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How to Create a Twilio Chatbot

Abhinav Girdhar
By Abhinav Girdhar | Last Updated on April 24th, 2024 11:59 am | 4-min read

Chatbots are important tools for businesses around the world. Every business can benefit greatly from the right chatbot. From customer support to lead generation, chatbots have found their way to many core business operations.

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Among the many ways to build chatbots, one of the most popular ways is to use Twilio. Twilio chatbots are special simply because of how you can build chatbots with its Twilio design studio. In this article, we will learn more about Twilio chatbots and how they can be used to create excellent business chatbots.

What are Twilio chatbots?

Twilio is a SaaS-based organization that provides businesses with various tools and professional software as a service. Among their portfolio of products and services, they provide the ability to build business chatbots is one of the more popular solutions. Twilio’s studio comes with all the tools you might need to build simple chatbots for your business. Our infographic below will teach you more about Twilio and its chatbot features.

Benefits of Twilio chatbots

Twilio’s studio is a simplified, automated tool that helps you build different types of chatbots. Based on your use case, you can build chatbots to provide customer support, and you can also create chatbots for lead generation, marketing, and sales. Here are some of the top features of Twilio chatbots:
  • Simple to use: Twilio chatbots are very simple to deploy and use. You could potentially create and deploy your chatbots within a few hours. You don’t even need to know how to code. All you need to know is how a chatbot holds conversations and how it works.

  • Saves time: Chatbots work 24/7. Be it customer support or marketing; chatbots can help save a lot of time as they can help customers and potential clients whenever they need. It enhances customer experience while also saving your business time by decreasing resolution and lead capture times for your internal teams.

  • Personalized experience: One of the reasons Twilio chatbots are popular is because they provide a personalized experience, enhancing customer support, interaction, and customer engagement directly.

  • Low-Code experience: Building chatbots with Twilio is mostly codeless, and it is easy to build chatbots without too much coding. With Twilio, you can build chatbots directly and provide a low-code experience.

How to create a Twilio chatbot in 5 easy steps

Creating Twilio chatbots is easy enough. However, it is not the most efficient way to build chatbots. What if we told you there was an even simpler tool that can help you build chatbots for free! The problem with Twilio is that if you purchase its studio, it will also try and force you to use its other business and marketing tools. Since you may not need all those marketing tools, you might want to consider its alternative, Appy Pie Chatbot.
Appy Pie’s chatbot builder comes with similar bells and whistles to the Twilio chatbot while being a completely independent product that does not need you to consider the other products in our Appy Pie portfolio. It also comes with way more integration capabilities that allow you to integrate tools that you already may be using for your business purposes. Another added benefit is that Appy Pie Chatbot is completely codeless, whereas Twilio may require occasional coding skills. Since Twilio and Appy Pie are very similar in how they work through a low and no-code interface, we’ve created a simple 5-step guide on how to build a chatbot. Note that this process will most likely work with both products.Step 1: Choose a name for your botBots are meant to be personable and need to emulate humans. A chatbot will represent your brand’s image. It is important to choose a name and decide on the type of bot that meets this brand image that you have. There are two rules to naming your bot:
  • It should be short and catchy
  • Should be easy-to-remember
Step 2: Select a design template based on the type of bot you are creatingTwilio chatbots are created to emulate human conversations and interactions. The chatbots need to reflect their friendly nature through the chat window. The design of your chatbot window and the type of bot you choose to create plays a big role in how users will perceive your Twilio chatbot. Appy Pie Chatbot provides thousands of chatbot templates to choose from.Step 3: Create your Chatbot’s Bot flowThe bot flow determines how your chatbot interacts with customers. You have to decide on triggers, responses based on what customers will ask from your chatbot. The bot flow will depend on the type of chatbot you’ve chosen to create. Customer support bots will ask the users for what help they need, whereas lead generation bots will ask customers to provide the necessary information. This is where Twilio and Appy Pie Chatbot differ. In Twilio, you may need to code certain parts of your bot flow. In Appy Pie, your bot flow is automatically created when you choose a type of bot.
Step 4: Test your Twilio ChatbotOnce your bot is ready, it is time to start testing it. Testing your bot will help you understand if it works as intended. You can also launch your bot in beta and ask your customers and clients to try it out and provide you with the necessary feedback to try and improve your bot.Step 5: Embed your Twilio chatbotOnce you feel that your chatbot is perfect and ready for your clients and customers, simply copy and embedding code and place it on the web pages or website. That’s it! Your chatbot is now live on your website and ready to assist your customers.

Conclusion

Both Twilio and Appy Pie Chatbot are excellent tools to create chatbots for your business. However, choosing the right one comes down to your use case and experience. Appy Pie Chatbot is the easiest you can choose, however, Twilio’s low-code model does give you a little more control if you know how to code. Choose the one that fits your needs. Good Luck!

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Abhinav Girdhar

Founder and CEO of Appy Pie

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