# Multi-Channel Chatbot

### <mark style="color:orange;">What is a Chatbot?</mark>

A chatbot is a software that can help users by automating conversations and interacting with them through messaging platforms.

### <mark style="color:orange;">Why do you need a Chatbot?</mark>

Chatbots can be utilised for:

1. **Discovery:** The creator can enable the discovery of content, programs, apps, etc., for its users.
2. **Query resolution:** User's queries related to anything for which a help section is required can be resolved.
3. **Updates and Announcements:** The creator can put personalised updates and announcements for its users to consume.
4. **Contextual engagement:** The creator can significantly improve the user interaction on your platform by implementing contextual chatbot popups. These popups can be strategically activated in key scenarios such as when a user tends to leave a page or requires further explanations about the content presented.

### <mark style="color:orange;">How can you use a Chatbot?</mark>

Users can interact with the chatbot in two ways:

1. **Structured pre-defined steps:** The creator can define the steps, flows, UI, and actions that a user can access. The user must choose specific paths to reach what they seek.
2. **Free-flowing conversation:** In this, the creator can define an answer to a list of probable questions. Using machine learning, the system will further make more such combinations of questions to which a particular answer can be applied. This is more like a real conversation with users, but here also, the boundary is what answers have been already defined by the creator.

### <mark style="color:orange;">How to Configure?</mark>

The above capabilities of the Multi-Channel Chatbot are derived from components of Sunbird UCI. You can find details by clicking on the link [here](https://ed.sunbird.org/learn/functional-capabilities/product-and-developers-guide/multi-channel-chatbot).