In one of our earlier chatbot explainer posts we discussed Message Nodes. Today we will introduce another node type–Logic Nodes, which are classified in the Building category of chatbot product features. Logic Nodes allow the enterprise user to customize the chatbot’s conversational flow; the main types of Logic Nodes include If Nodes, Conditions Nodes, Go To Nodes, and Restart Nodes.

If Nodes are used to validate if a certain condition is true or false, and then take the customer down a specific flow path if the condition is true or down another flow path if it’s not. For example, the enterprise user can create an If Node to check if the customer input contains the word “representative,” and transition the conversation to a human agent if it does, or keep the conversation with the automated chatbot if it doesn’t. Conditions Nodes are similar to If Nodes except that they allow for more conditions. For example, the user can create a Conditions Node to see if the customer input triggers the “Book Flight” intent, the “Book Taxi” intent, or the “Book Hotel” intent–and then lead the customer down the appropriate flow path based on the detected intent.

Go To Nodes, on the other hand, are used to immediately take the customer to a specific node or flow path when it’s reached. For example, the enterprise user can create a Go To Node that takes the customer to the human agent handover flow if the customer doesn’t enter a decipherable input. Finally, the Restart Node is used to immediately end the current flow and take the customer back to the beginning of the conversation. An example in which the Restart Node is used is when the chatbot detects the customer speaking another world language and consequently restarts the entire conversation in the customer’s native language.

The screenshot above shows the editing of a Conditions Node in an example chatbot vendor – Infobip Answers.

Our chatbot explainer series shares our knowledge of chatbot product features. If you have any questions, please reach out to me directly and follow me to get notifications on future posts.

Dong Liu, Founding Analyst
dong@daybreakinsights.com

@dongliu1226