How To: Train Conversation AI

In this guide, we will explore how to train Conversation AI to ensure it accurately responds to customer inquiries, enhances engagement, and streamlines communication processes. Whether you're adding custom data, linking URLs, or improving its query detection, this article will walk you through the necessary steps to fully optimize and train your Conversation AI bot for your business needs.

What is Conversation AI?

Conversation AI is an advanced tool that automates customer communication through various channels such as SMS, Web Chat, Facebook, and Instagram. It can be trained to answer frequently asked questions, provide accurate information, and improve over time based on data input and user interactions. By training your Conversation AI, you can ensure it aligns perfectly with your business goals and provides meaningful value to your customers.

You find the relevant Settings for Bot Training by navigating to “Settings” → "Conversation AI V2" → “Bot Training” and “Bot Goals” depending on what you want to customize. The Bot Goals describe the personality, intent and Guidelines of your Conversation AI Bot. Bot Training is the hub for providing Information to answer customer questions with.

Key Steps to Train Conversation AI

1. Bot Goals

Bot Goals define the specific outcomes you want your Conversation AI to achieve during customer interactions. Whether it's answering FAQs, booking appointments, or guiding customers through complex processes, setting clear goals ensures your AI operates with purpose and precision. These goals serve as the foundation for training and optimizing the bot, helping it align with your business objectives and enhance customer experiences. Within the “Bot Goals” Tab you can customize the Conversation AI's personality, intent and provide additional information like conversation guidelines, examples or rules to follow. With this Feature you have full control on how your Bot behaves.

For further details, please read the “Bot Goals in detail” article.

2. Bot Training

You can train your Conversation AI using information from your website or manual Q&A's:

Web Crawler Training:

Under the “Bot Training” section, add relevant Web URLs that contain key information about your business. This Web Crawler saves you the need of manual work, lets you save time and use already existing information to train itself. You can choose between the following Web Crawler options:

• Exact URL: This setting allows the web crawler to gather information from a single, specific web page. Use this option if you want the bot to reference data from one particular URL without including any other pages on the same site. Ideal for isolating content like an FAQ page or a product-specific page.
• All URLs with the path: Selecting this option instructs the crawler to pull data from all URLs that match the specified path structure. This is useful for targeting a group of related pages, such as all subpages within a category or section (e.g., /support/articles/) without crawling the entire domain.
• All URLs in this domain: The most comprehensive setting, this option allows the crawler to access and gather data from all pages within the specified domain. Choose this if you want the bot to have a full view of all content available on the website for the most extensive training coverage.

These settings help you customize the scope of your bot's training data collection to align with your specific needs and priorities.

Depending on how extensive your Website/Knowledge Base is that you provided this can take some time, since the AI will crawl these links, extract data, and use it to answer customer queries.

When finished you can view all pages that got crawled by clicking on the “View all pages” button as you can see in the image below.

Review the extracted content to ensure accuracy and relevance. Select either all pages to train your bot with or check individual pages, with which you want to train the bot with.

Manual Q&A Training:

The Manual Q&A Training section empowers you to fine-tune your bot's responses by manually adding or improving question-and-answer pairs. You can test your bot directly by interacting with it in the "Test your Bot" panel. If a response is accurate and satisfactory, give it a thumbs-up to confirm. However, if the response needs improvement, give it a thumbs-down. This action will prompt an option to create or refine the Q&A for that specific query, ensuring your bot continues to learn and improve over time. This hands-on approach allows for tailored and precise training to meet your specific communication needs.

3. Reviewing and Auditing Data

In the "Uploaded Links" section, you have full control over the information crawled by the bot. You can edit specific content retrieved from individual pages (URLs) to ensure the bot’s responses align with your business needs and messaging. Additionally, you can refresh specific pages to update the data without re-crawling the entire domain, keeping the information current. If a page is no longer relevant, you can delete the specific URL from the crawled data, ensuring the bot only uses accurate and necessary information. This flexibility allows for precise management of the bot’s training material.

By regularly auditing, you ensure the AI remains effective and up-to-date with your business needs.

Best Practices for Training Conversation AI

• Start with the Basics: Add frequently asked questions and their answers.
• Use Reliable Sources: Ensure the URLs provided are accurate and up-to-date.
• Regular Audits: Review and update data consistently for continuous improvement.
• Refresh Data regularly: Regularly refresh your crawled Data of your website and knowledge base to provide up-to-date information to your customers.
• Test your Bot: Regularly test your bot and improve answers you are not satisfied with.

FAQs

Can I edit both the question and the answer when I click the “thumbs down” Icon?

Yes, the "thumbs down" icon opens a pop-up window where you can edit both the question and the answer provided by the bot.

 

 

What happens if the AI doesn’t know how to respond?

This is a information that you can provide and set for your Conversation AI Bot. Within the Tab Bot Goals you can add information on how the Conversation AI should act, how its personality should be and more. Here are two examples on how a bot can behave in two different situations:

 

 

Can I check from where the Conversation AI takes its information for a answer?

Yes, if you click on the “star” icon of a bot message, within the Test area of the Conversation AI, a window will open as you can see in the image below. Here you can see the source and information of why and how the response of the Bot was how it ended up to be.

 

 

How do I review and update the crawled data?

Use the Uploaded Links dropdown to see what data was crawled. You can edit, delete, or add new information to refine the bot’s responses. Click on the button for the desired url to review and a window will open in which you can edit the information crawled from the website. Right beside the “review” button you can find a refresh button, if you want to refresh a single url.

 

 

Conclusion

Training your Conversation AI ensures it meets your business’s unique needs and provides consistent, reliable answers to your customers. By adding custom responses, integrating website content, and regularly auditing the AI, you can continuously improve its efficiency and accuracy. Start training your Conversation AI today to streamline customer communication and enhance engagement.

Bot Goals in Detail

Bot Goals allow you to define the behavior, personality, and purpose of your Conversation AI bot, ensuring it aligns with your business objectives. By customizing Bot Goals, you can make your Conversation AI not only capable of responding to customer inquiries but also embody the tone and intent of your brand. Whether it's guiding customers, providing helpful information, or directing them to resources, Bot Goals is an essential tool to fine-tune your bot's interactions.

This article will explore what Bot Goals are, how to configure them, and the key elements such as personality, intent, and additional instructions. We’ll also provide insights on effective AI prompting and how to get the most out of this feature.

What Are Bot Goals?

Bot Goals are predefined instructions that shape the behavior of your AI bot. These instructions help you specify:

• The bot's personality (e.g., professional, casual, empathetic).
• The intent or purpose (e.g., answering FAQs, assisting with orders).
• Any additional guidelines, like tone, language style, and specific limitations.

By setting up Bot Goals, you ensure that your bot provides consistent, accurate, and engaging responses that align with your brand's communication style.

How to Set Up and Use Bot Goals

Accessing Bot Goals

• Navigate to "Settings" → “Conversation AI V2” → "Bot Goals" tab in your Conversation AI settings.
• This is where you can configure prompts and set up specific actions for your bot.

Default Bot Goals

The Default/Standard Bot Goals provide a straightforward framework to ensure your bot operates effectively while maintaining a professional and helpful tone. By defining core elements such as personality, intent, and additional information, these settings create a foundation for seamless interactions. The bot's personality establishes its tone, the intent outlines its primary purpose, and additional information provides guidelines for handling customer inquiries with clarity and precision. This approach makes it easy to set up a bot that aligns with your business goals.

These simplified goals are perfect for businesses looking to quickly set up their AI bot without compromising on functionality or customer satisfaction.

Configuring the Bot Personality:

• Define how your bot interacts with customers. For example:
  • Is the tone formal or casual?
  • Should the bot provide short, direct responses or detailed explanations?
• Use Custom Values like {{ai.business_name}} to make responses dynamic.

Defining Intent:

• Clearly state the bot's primary purpose. For example:
  • "Assist customers with their queries."
  • "Provide accurate product information."

Adding Additional Instructions:

• Include specific conversation guidelines. For instance:
  • Maintain a professional tone.
  • Avoid using emojis unless necessary.
  • Reference external resources like wikis for complex questions.

Actions:

The "Actions" section in the Bot Goals feature enables you to define specific behaviors or processes for the bot to execute when interacting with customers. For instance, the Appointment Booking action allows the bot to book appointments by selecting a calendar, retrieving available slots, and finalizing bookings. Additional settings under this action provide more customization, such as sending only the booking link, pausing bot responses after booking, triggering workflows post-booking, or transferring appointments to specific employees.

Upcoming sub-features, such as Trigger a Workflow and Update Contact Info, promise to add even more flexibility and customization, ensuring the bot can cater to a broader range of use cases and business needs. These actions enhance the bot's functionality, streamlining operations and improving customer experiences.

AI Prompting and Best Practices

The effectiveness of your bot heavily relies on well-crafted prompts. Here are some tips:

• Use clear and concise language to avoid ambiguity.
• Provide sample queries or examples for better bot understanding.
• Avoid overloading prompts with unnecessary details.
• Use structured guidelines to shape the bot's responses effectively.

For a detailed guide, refer to the "AI Prompting 101" article from our trusted Developmentpartner LeadConnector.

FAQs

Conclusion

Bot Goals empower your Conversation AI to deliver personalized and brand-aligned responses, ensuring a seamless customer experience. By defining your bot's personality, intent, and guidelines, you can create a virtual assistant that not only resolves customer queries but also enhances engagement. 

For additional support or guidance, feel free to consult our documentation or reach out to our team!

Maximize Efficiency with Automation/Workflows & Conversation AI

In today's fast-paced business environment, streamlining workflows and automating repetitive tasks are critical to saving time and improving productivity. Wind Solutions offers an advanced integration of Automation/Workflows in combination with our Conversation AI that allows businesses to seamlessly handle customer interactions, automate processes, and manage live chat communications—all from a single platform. This powerful combination transforms how businesses engage with customers and optimize their operations.

This guide will walk you through how Automation/Workflows integrate with Conversation AI, covering features, practical use cases, and step-by-step instructions for getting started.

What is Automation/Workflows & Conversation AI?

Automation/Workflows & Conversation AI is a feature that combines the robust automation capabilities of workflows with the conversational expertise of AI. Businesses can create custom workflows that automatically respond to customer interactions, update AI bot settings, or manage live chat channels based on triggers. Whether you're handling customer inquiries or streamlining internal processes, this integration takes your automation to the next level.

Using Automation/Workflows with Conversation AI - in depth examples

“Conversation AI” Action

The Conversation AI Action enables the AI to initiate conversations with customers automatically, based on specific triggers, ensuring timely and relevant engagement.

Once the "Conversation AI Action" is configured, the process begins with the bot sending a prompt to the contact, drawing any required context from the "Bot Training" in the sub-account settings. The bot then waits for a response within the time limit set in the action. If no reply is received within this timeframe, the contact is directed down the "Time-Out" branch, which can be used to create follow-ups. When a response is received in time, the bot evaluates the contact's reply against predefined conditions. If no condition is met, the contact follows the "No Condition Met" branch, which can include "GOTO" actions for further questions. If a condition is met, the contact proceeds down the corresponding branch for tailored interactions.

“Update Conversation AI Bot and Status” Action

The "Update Conversation AI Bot and Status" Action empowers users to automate the status management of the Conversation AI Bot for individual contacts, toggling between Active and Inactive as needed. This functionality simplifies the process of managing the bot by ensuring it adapts dynamically to each contact's journey or specific criteria. By eliminating the need for manual status updates, this action enhances efficiency and ensures seamless, context-appropriate interactions.

“Appointment Booking Conversation AI Bot” Action

The "Appointment Booking Conversation AI Bot" Action enables automated and efficient scheduling for your customers. By integrating directly with your calendar, the bot guides customers through the booking process with pre-defined prompts and guidelines, ensuring a seamless experience. You can configure a maximum message limit and timeout settings to control the bot's response flow. For example, if the customer fails to reply within the specified timeout or chooses not to book, the process diverts to the "Appointment Not Booked" branch. Alternatively, successful bookings are confirmed under the "Appointment Was Booked" branch. This action allows you to maintain clarity and efficiency in scheduling while enhancing customer engagement. Additional customization options include disabling automatic confirmation messages and defining conditional branches for handling timeouts, successful bookings, or non-bookings, ensuring comprehensive workflow management.

Trigger a Automation/Workflow from Conversation AI

The "Trigger an Automation/Workflow from Conversation AI" feature will soon be publicly available, enabling seamless integration between Conversation AI and your workflows. This functionality allows you to automate processes directly from customer interactions, ensuring efficient and responsive operations tailored to user needs. 

Best Practices for Automation/Workflows & Conversation AI

• Design Clear Triggers: Ensure workflows are triggered by relevant and clear customer actions for better automation accuracy.
• Combine Bot and Human Support: Use the Live Chat Channel action to balance automation with human support.
• Regularly Update Bot Settings: Leverage the Update Bot and Status action to keep your AI bot aligned with business needs.
• Monitor and Refine Workflows: Periodically review workflow performance and make adjustments to improve efficiency and customer satisfaction.

FAQs

Conclusion

Automation/Workflows and Conversation AI empower businesses to revolutionize customer interactions and internal processes. By combining the flexibility of workflows with the intelligence of Conversation AI, businesses can ensure seamless, efficient, and personalized communication. Start exploring the potential of this feature to save time, enhance productivity, and deliver outstanding customer experiences.

For more information or troubleshooting, refer to the in-depth guides provided in our documentation or contact our support team for assistance.