Chatbots

When to use a Sequence Bot vs. a Conversational Bot

Acquire offers two types of chatbots: Sequence Bot and Conversational Bot. Both bots help you answer general questions like your hours or offerings, gather visitor information, bridge the gap between human service hours, and much more.

But how do you know which bot to use? Keep reading to understand when to deploy a Sequence Bot or Conversational Bot.

In this article:

When to use a Sequence Bot
When to use a Conversational Bot

When to Use a Sequence Bot

Sequence Bots collect visitor information using predefined questions. For example, the bot may begin the conversation by asking “Hello, how can I help you today?” with choices like “Sales” “Support” and “Just browsing, thanks!”

Based on the visitor’s selection, the Sequence Bot then proceeds to the next step, which may be asking more questions to get them to the right department, collecting an email address, or routing to a live operator. The goal here is to gather all of the relevant information to serve the visitor, especially in complex situations.

In Acquire, you’ll use branches and interactions to build out your Sequence Bot. These can be simple and include a handful of steps or complex with many branches and actions assigned to one bot.

Common Sequence Bot Use Cases:

Qualifying sales leads
Helping reset passwords
Collecting sign ups for events or email lists
Scheduling appointments
Facilitating bill payments

When to Use a Conversational Bot

Conversational Bots provide trained answers to visitor inquiries. These can cover the simple, like “What are your hours?” to the more technical: “How do I integrate with Salesforce?” The goal of these bots is to enable self-service and free up operators for more challenging conversations.

Training the bot allows you to set up synonyms for words and phrases asking the same question—e.g. “hours”, “days”, “time”, “open”. If you have an existing FAQ or knowledge base, these answers can be imported into the Conversational Bot to save you time. And, if questions indicate a visitor may be interested in, say, pricing, a Sequence Bot can be pulled in to gather details for a quote.

Conversational Bots don’t have to be all business all the time, either. Consider working with your marketing team to add some fun Easter eggs. Think: “What is your favorite color?” Or “Who is the best soccer player in the world?”

Common Conversational Bot Use Cases:

Answering FAQs, such as “How do I sign up?”
Providing after-hours support
Looking up inventory
Tracking orders
Facilitating plan upgrades
Collecting and responding to customer feedback

Using Both Bots Together

Acquire Chatbots can be used in conjunction with one another to free up your operators and deliver a seamless visitor experience.

Most often, bots are used together for support inquiries. An interaction may start with a Conversational Bot and pull in a Sequence Bot to submit a ticket. On the flip side, the chat could begin by gathering visitor information, with the bot determining if the visitor wants to learn about your different plans. Then, you’d pull in a Conversational Bot to provide the plan details.

Add Sequence Bot to a Conversational Bot

To add a Sequence Bot into a Conversational Bot chat go to Chatbot > Conversational Bot and select the group you want to edit. Click the three dots ‘...’ next to the question you’d like to add Sequence Bot to and select ‘Edit’. Scroll down to ‘Enable Post Actions’ and toggle the switch on (green).

Select ‘Add more actions’. For the action, choose ‘Invite Sequence Bot’ and then use the dropdown menu to select the specific bot you want to add.

Add Conversational Bot to a Sequence Bot

Head to Chatbots > Sequence Bot and select the bot you want to modify. Click the ‘Add New Branch’ button and give it a title and description. By default, the new branch will have a message from the bot. Edit this to say what you’d like, or click the trashcan icon to remove it.

Next, you’ll need to click ‘Add another interaction’. Select ‘Add Auto Actions’, then ‘Invite Conversational Bot’. Click on the Group Name to select the Bot you’d like to join the conversation. Click the ‘Save Branch’ button.

To connect the new branch, hover over the source branch and click the ‘Edit’ icon. Choose the answer you’d like to send to the Conversational Bot and use the dropdown to select the branch for the 'Go to' command.

Save that branch and you’re all set!