Multi-channel design: How to create 1 chatbot for WhatsApp, Messenger, & web

Creating 1 chatbot to rule all channels sounds great, and it is, but… Each channel has its own advantages and disadvantages. Take WhatsApp for example, in Europe that is the most popular messaging channel which offers a lot of potential for customer interactions. On the other hand, WhatsApp does not support Cards, Carousels and buttons.

Those Rich UI elements like buttons, cards and carousels, can enhance the Customer Experience and are supported in Facebook Messenger and the Web Widget but not in WhatsApp. That means that if you’re using these elements, you should alter your workflow for WhatsApp. And there we go, our Channel Specific Design feature is here to help!

1. Enable Channel Specific Design

After enabling Channel Specific Design in the Project settings you can start using the feature from within the Flows sections. So head over to Flows!

2. Create shared elements

Within the shared tab, you can only drag & drop elements that are supported by all your selected channels. In our example, text replies is one of the elements that is supported by WhatsApp, Messenger and Web so let’s drag and drop that onto our canvas.

3. Tailor to each channel specific

After creating shared elements, we can now start tailoring the elements to each channel. Let’s have a look at the Web Widget that supported rich UI elements such as cards and buttons.

As WhatsApp does not support these cards, buttons and carousels we can now easily alter the workflow with elements that are supported by WhatsApp such as text.

We know it’s exciting but don’t forget to test your experienceproperly. You can ask colleagues and friends to try it out on different channels. Try it out with WhatsApp Testing or share the Web Widget URL. After testing, improve your bot and repeat the process until it’s ready for a first launch!