Chatbots. The world seems to be obsessed with them. They are this magical thing that will just give me everything that I want or this thing I can present to my customers and all my worries will go away. Oh, wait. It just hallucinated / made something up. Is it too late to hire the humans back?

Let's talk about what we really need from chatbots without the hype. What exactly do we want chatbots to do?

Put simply, chatbots are a simple interface to guide your users to the information that they need. Why do we need a simple interface when we have mountains of information for users to go through? That's your problem right there. Your average user doesn't want to comb through mountains of information. It's easier at that point just to send an email to someone asking a question. Which kind of defeats the purpose of having the mountains of data.

If you are in a department and you are constantly getting emailed the same questions, I recommend you do two things: 1. Write out pages of content describing all of your processes and policies. 2. Write an FAQ.

Two kinds of data

There are two kinds of data.

• Data that never or rarely changes. For example, what is a contract?
• Data that is highly customized to a specific situation. For example, where is MY contract?

We will first focus on data that never or rarely changes. You will get the greatest benefit from writing all of this down. First of all, it helps to align your own internal team so everyone is on the same page.

How should we organize this content? I suggest you write content in the form of Wikipedia articles. Each page should have its own Title saying exactly what the content is about. Break it into logical sections and give the user links to related content.

What content should you focus on first? The content that is of greatest benefit to your users. Generate content about the topics that they are most interested in. Document your processes. Educate users about your topics.

If you have gone through this process already, you'll probably notice one thing. Most people will not want to read your content. They want to instead email you and your team to get answers to questions even though everything is written down. That's how our chatbot comes in.

The chatbot

First of all, I would not give users just an empty box that promises everything. Instead give your chatbot a face and greet the user, explaining that they are here to help the user find information about your department or team. It's important that the chatbot have context. This chatbot isn't here to help them with everything. No. Only with things related to your team.

Next, list the top 5 areas that users come to get information about from your team. Kind of like the old phone tree menus. Each of these small pieces of content I'll call "cards". Maybe you give the user an option 6 for "Other". But when the user chooses one of the options, then give them the next card, a list of top 5 sub-topics inside that area. For example, a legal team might show their top areas are:

1. Contracts
2. Vendors
3. Litigation
4. Patents

The user chooses Contracts and then we show them the next menu:

1. NDA
2. Purchase agreement
3. Sales agreement
4. Services agreement
5. Research agreement

.

Now when the user chooses NDA, the chatbot gives them the URL to our full page article about NDA's. This article has sections about what an NDA is and when it is used by whom. Also how to get a new one generated and how to get an existing version reviewed. See how we got the person to read our content?

At each step the person can start over or go back one step, but now we have a fun journey of simple steps that ultimately gets the person into deep content.

Can a person do a custom search to see content that matches their specific interests? Of course! Besides just picking 1-5 at each card, the user can also type in their query. But here's a trick we can do. Strip out all functional language and leave only the content language. What do I mean by functional language? Things you learned about grammer: The articles, pronounse, prepositions. The words we use all the time that make up about half of the words we use. There are only about 200 of these. Here's an example:

• What is the capital of California

Remove what. Remove is. Remove the. Remove of. We are left with: capital California. You suddenly don't need AI to understand everything in the person's question. "How can I get a contract?" suddenly just becomes "Contract". The chatbot can now scan all your content for these keywords and present the user with pages matching their query. A page on California. Or the "Contracts" page.

On each card I would give the user the option to leave feedback. Perhaps a card doesn't have the information they would expect to see. Or perhaps you're missing a card. When the user does their own custom query, allow them to leave feedback that they don't see the content they are looking for.

So that's it. Start small and actually create something useful. We are not promising everything, but instead making a nice, simple interface that guides users to the information they are looking for. Give a great experience to your users and allow them to let you know how they would like to see it grow.

Once you have down all your non-changing information, you might branch out into other areas. Like when they ask "Where is my contract?" you can start by giving them the URL of your contract management system. If you're feeling really adventurous maybe connect that system to your chatbot so you can get the list of their contracts that are in progress and present it to them in the chatbot for them to pick from.

I actually built an entire system like what I have described in SharePoint to guide users to SharePoint pages. Perhaps I'll develop this article further with screenshots and make a video to show it in action. What are you creating?