a chatbot - Greeting A introduces an “IT digital assistant,” while greeting B introduces a “digital IT whiz.” The word “digital” establishes the bot’s identity in both greetings.
• Define the bot’s purpose - Both greetings explicitly mention opening a ticket as something the bot can do.
• Present exceptional value - Greeting A promises 20% time savings on opening a ticket, and who doesn’t want to save time? Greeting B, however, promotes its speed merely as a way to get the user back to work - efficiency. Greeting B takes the time to ask why do its users care about ticket speed, and targets that reason rather than speed alone.
• Are 2 messages and 33 words long - Too many words and long messages will overwhelm users. Good greetings balance completeness with pithiness and omit any statements that fail to justify their presence.

However:

• Greeting A is bot-centric. This bot focuses on what it can do, rather than how it can help. Greeting B is user-centric and focuses on what the user can do with the bot’s help.
• Greeting A has a generic persona of an “IT digital helper,” and the fact that it is 20% faster is lost in the middle. Greeting B, however, not only uses flashier language, but every sentence has consistent branding around the bot’s speed.
• Greeting A tells the user what to do, which has mixed benefits.
  • Less tech-savvy users won’t get lost as easily
  • Few people like being told what to do by a computer.
  • “Open a ticket” can also be a button.
• Greeting B asks an open-ended question as its call to action.
  • This is great for engagement
  • It can be intimidating for new users

Also, don’t sleep on buttons! Both greetings can be benefit from well-written buttons:

Now that you know the 3 C’s of chatbot greetings, you should be well-prepared for your first few drafts. Good luck!

❤️

Gordy

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