How to give your voice chatbot a human voice

“Human” robots are preferable in spheres where clients expecting live communication: cold calls, surveys, advertisement, and so on. People want to hear a living person’s assessment of their opinion. If a customer has recognized that it is the robot who speaking he can show negative response or immediately hang up.

The robot follows a simple algorithm: it recognizes a keyword or a phrase when a customer is speaking and relates it with a corresponding dialogue’s script branch.

There is no need to add every possible phrase to the key words’ database. If you want the robot to recognize that the client wants to drink a tea it will be enough to add the word “tea” to the dictionary. Effebot will accept any combination with this word like “hot tea”, “black tea”, “cup of tea please” and so on - and the conversation will go to the “tea” dialogue branch.

The conversation script should be shorter than a minute and a half. If it will be longer, customers may make up new questions that the robot will not be able to answer. Use only closed questions and make a separate dialogue branch for each answer.

The robot follows a simple algorithm: it recognizes a keyword or a phrase when a customer is speaking and relates it with a corresponding dialogue’s script branch.

The algorithm should look like one that is used by managers, but instead of phrases like "How do you do?" you should write a concrete action: for example, "Hello" is a greeting.

If an action in a script does not expose your USP (Unique Selling Proposition), you should cut it. If an action does not imply a response from a client, you need to combine it with another block. This will make your script much shorter.

Do not be afraid of making mistakes - you will have plenty of time to test and improve your script.

Questions should be closed and imply a limited number of answers – you will be able to prepare enough keywords. It is easy to predict an answer to a question “You prefer a coffee or a tea?” but not to a question “How are you?”

The answer should be written into all phases except the last ones. If you cannot add the question in the block, you should cut it.

After questions, you need to add keywords for positive, negative responses, and objections. Think about how you would answer each question in different ways and add all possible phrases. You can also use a dictionary and choose synonyms for “Yes” and “No”. Do not forget to add keywords from questions such as “Interested”, “Relevant”, “Have”, “Do” and so on.

Keywords for objections you can take from phrases you already heard from your potential clients, for example: “We work with the aggregator platform, we do not need a website” – keywords will be “platform”, “aggregator”, work.

Some people like to talk – they are ready to tell the robot a story, and more. Fortunately, you do not need to predict everything, because you have a special keyword “any word”. When the robot did not recognize any load keywords from your database, it can make the client reformulate his answer by this simple trick.

Use such phrases as “Sorry, I misheard you. (Repeat of a question)”, “Sorry, do not understand. (Repeat of a question)”, “Sorry, my phone is glitching. (Repeat of a question)” on each phase of your script.

It will help the robot to evade non-standard questions. Write different phrases for each phase and your customers will not figure that they speak with a machine.

Sadly, not every non-standard response can be dealed with “any word” option.

There are common situations you should foresee:

A customer cannot talk right now.

Add keywords: “Cannot talk”, “Later” and so on to make the robot ensure the customer he will be called later. Do not use a particular time – the client will not feel cheated if your operator will call him after a week.

A customer said a joke.

The robot told the customer off using “any word” option, but the client said it was just a joke. To clear the air, add keywords “Joke”, “Fooling” and so on to make the robot said: “Oh, sorry, did not get it, ha-ha. Anyway what about (Repeat of a question)”.

Communication disruption, a customer misheard the answer.

Add keywords: “Do not hear”, “Repeat” and so on the case, the customer has problems with communication. If the robot heard these keywords it should repeat a question. If the robot heard these keywords at least twice, it should promise to call later and finish the dialogue.

A customer is starting to guess he is speaking with the robot.

Even if your script is perfect it is possible the customer will understand he is speaking with the robot. If the client asked “Are you a robot?” the robot should confirm it preferably in a joking manner. For example: “Yes, but I do not need clothes, boots or motorcycle from you, only nice conversation”.

Add solutions for these situations to each phase of your script.

The last blocks of the script are still empty. Add actions you need the robot to do if the customer is interested in your offer:

Transfer call to a manager.

Use phrases like “OK, I will transfer you to my colleague, he will help you” – it is necessary if the client wants to make an order right now and he can change his mind later.

Promise the client will be called by a manager later.

The robot can say he confirm the application and the customer will be called by its colleague later. It is possible if there is no need to sell something right now and you can process lead after.

Send an SMS with the offer.

The robot can send a message with a link to your website where the client can make an order by himself. Try to add a promo code in such messages – it will increase the chances the customer will choose your company.

If the customer declined the offer, the robot should say goodbye politely and finish the call.

You finished the script and you need to voice it now. A professional announcer can record audio clips, but you also need to choose the correct gender of your robot: a female voice will suit for a medical center, a male voice – for building tools store.

The audio should contain coughs, giggles, and filler words to make your customer believe he is speaking with a human. Our speech is not perfect in real life so the robot should sound the same.

Make 100-200 trial calls and record all the answers. So you can if all keywords were taken into account. Add needed branches and words in your dialogue script and start a test again. If calls were successful, you can apply this script to call all your client base.

Effebot managers can help you to make a perfect script for your task. But you can do it on your own if you follow this short instruction:

Make a scheme of the dialogue – how it starts and which ways it can be finished.

Cut all unnecessary blocks, combine fragmented ones.

Make a close question for each phase of the dialogue and add keywords for possible answers.

Add “any word” option for each phase of the dialogue. It will help the robot respond to non-standard phrases.

Add the robot’s response for the next situations: a client cannot talk, a client said a joke, a client has problems with communication, a client recognizes he is speaking with a robot.

Add options (the robot's actions) for the finish of the conversation: to transfer a call to a manager, to call again later, to send an SMS, and say goodbye.

Record lively audio clips (with coughs, giggles, and filler words) for each phase of the dialogue.

Make 100-200 trial calls, analyze results and improve your script.