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Chatbots
Chatbots greet visitors who start a new conversation, ask a few questions with buttons or short answers, and then hand the conversation to the right team, or close it when no human is needed.
How chatbots work
A chatbot is a flow of up to 30 steps. Each step sends a message and then does one thing: shows reply buttons, asks for a detail, or simply moves on. You build flows in Automation → Chatbots. Only workspace owners and admins can open Automation.
The first step appears as soon as a visitor opens a new conversation in the messenger, before they type anything. When they tap a button or answer, the conversation is created and the bot continues inside it.
Create a chatbot
- Open Automation → Chatbots and create a bot. You can start from the ready-made flow (the sample below) and edit it.
- Write each step. Give it a message (up to 2,000 characters) and choose what happens next. You can personalise messages with
{{contact.first_name}},{{contact.name}}or{{contact.email}}. When the name is unknown, the name variables become “there”. - Choose the audience. Decide when the bot runs, which contact types see it and on which pages (see When a bot runs).
- Turn it on. New bots are off until you enable them. You can also duplicate or delete bots.
Step types
| Step | What the visitor does | Where the answer goes |
|---|---|---|
| Show reply buttons | Taps one of up to 8 buttons (labels up to 60 characters) | The button's action runs (see below) |
| Ask for an email address | Types an email. Invalid addresses are politely asked for again | The contact's email. The visitor becomes a lead and can get reply notifications by email |
| Ask for a name | Types their name | The contact's name |
| Ask for a phone number | Types a phone number. Anything that doesn't look like one is asked for again | The contact's phone |
| Ask a question (free-text answer) | Types any answer (up to 500 characters are kept) | A custom attribute you name (letters, numbers, underscores), or bot_answer_<step> if you leave it empty |
| Just send the message | Nothing; the bot moves on | — |
A step that isn't a button step either goes to a next step or finishes with a final action: hand over to the team (optionally to a specific team) or end the conversation.
Button actions
| Action | Result |
|---|---|
| Go to step | Continues the flow at another step. |
| Hand over to the team | Stops the bot and gives the conversation to your team. You can pick a team and/or a teammate. If you don't write a reply, the bot says “Thanks! Connecting you with the team…” in the visitor's language. |
| End the conversation | Sends your optional reply and closes the conversation. No rating request is sent. |
When a bot runs
When a visitor starts a new conversation, TalkingDot picks the first enabled bot in your list whose audience matches:
- When: always, only while your team is online, or only while you're away. See Office hours & away mode.
- Contact type: visitors (anonymous), leads (gave a name, email or phone) and/or users (identified by your site). Leave it empty for everyone.
- Page URL contains: part of the page address, such as
/pricing. Separate several values with commas; any one can match.
Bots don't run in existing conversations. They also skip conversations that start when a visitor replies to a proactive message, and they never run for blocked visitors.
Tip: If a visitor ignores the buttons and types their own message, the bot steps aside and the conversation goes straight to your team.
How handoff assigns conversations
When a flow hands over, TalkingDot treats the conversation like any new one from that point:
- The team (and teammate) chosen in the bot is applied.
- Your routing rules in Automation → Rules run in order and can still assign, tag, prioritise, reply or close.
- If nobody is assigned yet, automatic assignment (round robin or balanced, set in Settings → Assignment) picks an online teammate. If the bot set a team, only that team's members are considered, and per-teammate caps still apply.
- The usual first reply or away message is sent, the answer bot may suggest articles, and the messenger may ask for an email (by default, only while you're away).
A flow that ends with “End the conversation” closes it and skips all of the above.
Sample flow
This is the ready-made flow offered when you create a bot:
- Step 1 (buttons): “Hi there 👋 What can we help you with today?”
- I have a question about pricing → go to step 2.
- I need help with my account → hand over to the team, replying “Got it! A teammate will be right with you.”
- Just browsing → end the conversation, replying “No problem! If anything comes up, we are one message away. 👋”
- Step 2 (ask for email): “Great! What is your work email? We will send the details there too.” → next step 3.
- Step 3 (just send): “Thanks! Someone from our team will reply shortly.” → hand over to the team.
Answer bot
The answer bot is separate from chatbot flows and is on by default. When a new conversation's first message (or the first message after a handoff) is at least 8 characters long, it searches your published help center articles and posts up to three under “These articles might help while you wait:”.
How it picks articles:
- It pulls the keywords out of the message: words of 3 or more letters, minus common words such as “how”, “please” or “thanks”.
- It ranks matching articles with full-text search on titles and bodies.
- It only keeps an article if at least 60% of the keywords appear in it, or if the title contains at least two of them (one, when the message has a single keyword).
It never runs on conversations a teammate started, or when the help center is turned off.
Best practices
- Always offer a human. Give every button step a “Talk to a person” option that hands over to the team.
- Keep flows short. Two or three steps before a handoff is plenty. Each extra question loses visitors.
- Avoid dead ends. Make sure every path ends in a handoff or a friendly close. Leftover links become handoffs automatically, but a deliberate ending reads better.
- Ask for an email early when you're away, so reply notifications can reach the visitor later.
- Use specific audiences. A pricing-page bot with sales buttons beats one generic bot everywhere.
- Write button labels the way visitors talk, such as “I can't log in”, not “Authentication issues”.