Chatbots have seen significant growth in recent years as more businesses look to utilize automation and artificial intelligence (AI) to improve the quality and availability of their service. They offer increased engagement opportunities for your customers and prospects and are available on a 24/7 basis. Chatbots also provide multilingual support with significantly reduced operational costs and lower labor resource requirements.
However, it is essential that you conduct comprehensive testing of your chatbots to ensure that they function as intended and provide a positive and optimal experience for your customers, as well as operating at the required reliability and functionality levels. After all, you wouldn’t launch your website without testing your code! So, why would you deploy a chatbot without testing it?
Types of testing
It is imperative that your chatbot undergoes regular and continuous testing and that its functionality is enhanced on an iterative basis.
- Compatibility: Testing your chatbot to ensure it is compatible with various devices, across multiple operating systems, and web browsers is critical. While it is unlikely you will be able to test all scenarios, compatibility testing helps to identify issues which may cause problems for individuals who are interacting on a specific device or platform. You can’t simply assume that all sub-systems and integrated platforms will work together seamlessly at all times. In the event that just one fails, so too does the entire system – including your chatbot.
- Security: As chatbots are often required to handle sensitive user information such as personal details or even payment details, it is imperative to test and ensure that they are secure and free from vulnerabilities which could compromise the data provided by users. This may include authentication and authorization protocol testing.
- Performance testing: To test for performance, you need to test your chatbot’s response time and latency. By testing that it can respond quickly to user queries, you will optimize its performance. This will help to enhance user experience and engagement. Performance testing will require significant investments in quality assurance testing to promptly detect and fix any errors or bugs which may be present in the system itself.
- Functionality testing: Through functionality testing, you will test the ability of your chatbot to understand and respond to user input quickly and accurately. Testing needs to involve both broad, general queries and narrow, highly-specific prompts. This will ensure that the chatbot’s responses are most likely to be relevant, appropriate, and helpful.
- User experience: Chatbots are designed to interact in a casual, conversational style, providing users with the relevant information or assistance. Testing your chatbot ensures it can provide a positive and seamless user experience. Conversational flow, ease of use and the user interface (UI) should all be evaluated at this stage.
- Load testing: Load testing verifies that your chatbot has the ability to handle a large number of users and simultaneous requests without crashing or slowing down. This is even more essential for chatbots that are expected to handle high volumes of traffic.
- Integration testing: The integration capabilities of your chatbot with other systems should be tested and understood. This can include third-party APIs (Application Programming Interfaces), databases, and many other applications.
- Language testing: For chatbots that are multilingual and are required to communicate across multiple languages, it is vital to test their ability to understand and respond to not only different languages, but also different dialects. Additionally, it is important to ensure that the chatbot is capable of responding using culturally appropriate vocabulary and language.
Automating your testing
Just as chatbots are capable of handling conversations and interacting with your customers without your intervention; test automation allows your testing to take place with little interaction from you or your team.
While traditional software testing tends to follow predefined test runs, this is not the case with chatbot testing. Chatbots are more complicated in nature due to their use of machine learning methods and AI, and as a result there is no one-size-fits-all solution for testing. However, building a largely automated testing plan and strategy is possible. While it can be time-consuming initially, it will lead to dramatic financial, labor and resource savings over time.
Chatbot testing can’t simply be conducted and completed on a once-off basis. It requires regular regression testing to verify that any changes or new learnings are not negatively impacting existing or upcoming functionality. For chatbots, testing becomes even more important following the deployment stage as the chatbot and NLP (natural language processing) is continuously learning and developing. As such it is vital to ensure that any errors are caught as promptly as possible.
End-to-end testing should be conducted throughout the development process and for the entire life-cycle of your chatbot to simulate from beginning to end what real user scenarios could look like, validate your conversational AI and replicate live interactions.
Through undertaking the above testing, you will be better enabled to maintain your chatbot and prevent issues. It will also help to protect you against potential risks, including security and GDPR compliance.
Conclusion
The use of chatbots by organizations is continuing on an upward trajectory thanks to their ability to provide around-the-clock customer service at a global scale. However, as their usage increases, so too does the volume of chatbot failures encountered. As such, you must teach your chatbots how to understand customer intent, train it, and continuously test it to ensure that, if issues occur, you can catch and eliminate them before your users experience them.
Utilizing chatbots to cost-effectively and efficiently deliver a flawless customer experience is within easy reach thanks to Cyara. You will have the power to ensure that your chatbot provides customers and prospects with a reliable and positive experience. Through chatbot testing services and chatbot testing tools like Cyara Botium, you will be equipped to provide flawless CX journeys across your chatbot offering. Contact us to learn more.
