Join Our Community

How to Create and Use Chain Bots

Shout SupportShout
Shout_Support
updated 6 mths ago

What are Chain Bots

Chain bots allow you to send information to your Shout-to-Shout (S2S) contacts. They don't collect responses. Instead, each message will either have a short time delay or include a next button that will wait for the recipient to manually proceed at their own pace.

Chain bots are great to deploy team training or onboard new team members with bite-size content, getting them up to speed one step at a time.

Chain bots are only available S2S. Contacts can sign up for a free account here, or share your referral link to invite them to join.

How to Create a Chain Bot

Chain bots can only be created on desktop and tablets. As you start building, you’ll see an at-a-glance outline of your bot flow on the right side of your screen.

Step 1: Create Your Bot

Click on Automations in the left navigation to show a drop down menu
Click Bots
Click the blue + button at the top left of the screen
Select Chain Bot

Step 2: Name Your Bot

Every good bot needs a name! This will only be visible to you and those you share your bot with, so pick a name that will help you remember what it does and how to use it.

Step 3: Select Services

Shout to Shout is the only available service for Chain Bots.

Step 4: Create Trigger Words

Trigger words are what contacts will send to start a bot. Your bot will be listening for exact matches to your trigger word.

Keep these simple! The incoming message needs to be an exact match for the bot to take over, so make it easy for your customers to get them right.

You can have multiple trigger words by clicking on Add Trigger Word

Delete those you don’t need with the Trash Can

If you receive a message with just the trigger word, your bot will take over the conversation

Trigger words for bots and drip campaigns are not case sensitive, and if you have two of the same trigger word, it won't let you use the bot (ex. VIP and vip).

In order to fix this, delete all of the trigger words, save, and then add back one version of the trigger word (ex. vip).

Step 5: Add Actions

Actions can take place at any point in the chain, including before the bot begins or after it’s done. Some actions are only available on specific question types. An action can:

Add or remove a contact from a list
Add or remove a tag from a contact
Assign or unassign a channel from a contact
Mute or unmute a conversation
Send a response to a multiple-choice option
Assign a topic to identify the conversation at a glance in your inbox
Auto-mark done to move the conversation out of your Inbox to the done folder
Run a new bot, ending the current bot and starting a new one
End This Bot

Remove actions by clicking on the ••• menu next to the action, then click delete.

Step 6: Create Messages

In Chain bots, Message Chain is the only type of message available

Name questions for easy internal reference

Click on ••• to move or delete messages

Use Quick Responses, Nouns, attach files, include images, Short Links, or Share Links

There are no segment counters on Chain Bot composers because all messages sent S2S are free. They don’t count toward your monthly segment total.

Step 7: Next Button

The next button lets your contact control when the next message in the conversation comes to them. If you don’t use the Next button, there will be a three-second pause before the bot moves on. If you check Show Next, the contact will have to click next to continue the bot.

Step 8: Activate Your Bot

Activate or pause your bot here. When active, your bot will listen for its trigger words, can be activated with share links, or started manually in the message window.