Chatbot FAQ

General

Why not use a standalone bot?

Because a standalone bot isn’t going to come with a suite of intelligent help desk features. It isn’t going to integrate into your contact centre or merge with your chat agents. And it almost certainly isn’t going to offer your customers a streamlined experience.

Do you have your own bot framework?

No. Live chat software – and all its sophisticated contact centre functionality – is what we do best. So, rather than building our own bot framework from scratch, we’ve simply built smooth integrations. You get an advanced chat solution, bridged with advanced AI bots.

How does the WhosOn-bot integration work?

Your bot framework plugs into WhosOn. All that’s needed is the site connector details from your bot service provider, added into the WhosOn settings portal. From there, the two services will start working together seamlessly.

Frameworks

What bot frameworks does WhosOn support?

Currently, WhosOn supports the four leading chatbot frameworks: IBM Watson, Amazon Lex, Dialogflow, and Azure Bot.

Which framework is best?

Each is excellent for slightly different reasons, and catered to slightly different audiences. We can recommend the framework best suited to your needs after getting to know your business.

Do I need to pay the framework provider?

Yes. In general, you’ll pay a small fee such as $0.002 per request. Check with the provider for exact numbers.

Features

What features will my chatbot have via the WhosOn platform?

The same smart features as your live chat agents. Bots can bridge calls, share files, get sentiment scores, transfer chats, pull in CRM data, send dynamic forms, and more. Because your bot is plugged into WhosOn, it is enriched by WhosOn’s substantial scope.

How can agents interact with the chatbot?

With WhosOn, agents and bots form a conversational tag-team. Your agents can monitor bots, and step in and out of their chats to take over or ‘whisper’ advice as needed. All in one uninterrupted thread.

How can the chatbot interact with agents?

The agent-bot relationship is two-sided. Our hybrid bot functionality means that your chatbot serves as a real-time assistant to your agents. It will retrieve information for them and feed it into the chat as needed. (For example, taking a customer’s serial number, running a database check, finding out the status of the customer’s account, and ‘whispering’ it into the chat for the agent.)

Bot configuration

Where are conversational flows configured?

This happens outside WhosOn, via your bot framework provider. So, the dialogs library and intent architecture you’d like to pull into WhosOn will all be set up within your third-party bot management console.

What if I only want a flow-based bot?

That’s fine too. If you only want a bot to guide users through a predefined flow, configuration is even easier. Again, though, the configuration happens outside WhosOn. We just pull in that data once the bot framework is connected.

Where do I manage my bot day to day?

Bot management happens inside WhosOn. WhosOn treats your bot agent the same as any other agent – subject to rules, working hours, skills assignment, and so on. So, you can control your bot and its permissions and schedules from inside the WhosOn settings portal.

Timeframes

Is the chatbot out of the box?

No. Pre-built bots don’t perform well, and are capable of broad FAQ only. Your bot needs to be personalised and trained, using real conversational data as well as custom information from your knowledge base. That’s why we don’t mass sell bots out of the box.

How quickly can I get a bot live?

This hinges on how much conversational data you have. In general, a rock-solid bot implementation can be completed inside 3 months. If you have little data, though, expect a few months more.

How long before my chatbot is as good as a human agent?

Realistically, a bot is never going to be as flexible as a human chat agent. But your bot will only get better with time. Once in place and handling conversations, your chatbot will gain intelligence incrementally. So, within 6 months, your bot will be covering more conversational ground.

Developers

Can I build my own chatbot?

Yes. If you have the skill in-house, you can manage your own chatbot service and plug it into WhosOn. In this instance, we simply provide the chat platform that elevates the bot experience.

What if I already have a bot?

No problem. WhosOn is flexible enough to accommodate your bot. The only caveat is that it must be built in a framework that WhosOn can integrate with. Else, you’ll need some custom development work to plug in.

Can I integrate the bot into different systems?

You can – using our live chat API. You can embed WhosOn (and your connected bot) in any platform, and have it take on any appearance.

Professional services

Can you set up my chatbot for me?

Yes. Nine times out of ten, our customers prefer their chatbot delivered as part of a fully managed service. So, we can ease your chat project with bot consultancy and custom deployment.

What does a consultancy include?

First, we’ll sit down with you to map out your chatbot goals. Then, we’ll build a knowledge library to educate your bot. Next comes bot delivery in your technology of choice. Then, we’ll review and refine your bot with you to ensure optimal performance over time.

What if I want bespoke bot features or integrations?

That’s what we do best. Let us know what you’re looking for in your chat implementation and our veteran programmers will get to work.

Pricing

How do you charge for a chatbot?

We price WhosOn based on user seats. A bot is treated as a premium user seat. So, you pay for the number of standard human operator seats you need, along with a premium bot user seat.

What does a bot seat cost?

This varies based on message volume. Get in touch for a custom quote.

Can I get a free trial?

WhosOn comes with a free 30-day trial as standard. However, if you’re deploying a bot, you’ll likely want more time to set it up and get testing. So, customers with bot projects can request a longer trial period for extra flexibility.