Ryder

The brief

Design a website-enabled chatbot for generating leads. The bot is to be launched on the website's Courses page, intially.

Audience

Prospective learners (course sales)
Content design leaders or UX managers (team sales)

Chatbot goals

Increase sign-ups by directing students to their suggested course — Help more students sign up for a course that suits their needs and subscribe to newsletters (if not already subscribed)
Generate leads — Schedule meetings with high-quality leads regarding courses, workshops, and consulting projects, aiming for increased sign-ups and projects
Inform prospective learners — Guide prospective learners through the awareness and consideration stages to conversion by answering relevant marketing FAQs about course prerequisites, cost, duration, format, and tools used

What I did

As lead conversation designer on this project, I...

created and updated a project strategy doc to make sure everyone involved in the project was always in alignment
collaborated with key stakeholders to discuss progress, work through blockers, and get feedback
created a bot persona and wrote brand voice guidelines
used chatbot writing best practices to write a script
designed the chatbot on Landbot to demo and hand off for internal testing on staging before going live
iterated based on internal feedback

My role

I was briefed on the goals the company wanted the bot to achieve and assigned as lead conversation designer. I was trusted with the responsibility of...

deciding the best platform to use
creating the bot persona and writing voice guidelines
writing the script
designing the bot interface, in line with the branding style guide

Blockers and other setbacks

There were mainly two:

Although the script was finished in two weeks' time, the project was then put on hold for almost a year due to rapidly-changing priorities as a result of the company's fast growth, including a company rebrand. That meant updates were needed.
The platform initially chosen to build the bot (Drift) was too costly and lacked a couple desired features

I overcame these by...

remaining patient while supporting and contributing to a few of the other more important projects
doing extensive research and collaborating with key stakeholders to find a cost-effective but capable alternative platform
updating the script as needed

The end product

After much brainstorming, research, and iteration in part due to feedback, this is what I came up with:

Bot persona and writing guidelines
Script, including copy for Landbot's custom system messages (errors, returning user message, help and placeholder text)
Landbot prototype (not yet live, so the following screenshots have been provided instead)

With the bot's goals in mind, I created custom goals at strategic points of the experience which will be tracked to help measure the bot's success and discern where iterations could or should be made. I also included an option for chatbot users to rate their experience and leave feedback.

And in line with UXCC's business goals, at the end of the chat I included the option for persons to invite their friends, colleagues, and professional network via social media channels to chat with Ryder if they're interested in UXCC's courses and services. I wrote the copy for that message as well.

Instead of waiting and hoping for a prospective lead to see and click on the chatbot icon, I chose to have Ryder show proactive messages as soon as they land on the page to spark engagement.

Once the prospective lead selects an option, the widget opens, showing them what Ryder can help them with.

I made sure to include the option of consent and rewrote the microcopy to make sure it's as clear as possible.

Returning persons will see this message with the shown options. I don't like how Landbot handled this particular interaction, but I rewrote the message and button copy to make the most of it.

I made use of cards (a feature Drift didn't have) to show the various course options available. This is one example.

These cards are crucial as far as sign-ups and revenue are concerned, so to make them as effective as possible I...

selected appropriate images
wrote clear titles
wrote compelling, action-oriented headlines
wrote benefits-focused descriptive text
included the price up front to build trust
provided an easy, clear way (button) for prospective leads to get the information they need to decide to convert