Nowadays, chatbots are trending and getting more and more users all over the customer experience.

However, some chatbots are not personalizable enough to fit with companies' needs.

Through this article, we're going to give you the main reasons why you would need to use a chatbot API within your company.

What is a Chatbot API?

A chatbot API is a framework that lets you craft conversational experience through different programming languages such as PHP, Golang or Python, and many more.

A chatbot API will let you go way further than a "traditional" chatbot builder, thanks to programming languages that will allow you to pull data from other tools such as your database, CRM, or NLP software.

How to use a chatbot API?

Building a chatbot through an API requires some specific actions. We've listed some of the best efforts to take so you can make the most out of a chatbot API.

To build your chatbot and plug it into Crisp, you'll need to connect your code to Crisp. Crisp provides a chatbot API, and an RTM API.

The REST API provides you with routes to read data from your Crisp account & websites and routes to publish data (e.g., send a message in a conversation).

The RTM API (aKa Real-TiMe API) is a WebSocket channel that pushes event data to your apps. For instance, when a user sends a message to your website over the Crisp chatbox, you'll receive an RTM event with the message contents.

Using the REST API and RTM API combination lets you build full-fledged chatbots thanks to our APIs.

To do so, you'll have to require an API Token. Here is how.

Before you can connect to the API, you need to generate an API token. An API token authenticates the user on Crisp and is linked to a Crisp account. To access your inbox, your Crisp account must be an operator member of your inbox.

As a Crisp account can hold a maximum of 20 tokens at the same time, and knowing those tokens are also being generated by Crisp apps to log in to your account (e.g., Crisp iOS app, Crisp Web app), we advise you create a Crisp operator account dedicated to pure- chatbot API usage. This way, you ensure your API token is never expired due to token limit overflow (for instance, you may create a Crisp account on crisp-api@yourdomain.com).

How can I choose a chatbot API?

Programming language

That might be the first step to think about. Are the libraries available adapted to your skills or your companies' skills. That's an important matter because it will make your life a lot easier. Or not.

Supported platforms

Willing to build a chatbot? That's great, but for which platform? Is it only for your website? Why don't you also think about Messenger, Twitter, or any messaging apps you're dealing with on a day to day basis.

When choosing your chatbot API, make sure it's open to multiple platforms so you can scale your work on various channels.

Documentations disponibility

The quality of the documentation is vital to make your team autonomous and efficient. Before any choice, discover, read, and share the content with your team, so they can define if it's well documented enough for the project you're aiming at.

If documentation isn't enough, what about the support? Are they able to help you? Through which channel? Are they reactive enough?

Supported NLP tools

Typically, as you're looking for a chatbot API, all the NLP tools should be available as long as they provide an API too. However, make sure it's the case, so you're not going wrong.

Pricing

When it comes to pricing, you've already made 90% of the job. Your next chatbot API platform is close but can also be very far.

Pricing can affect a project a lot.

Ensure the chatbot API is included in your pricing or doesn't grow when your traffic will grow or your conversations.

Try to seek for something illimited, so you're comfortable with your product.

What are the benefits of a chatbot API?

Taking advantage of a chatbot API can give your business an exciting edge compared to your competitors.

Here is a short list of advantages that your business could benefit from while using a chatbot API to craft the best customer experience.

Let your data flow

Using a chatbot API will allow your business to let your data flow smoothly between your CRM or any other available database within your company.

Thanks to your API, you'll be able to connect not only the chatbot but your entire customer support software with your existing data, so you have the right information when chatting with your leads or customers.

Make the chatbot smarter

API integrations can help expand your chatbots' functionality and productivity because they will benefit from the interconnection with your existing data.

Chatbots, as the face of customer communications, process millions of data with each new interaction. Hence, it gets critical to organize the user-data flow and streamline it to the appropriate departments, whenever required.

Simply put, building automated routing rules based on customers' requirements is a must-have to make an ever-lasting customer relationship.

Not only this, but APIs can also be employed to fetch data from other applications, such as CRM, HRMS, ERP, and send it to the chatbot for smoother functioning of business operations.

Multiply data entry

Chatbots feed on data to make decisions and assist users with the right information. By allowing your chatbot to access user data via APIs, you can expand its functionality.

API integration makes it easier for chatbots to fetch data from other applications, both inside and outside your organization. It's essential to connect your chatbot with the relevant API to obtain data from different systems or applications.

Hence, you could combine Clearbit APIs or CompaniesAPI to your chatbot behavior to send personalized messages based on the website visitor IP or based on the website visitor data.

Boost Employees Productivity and minimize the cost of procuring data

Employees spend most of their work-time fetching data while switching one software to another. Contrary to this, when you employ APIs to do the same, it saves employees crucial time that can be allotted to attain buyers' queries. With the elimination of manual work to access data, the cost of acquiring data from multiple applications also decreases.

Today, APIs have become an essential part of making online businesses successful. By taking advantage of relevant APIs to enhance chatbot productivity, you can also optimize human resources. APIs can help your chatbot fetch user data from different applications. The same data can be employed to enhance interactions with buyers or potential buyers.

Thanks to APIs, human-chatbot interaction becomes productive and seamless. API provides chatbots access to data from applications that aren't part of the chatbot ecosystem. For example, an e-commerce marketplace can fetch email subscribers' data from CRM to chatbot by integrating it with relevant APIs.