

IBM Watson, another enterprise solution, has a wide range of pre-built customer care and other common Intents. Some might want to integrate their customer service chatbot with an enterprise software, and LUIS is well-suited for that. In 2016, Microsoft introduced Language Understanding Intelligent Service, or LUIS. These options are free, so they’re good choices for MVP projects. If you’re looking to build something within the Amazon platform, Amazon Lex can create a chatbot in minutes with just a few phrases and has pre-built integrations with many services on the AWS platform. It has 35 domains of knowledge available and supports voice interfaces as well. Dialogflow, another widely-used option, is Google’s solution to natural language understanding. If building for a Facebook Messenger bot, Facebook’s own Wit.ai is actively being developed and already part of the infrastructure. NLP engines are abundant, so it won’t be hard to find one that will best fit each use case.

Without it, a chatbot would be unable to extract the relevant information and ascertain meaning from an Utterance. The NLP engine will create a model tailored to your purpose, so the chatbot will be able to understand phrasing or vernacular that’s specific to your industry. It’s also worth mentioning that agencies are typically the more cost-effective option for smaller companies that lack development teams.īuilding a chatbot- big or small- that understands human language instead of relying on conversation trees requires a Natural Language Processing (NLP) engine. Agencies are already staffed with experienced developers and designers, allowing you to bypass the process of finding each new hire. Assembling a team and figuring out a workflow requires time, which might bottleneck the project before it even got started. If speed is a main objective for the project, hiring an agency to build the chatbot would ensure that development happens in a timely manner. In addition, all the insights gained from this chatbot project can be shared throughout the company and applied to future projects as well. Less back-and-forth to communicate an idea means there’s a lower chance of wires getting crossed. Instead of sending emails to an outside vendor and waiting for the routine scheduled meeting for an update, the in-house team can be easily reached by walking across the office. If there’s a very specific vision of the project, having the team close and accessible provides more control of the development. Some are going to want a larger role in the way the chatbot is built, and it’s worth mentioning that it’s easier to keep a close eye on the chatbot being built in-house.

Now that it’s actually time to start building the customer service chatbot MVP, there are two main options to consider: in-house or agency. ChatBots - The Rise of Conversational UI In-house or agency?
