Tone of voice is incredibly important when writing a bot, as it makes the conversation engaging and inviting whilst setting the scene for the user.
A good way to establish your tone of voice (if you haven't already got one), is to think of what will engage your audience the most. For example, if you're creating a survey bot about company culture, it would be best to adopt an engaging yet approachable tone of voice to make sure people stay in the bot and interact with it fully. Let's compare that to if you were making a bot for an office party. The tone of voice would be more casual, punchy, and include emojis/GIFs. Tone of voice requires incorporating and having knowledge of how your user likes to be spoken to, and what they are most likely to understand and enjoy interacting with.
We'd recommend coming up with a list of words to describe your tone of voice and your ideal audience before creating a script for your bot. Remember to keep an eye of your personas and KPIs to ensure that they all work together to suit the conversation you are about to build.
Here are some tone of voice guidelines:
- important to consider language and voice for audience
- your voice is your personality
- use terms that your audience know
- don’t create a new personality – stay on brand
- doesn’t have to be casual because it’s in messenger
- use active voice rather than passive e.g. “Breaking news is delivered by BBC” is not as clear, short or simple as, “BBC delivers breaking news.”
- use contractions e.g. “We cannot wait to get started” feels robotic, whereas “We can’t wait to get started” feels light and casual.
- be transparent, descriptive and informative with interactions
- be direct about capabilities
- hand hold people through the journey
- confirm their actions
- show you’re listening
- don’t keep people waiting for a response, if you don’t know the answer acknowledge it
- people need to understand how to interact to stay engaged
- consider all conversation routes
- think internationally
- not all words / phrases translate in text form
- be deliberate about language, editorial voice, length of messages, and even speed of response.
And remember, tone of voice isn't just about how you sound to your user, it's how you make them feel. Getting your tone of voice on point goes hand in hand with a successful, exciting and engaging bot.
*Tip: Check tone of voice with this analyzing tool .