The purpose of this article is to help you launch your chatbot effectively so it can begin successfully answering questions for your users right away. To help you navigate this article we have broken it down into the following sections:

• Embedding the Chatbot
• Welcome Message
• Launcher Settings

Embedding the Chatbot

To maximize visibility and usage, we recommend embedding the chatbot launcher onto all of the web pages corresponding to the chatbot libraries your institution has purchased. 

Example: If you have purchased the Financial Aid and Admissions libraries, consider embedding the chatbot onto all of the web pages associated with those offices, and not just an office's landing page.

Embedding the chatbot on multiple pages improves the user experience by allowing users to launch, minimize, and re-engage with the chatbot organically regardless of where they are on an office's site. Requiring users to navigate away from the web page they are currently on in order to engage the chatbot requires additional clicks and may increase the risk of conversation abandonment. 

For more information about embedding your chatbot, please review the Embedding the Chatbot article.

Your chatbot's analytics dashboard displays high-level statistics that provide an overview of your bot's usage and highlights top topics and trends, including the top five web pages from which chatbot users open your chatbot. Periodically monitoring this information provides insight into user behavior that can be used to modify embedding locations as needed. 

For more information about reviewing chatbot usage, please review the Chatbot Analytics article.

Welcome Message

Using your chatbot's Welcome Message to provide information about the types of questions your bot can answer and the departments it supports can reduce user frustration and allow your users to get the answers they need more quickly.

Ocelot has also created a How to Effectively Use the Chatbot video that can be added to your chatbot's Welcome Message to provide users with a brief overview of the best way to ask questions to find the information they are looking for.

If your chatbot is multilingual, consider adding text in any other supported language to your Welcome Message so users know right away that they can engage the chatbot in a language other than English. 

Example: "Hi, my name is [Bot]! I'm a chatbot here to help with your questions in English and Spanish! Hola, mi nombre es [Bot]! ¡Soy un chatbot aquî para ayudarlo con sus preguntas en inglés o españo!"

Launcher Settings

Ocelot recommends using the "Callout Bubble" style launcher to increase chatbot usage.

For more information about customizing launcher settings, please review the Navigating the Admin: Look & Feel Page article.

Because your chatbot is not equipped to answer questions about departments outside of your contract, we advise against embedding the chatbot launcher on web pages that are not associated with offices in your institution's contract. 

Example: Do not embed your chatbot on your institution's housing-related web pages if you have not purchased the Housing library.