AI Chatbot Best Practices: Building Better Conversations

Why Chatbot Design Matters

A well-designed AI chatbot can transform user experience. Poor design leads to frustration; great design creates engagement and value.

Key Principles

1. Clear Purpose

Define what your chatbot should accomplish:

2. Effective Prompting

The way you prompt the AI determines response quality.

Good prompt:

You are a helpful customer service agent for an e-commerce store.
Be friendly, concise, and always offer to help further.

Better prompt:

You are a customer service agent for TechStore, an electronics retailer.
Guidelines:
- Be friendly and professional
- Keep responses under 3 sentences when possible
- Always confirm understanding before providing solutions
- If unsure, ask clarifying questions
- End with an offer to help with anything else

3. Context Management

Maintain conversation context for coherent interactions:

const messages = [
  { role: 'system', content: 'You are a helpful assistant.' },
  { role: 'user', content: 'I need help with my order' },
  { role: 'assistant', content: 'I\'d be happy to help! What\'s your order number?' },
  { role: 'user', content: 'It\'s #12345' },
  // Continue conversation...
];

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Testing Your Chatbot

Implementation with Fomoa AI

Use our Chat API to build your chatbot:

async function chat(userMessage, history = []) {
  const response = await fetch('https://fomoa.cloud/api/v1/chat', {
    method: 'POST',
    headers: {
      'Authorization': 'Bearer YOUR_API_KEY',
      'Content-Type': 'application/json',
    },
    body: JSON.stringify({
      messages: [...history, { role: 'user', content: userMessage }]
    })
  });
  return response.json();
}

Next Steps