Welcome to another installment in our #botboss series, a collection of blog posts by experts in the chatbot industry. We’re gathering their best advice and insider tips to help you get the most out of your Chatfuel bot! This post comes to you from Jelena Mikić, Chatfuel's Head of Customer Success.


So whether you've already built your bot or are about to get started, look out for these five common mistakes. If you can dodge them all, you'll be on track to providing the most effective Messenger chatbot experience possible.

Mistake #1: Failing to plan properly 📐


It's the same with building a chatbot. If you don't plan it out first, your flow might turn out to be confusing, and it likely won't achieve your desired goal. To avoid this mistake, start by choosing your bot's purpose. Make sure it's something that benefits the user and your business.


Then, start dragging and dropping to create your Messenger chatbot's basic flow in Flow Builder. Don't be afraid to experiment and get creative, since you can always test your bot and make changes as needed. This visual design process will help you:

  • identify any potential dead ends or points of confusion

This careful planning is a crucial task if you want to build a Messenger experience that users will find useful, engaging, and easy to follow. It'll also help you make sure that your chatbot achieves what your business needs it to.

Mistake #2: Making the user work too hard 🥵




  • Always make the next step clear. Do this by offering quick replies, buttons, galleries, Save User Input plugins, etc. for the user to interact with. Don't deliver any kind of content without also providing a way for the user to move forward from there. This applies even to the very last card in your flow. Consider adding a button there that takes the user to your FAQs or to the bot's main menu, just in case they need further assistance.
Even though this is the last message of this flow, it still gives the users options for where to go next.
This Welcome Message gives users tips on how to get started.
You can set up an AI rule to bring users back to the Welcome Message when they type main menu. Or, you could add a persistent menu using the Persistent Menu Entry Point.

Mistake #3: Monologuing 🗣



🔑 Key point: A conversation is a two-way dialogue, not a one-way monologue. That's why large walls of text that require no input from the user won't be very effective.


It works even if the options are two versions of the same thing—like Let's go! and Tell me more! as a pair of quick replies. The point is to give users an easy way to stay engaged, kind of like nods and Mhm, I see-type phrases in human conversations.


  • Be concise and appear in short, digestible chunks
  • Be engaging and eye-catching (consider using GIFs, images, and emoji)
  • Offer plenty of options for user engagement in between chunks to keep things interesting



Mistake #4: Not offering an easy unsubscribe option 🔒


  • Become frustrated or annoyed, which can forever damage their perception of your brand

Here's the good news: Fixing this common mistake takes 60 seconds or less! The easiest way to provide an unsubscribe option is to add it to your bot's persistent menu. Have this selection lead to a block with a confirmation message. In that block, you can set an attribute that marks the user as unsubscribed. (You can edit the persistent menu using the Persistent Menu Entry Point for bots built in the Automation-->Flows tab, or in Configure tab for bots built in Automation-->Blocks.)

persistent menu
You can add an easy unsubscribe option to your chatbot's persistent menu.

You may also want to set up AI rules that lead to that same card. That way, your bot can send users there in case they try to unsubscribe by typing things like unsubscribe, stop, cancel, etc.





Don't let these common mistakes trip you up


If you want to learn more about building effective bots:

Haven't started building your first bot yet? Sign up for your free Chatfuel account today, and watch this video on how to build a chatbot in three minutes to help you get started. When you're ready for more users and priority support, upgrade to Pro.