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Why a great technology is not enough to build great chatbots ?

January 13, 2019

Big Tech Companies offer Great Technology


Thanks to advancements in natural language processing technology, big tech companies such as Microsoft, IBM, among others–have made conversational interface technology (chatbots) available via their respective platforms. These proprietary platforms are offered with a specific license model as great technology only.


However real life projects proof everyday, that this is not enough and that chatbot developers are looking for knowledge transfer together with a great technology. Most of the projects turn out to be not successful because the focus was only on the technology.


Defining the Chatbot Use Case right from the very beginning


Focus independent from the technology you intend to use on the definition of the chatbot use case at the very beginning.


What do you want to achieve with the chatbot?


Ask yourself whether this makes sense and is fully achievable. Nothing is worse than creating wrong expectations about the capabilities of the chatbot. This will disappoint the users and the chatbot is at the end of the day not used at all.

“Underpromise and Overdeliver” is in this context highly important. Set the tone right and you will have success with your chatbot. Once the chatbot is accepted by the user, you can always gradually extend the capabilities. Believe me -  this will come as a positive surprise to the users.


Conversation Design is evenly important than using the Right Technology


Bevor getting into the technology the scoping of the conversation flow should be done. This starts with the users of the chatbot.


Who are they? What questions will they ask? What are the possible answers?


When you have defined this work yourself backwards from the answers and define the conversation flow. Start with a bot who takes control over the conversation. This can be achieved with a well defined use case, where the user knows exactly what to expect and what not. Don’t try to create a bot which can answer everything.


Chatbot Technology and Knowledge Transfer


We at have put a lot of work and efforts into the technology piece and have come up with a chatbot development platform, which is driven by the conversation flow design and is as great as any other platform in the market.

However, this was not enough for us to bring it to the market. Through many customer meetings and discussions we have learned why chatbot projects were failing and the bottom line was always that the use case was not defined well and the conversation design was neglected.


Why was this missing?


Most of the time the big tech companies were selling technology, when this was achieved the customers were left alone and the chatbot projects were at the end not successful.


This has lead us to our open source approach, were our great technology is available for free to any developer around the globe and on top of the technology we provide the necessary knowledge transfer (as part of our support subscription) to our customers. This has proven to be more appreciated by customers and creates from the very beginning a bases for many successful chatbot projects.



About the Author:

Franz Weber is an innovative Business Leader and Experienced Consultant with high customer orientation and know-how in the areas of Operations- and Financial Management as well as Business Development. His focus is on the Information Technology Industry and key topics such as Cloud Computing, IT Security, Conversational AI and Digitalization of Business Processes. Franz is CEO and Co-Founder of Technology GmbH, a company based in Vienna, Austria providing an open source platform for conversational AI.


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