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Innovations and significant changes come from an idea. The same goes for chatbots. When starting a chatbot development process, keep your initial idea in mind, then you have to shape it into a plan with requirements. Afterward, you can start prototyping and testing your chatbot.Let’s break the development process into 4 steps:Step #1. Research and analyzeThe first thing when developing a chatbot is to do research and analysis. You need to highlight the reason for implementing a chatbot. This will help you to understand better what problem the chatbot will be tackling. This is a very important part and to help you define a way of understanding and moving forward, we’d recommend you to answer a few questions:– “Which problem would it solve?”– “Why are you developing a chatbot?”– “What will exactly a chatbot be doing?”It is necessary to understand that a chatbot must directly solve the end-user problem or optimize processes inside the company. The main advice here is not to overload your bot with additional and unnecessary features and to focus on one specific problem.Step #2. Find a user persona and create a chatbot personalityIt’s important to think about user persona because based on that you will build bot’s personality. The personality of the chatbot is the way how a user imagines a bot during a messaging with it. A chatbot can be a friend to users providing them with assistance and helpful advice. It can be as different as you wish – serious and formal, witty and adventurous or careful and professional. It’s up to you to choose your chatbot personality.Could you imagine how your product would be portrayed as? Would it be male or female? Is it young or perhaps a bit older? You can give it certain character traits, emotions, the unique features that will set your product apart from the rest.The questions below will help you to understand your ideal user better. If you are working on an internal chatbot, you can skip these questions. However, they might help you to understand the necessary features of your future chatbot.Take your time and think:– What is the average age of a person who will be communicating with your chatbot?– What kind of job does he/she have?– Is he/she working at the office and uses a laptop?– Or maybe he/she is doing the job in another way?– What are his/her interests?– What problems can occur in his/her everyday life so the chatbot can become the best solution for him/her?Step #3. Create a planThe next thing to do is to create a chatbot project plan and requirements. To quickly develop chatbot requirements, you can use our short brief that will help you with that. Here’s our brief template.If you need help with shaping your idea into a chatbot project plan or need a free consultation on chatbot development, please contact us.Before starting creating chatbot requirements, it’s worth to analyze your targeted user again and research his behavior, habits, preferences, goals, and motivation. This will help you to better understand what problems your users want a chatbot to solve.But don’t overthink this part. When developing requirements focus on things like bot use cases, bot user stories and bot business goals.Bot Use Cases.Think and describe all the necessary functionality of your chatbot. It’s like writing what bot will be able to do.For example:A bot will be able to answer the user about the dosage of aspirin.Bot User StoriesNow, describe how you see your chatbot from the user side by completing the sentence: “As a user, I can..".For example:As a user, I can ask him a question about the side effects of ibuprofen.And a small tip for you, in this section try to break it down into smaller chunks. Think about what will bring value to the user, what are his goals and needs. Try putting yourself in the user’s shoes to understand what a user wants to get from a chatbot and what he wants to achieve.Bot Business GoalsLike any other software product, chatbots take time and effort to develop. But chatbots are also driven by its business goal. Think of the most important business goals you would like to achieve with it.For example:“We want to achieve 50% pressure reduction on our customer support by the chatbot”.To make the requirements even more understandable, take advantage of the draw.io resource. You will be able to build a chatbot flow in the form of a decision tree that helps you to understand how the bot will interact in any case. This will allow your team and you to see how the chatbot should work.Step #4. Build a prototypeNow it’s time to take your idea and check if it works. This means that now you can start developing the chatbot prototype.There are two ways to develop a prototype without coding skills required from you.First, you can take advantage of chatbot building platforms. Secondly, you can hire a chatbot development team to consult and help you to create a prototype. Both options work great and which is the best for you depends on a chatbot that you want to build, your business needs and on resources like money and time.Chatbot builderTo develop a prototype yourself, you can use chatbot builders. Chatbot building platforms are a great option if you need a fast and cheap prototype. Usually, these platforms work in drag`n`drop mode where is no programming required which makes them easy to use for everyone. There are many different chatbot builders, but the most popular are Manychat, Chatfuel and flow XO.Here’s a list of the most popular chatbot building platforms: https://www.ventureharbour.com/best-chatbot-builders/When developing bots using builders, you can face some troubles due to limited possibilities of platforms. Most of these builders focus on marketing and have a small range of customization and functionality. Additionally, not all platforms provide support and maintenance for a chatbot. However, if you need a simple prototype with basic features, the chatbot builder will be a great fit for you.Chatbot development teamThe other way is to reach a chatbot company and assign all the hard work to them. So, instead of wasting hours in chatbot builders, you can contact professionals to develop your prototype. Hiring developers can be more expensive than using chatbot platforms, but this will save your time and enable you to add custom features to your prototype. Moreover, a chatbot company can build you a scalable prototype which means that afterward, you won’t need to rebuild the chatbot from scratch. So, you can keep upgrading, training and developing your already made prototype instead of starting building from the start again. With a chatbot development team behind your back, you’ll be able to quickly scale your prototype to MVP and then to a fully functional product.Be sure to contact us if you need a consultation or help with a prototype.Essential things in Healthcare chatbot development1. SecurityIn the healthcare industry, security of patients’ personal information is crucial. To ensure full protection of patient’s data, companies should use the highest security practices like data encryption, and “on-premise” deployment. Also, when developing a healthcare chatbot, it is important to pay attention to GDPR or HIPAA compliance.What is GDPR?The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a regulation on data protection for European Union citizens. It also applies to the transfer of personal data outside of the EU area.What is HIPAA?The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), protects sensitive patient data. A company that deals with protected health information (PHI) must follow the required physical, network, and process security measures.GDPR vs. HIPAAThe most significant difference between these compliances is that GDPR covers citizens of the EU while HIPAA is restricted to American citizens and healthcare companies.GDPR compliance requires an active patient’s consent before storing any of their personal information in the database. On the other hand, HIPAA allows healthcare companies to freely process patient's data while it is being stored and transmitted with proper security standards. Unlike GDPR, HIPAA regulation doesn’t give a patient a right to erase their records from a hospital’s database anytime they want.How to become compliantIf you want to learn more about GDPR and HIPAA here are useful guides with checklists:How To Make Your Chatbot GDPR CompliantHIPAA Compliance Checklist2. Consider using MicrosoftIn recent years Microsoft started actively investing in Healthcare. The company has created everything you need when building chatbots. Microsoft has their server- AZURE, an NLP engine – LUIS, Microsoft Bot Framework, and a chatbot platform – Health Bot Service.To develop using Microsoft products, you have to code. So, you can ask Microsoft team to come and help you with that. This can be expensive, and you can search for a third-party vendor that will build your bot using Microsoft software. You can find top chatbot developers in this list from Clutch – B2B ratings and reviews platform: https://clutch.co/developers/artificial-intelligence/chatbots3. Natural Language Processing– Train a chatbot with available dataWhen building chatbots, it’s important for your bot to gain trust and credibility. The healthcare industry operates a specific terminology and to look like an expert, your chatbot has to speak like an expert. So, it’s essential for a Healthcare chatbot to have a vast database to know many variations of a medical term. To create a database you can use old data from your current customer support. Find previous interactions with your customers. To do that, you can review call logs and scripts, email chains, analyze FAQ pages. It’s also worth considering your personal or customer representatives' knowledge and experience. Think about what are the most repeating questions and issues your users stumble upon. Consider which of these questions, words, phrases your chatbot has to understand.– Train a chatbot using pre-made datasetsThe other option is to use pre-made ready-to-use datasets. These datasets are great when you need to train your chatbots NLP fast, or you don’t know where to start. They already have questions and answers and can help you cover the basic topics. Here’s a great list of datasets that you can use for bot training: https://gengo.ai/datasets/15-best-chatbot-datasets-for-machine-learning/Don’t forget to upgrade your chatbot vocabulary with phrases from the conversation with real people. Analyze how users interact with the bot and then adjust chatbot’s tone of voice or expand its vocabulary based on real feedback.4. Double-checkingIf you are building a medical chatbot, it’s important to mention that they aren’t supposed to diagnose patients. Instead, chatbots can collect medical information and transfer it to a doctor so the patient could be diagnosed faster and more efficient. Healthcare chatbots can interview patients, putting down symptoms and important medical notes.In the healthcare industry, it’s important to make sure that the patient’s medical information is accurate and correct. So, it’s appropriate for healthcare bots to ask many questions and double-check when needed.Interested in Healthcare chatbot development? Read more in our guide for Healthcare Enterprise Chatbot Development: 8 Proven Ways For Healthcare Enterprises To Automate Routine Work Using Chatbots - BotsCrew

In my experience, one of the biggest issues I’ve personally had to deal with in being an entrepreneur is the constant need to balance my personal life and my professional life.Working from home adds to the challenge, but it can be done successfully.The following is an excerpt from an article I’ve previously written[1].Freelancer vs EntrepreneurIn my mind, freelancers are those who garner a skill in a certain area and sell their time to other people. An entrepreneur is when that freelancer decides to start documenting their strategy and hires their first employee or partner.If your business requires you to commit a significant amount of time to it every day just to keep it operational, then you’re operating more like a freelancer. Now maybe you’ve just started and you can’t afford to expand yet, in which case you need to start with the Kaizen mindset before you scale. It will be much easier to develop your culture and create a sustainable business with employees who share your mindset from the start.Either way, it takes consistent and deliberate effort to ensure you’re working on your business and not just in it.With any luck and a little bit shit-load of determination, you’ll find your business to be part of the 50% that succeed.It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory.W. EDWARDS DEMINGIn vs OutApart from entrepreneurs becoming too attached to their business, there is a common feeling of dread, that if they don’t do XY and Z, then the business will implode — that’s why some of us bring our work home with us.One day, I realized that I was spending too much of my time doing all the execution. I had created a mindset for my employees to always come to me for any questions and I felt chained to the business.This made me question exactly how I was running my business. From reacting to put out fires, to constantly solving one-off issues.Over time I was able to relinquish myself from several responsibilities within the business while orchestrating a process of documenting new problems and better ways of doing things.What’s a SOP and why you need to have themA standard operating procedure is in essence just a step-by-step guide on how to do something. It’s typically used across the board in large organizations to carry out routine work within the company.Achieve efficiency, quality output and uniformity of performance, while reducing miscommunication and failure to comply with industry regulations.WIKIPEDIAMost small businesses fail to create SOP’s and the knowledge is typically retained within the workers that the business hires. This can quite often put your sprouting business in dangerous situations.For example, if you hire an employee who handles a certain aspect of your business during a huge period of growth, it’s likely they will have acquired some level of knowledge about your company through sheer experience. If you haven’t created a mindset of documentation and collaboration then it’s easy to end up with employees who are afraid to share what they know for fear of being replaced.The Software SOP SolutionEven if you’re among the few small businesses that end up creating some form of SOPs, there come a handful of problems associated with them.Often you have to force yourself to create the process even when you don’t know all the parts of it. Then you have to remember to update it with new information as you and your employees learn more about the process.I’ve spent a lot of time creating internal processes, but I always had trouble getting my employees to refer to them, let alone remember to update them.This led me on a search to find a better solution that could help simplify the creation, usage, and modification of my company’s SOPs.Over the years I discovered an emerging number of companies that are trying to solve this problem for business owners. At their core, they try to serve as a platform to extract information about the operations of your company in a way that increases transparency and accountability.This was a ground-breaking idea to me, and my ADHD brain made me want to try them all!Here are the ones I’ve tried below. Check a few of them out, they might give you some ideas.Note: None of these companies asked or endorse me to list them here. The views expressed below are solely that of my own.My Fav is Pipefy, and here’s whyWhat a typical pipe looks like.Once the form on the right is filled out, it’ll create a new card in the upper left column:Think of a Trello board, also known as a Kan-ban board. Now imagine each column is a different phase of a specific process. Then each phase can be configured like an individual form where you can create questions, insert information about the process, automatically email your staff and clients with custom emails and much more.It comes with a set of pre-made templates you can use to replace whole systems like your CRM, Helpdesk and HR system. Now it’s not good at being any one of those in particular but I find it useful for defining specific processes within those existing systems.For example, we don’t use it to replace our Recruiting software, but we use it to define the onboarding process for new employees. We don’t use it for our CRM but we use it for contract negotiations with a client.Why it’s a Game ChangerNow being able to wrap your head around a system like Pipefy can be a doozy, but here’s why I really like it.Up till now, procedures and SOP’s have been easy to forget and often get relegated to a company folder that your employees might rarely refer to. In this case, Pipefy becomes a part of the very process itself, therefore requiring that your staff use the software in order to complete the process they’re performing.The beauty of this is that it means you don’t have to worry about whetherHere’s why you probably won’t succeed and what you can do about itIt’s Hard work that takes deliberate effort and attention.It’s easy to get excited about the possibility, but it’s easy to become demotivated in the process. You might get too busy and forget about it. You might encounter employees who are resistant to documenting their work or changing their ways.Now, what if your business doesn’t really have any defined processes? You need to start learning the value of documenting them then.Check out the book “Checklist Manifesto” which talks about how the consistency of a simple checklist saved people’s lives. Another interesting read is called “E-myth” where you learn about the journey of a stressed out entrepreneur as he learns to document and delegate aspects of his business to others.Then the bigger challenge that faces most companies, is trying to get your employees to actively improve their work. I’m not talking about an anonymous suggestions box but creating an environment where your employees actually spend part of their work-hours trying to optimize or improve the company with some long-term objective in mind.What I’m talking about is the Kaizen philosophy of running an organization. In his groundbreak book, Gemba Kaizen observed that the succesful management of an organization came down to the continuous maintenance and improvement of existing standards.The following is a passage from the book Creating a Kaizen Culture:Take the analogy of owning a high-performance personal vehicle. Let’s assume that such a vehicle is more fun to drive, accelerate, map the journey, steer the course, tune up, or even refuel often than an average vehicle. But most of us who are not trained mechanics would not choose to maintain an expensive high-performance vehicle ourselves and certainly not to tune it up on a daily basis. Without maintenance, before long there would be no vehicle to drive. At best, we would spend our time and resources on neither maintenance nor improvement but rather on repair. Because we are busy in repair mode, we have little time for upkeep and no time for improvement. In the modern organization, we are all passengers in the same vehicle, and we all must pay attention to maintenance of the vehicle and improvement of the journey. Daily Kaizen turns this activity of maintenance and improvement into a virtuous cycle that develops people and processes while delivering resultsIf you can find a way around these hurdles, then – my friend, you have a fighting chance at creating a successful business.Footnotes[1] How I Went from Burn-out Entrepreneur to Automating my $4M Company and 10x my Productivity.

Here are the 3 secrets to being a successful landlord:SYSTEMS.Email Scheduling: Your time is valuable. You shouldn't waste it sending emails that could be automated. In this email auto-pilot course I share 3 ways to "Set it and forget it" when it comes to corresponding with tenants.Checklists: Each of your rental units should have a folder specific to that unit. We keep a folder in Google Drive and a folder in our file cabinet that contains everything we need to stay organized for each unit. One of my favorite sheets is the Air Filter Tracker. It helps us keep track of when each unit needs a new air filter (we change ours every 3 months, and believe me- that is hard to keep up with when you are managing multiple units!). I share our checklists and templates here in the Landlord Library.OUTSOURCING. You can't do it all and that is okay! Here are some of my favorite apps to outsource tasks and free up time.Task Easy - we use this for regularly scheduled lawn mowing services.Handy - this is great for cleaning your Airbnb or getting an apartment cleaned before a new tenant moves in. You can also schedule handyman services like painting or moving furniture!Tenant Cloud - great system for tracking payments and maintenance requestsPATIENCE. Things will happen! Tenants will lock themselves out. Faucets will need repair. That's all part of the owning rental property. When something comes up, take a deep breath and spring into action knowing you have the systems in place to take care of the issue efficiently.It takes some effort up front, but ohhh so worth it. Besides, I've already done some of the work for you. The Landlord Library is full of planning sheets, guides and training designed to make this #LandlordLife easier.