Chatbot funnel

A chatbot funnel is a conversation flow allowing businesses to lead users step by step towards attaining a specific goal through a chatbot. It can be problem resolution, lead capturing, demo booking, or a sale. It’s similar to a sales funnel but is specifically designed for automated chats.

In this article, we’ll uncover the benefits of using chatbot funnels and provide a guide on creating them for your business. We’ll also share some tips and examples of chatbot funnels that work.

Why should you use a chatbot funnel?

Chatbot funnels are essential for effectively combining automation with user experiences tailored to your target audience’s needs, preferences, and pain points. With their help, your business can seamlessly interact with potential customers, provide them with relevant responses, and answer repetitive questions without being limited by time zones or human agents.

The first and most important reason for companies to design chatbot funnels is that users can reach them at any time. Prospects don’t need to wait for hours to start chatting with your brand because the chatbot is available 24/7.

When chatbot flows are well built, customers have meaningful conversations without any friction. They effectively guide leads toward the desired action, whether it’s making a purchase, scheduling an appointment, registering for a webinar, onboarding as a customer, or tracking an order. Everything is simple and easy, allowing users to complete a specific action without confusion.

Chatbots can also serve as a source of information about potential customers. They enable you to use these insights to your advantage when sharing offers, solutions, recommendations, etc. If messages are relevant and personalized, prospects are more interested in your business and are more likely to convert. It results in better conversion rates.

These are the most crucial but not the only reasons for you to develop chatbot funnels. Let’s explore some more benefits of using them for your business.

Benefits of Using Chatbot Funnels

Building chatbot funnels makes it so much easier for businesses to visualize communication with customers and make it pleasant for them. It can bring you better satisfaction and higher loyalty. However, there are even more perks you can take advantage of after designing your chatbot funnel. Let’s explore them in more detail below.

• Around-the-clock engagement. With chatbot funnels, you are always ready to greet users, help them with their problems, and guide them through various processes. This is especially useful when you have international audiences with different time zones. You’ll be able to respond to questions in seconds whenever customers contact your business.
• Better conversion rates. Personalizing interactions with your customers through chatbots allows you to give clients what they are really looking for. By using the right language, messages, and offers, you’ll be able to effectively solve users’ problems, deliver personalized offers, and send the right promotions at the right moment.
• Guided customer journeys. After developing chatbot funnels, you can be sure that customers will reach the needed point in their customer journeys. This allows them to get all the necessary information and helps prevent them from churning out. Users get the necessary information about the product, make appointments, and complete purchases quickly within the chatbot.
• Effective lead qualification. Teaching your chatbot to ask the right questions at the right stage of their journeys enables you to group them based on similar criteria. Automated questions related to their budget, timeline, and intent will enable you to identify prospects that are likely to convert into customers. After that, you can route them to your sales representatives for further interactions.
• More efficient data collection. With proper chatbot funnels, you’ll be able to gather customer data, including names and contact details, preferences and problems, purchase history, and interests. It allows you to use this information later to provide more personalized experiences tailored to users’ needs and pain points.
• Instant answers to FAQs. Chatbots help manage various issues related to FAQs, order tracking, product details, and onboarding when they are properly trained to do it. You can prevent users from waiting for human agents and provide them with answers immediately. Moreover, this option is available 24/7. This enables you to reduce costs associated with hiring new specialists while improving satisfaction with your customer service.
• Tailored experiences. Chatbots not only gather customer information but also process it to provide personalized offers, product recommendations, relevant solutions, and quality responses. Although bots are used for dozens or even thousands of prospects, they feel personalized to each customer.
• Human handoff option. If your customers need human interaction, you can always add a bot-to-human handoff button to your chatbot funnels. This is necessary for situations where chatbots can’t handle specific problems due to their complexity. Human agents ensure that engagement with customers is smooth without any dissatisfaction.

Now, if you are interested in creating chatbot funnels for your business, let’s delve into the process of doing it.

How to create a chatbot funnel?

Chatbot funnels vary depending on the goal you want to achieve. When you already have a clear understanding of your bot’s purpose, you can effectively use one of these short guides designed for developing funnels for lead generation, customer support, and sales.

Lead generation

If you strive to generate more potential customers for your business using a chatbot, it’s worth considering the steps below for the best results.

1. Identify the perfect platform to achieve your goals. Once you are 100% sure of what you want your chatbot to look like, it’s time to search for the right platform. Always pay attention to the service’s features to build a chatbot that meets your needs and allows you to effectively reach your key objectives. If you want your chatbot to use human-like natural language and provide relevant responses, consider a service like SendPulse because it helps build AI-powered chatbots.
2. Create a strong first message. A compelling opener for your chatbot is a must for grabbing attention and keeping users engaged. That’s why it’s worth thinking about writing benefit-focused first messages that make prospects curious. You can invite them to your 30-day free trial or offer a free guide or tutorial on solving relevant problems.
3. Ask the right questions to qualify leads. When developing lead generation chatbot funnels, always think ahead about how to effectively qualify newcomers. For this purpose, you need to ask smart, short, and clear qualifying questions. While doing this, avoid overwhelming prospects with excessive questions and information. Ensure that you provide buttons so users can respond quickly.
4. Provide instant value. If leads land on your website and then proceed to the chatbot, they expect you to provide answers. It directly affects their customer experience and their decisions on further interactions with your business. After gathering contact information, it’s necessary to share something useful. It can be a demo video, a promo code, a free consultation, etc.
5. Group prospects based on their interests. After asking questions about the purpose of the prospects’ visit and other qualifying questions, you should segment them and assign scores. These scores need to be assigned based on the leads’ likelihood to convert. The easiest way to do this is by using tags in your CRM. You can schedule a call with sales reps if potential customers are ready to buy, or nurture them with valuable content through email and other channels.

Customer support

Customer support chatbots are essential for providing excellent customer service and attracting more clients to your business. With proper chatbot funnels, you can visualize their steps and successfully end with conversions, whatever users’ primary goals are. Here are the steps you should follow to design them successfully.

1. Outline the support flow. To design a good chatbot funnel for your customer support, break it down into several parts. These might include greeting, problem categorizing, solutions, escalation, etc. You need to have a clear understanding of how your chatbot will work and what problems it will solve. Think of all the steps customers might need to take to solve their problems, onboard them, or connect to human agents.
2. Develop the initial prompt. Work on a detailed prompt covering all the processes. Start with a nice message asking users whether they need help, and train your chatbot to send clickable options. Depending on your business, you can provide various options that let customers track their orders, get technical support, request a refund, and speak with live agents. For the convenience of your customers, consider adding buttons or quick replies. They will make the process much easier both for training your chatbot and for clients getting assistance fast.
3. Ensure self-service answers. Often, when customers have common problems, it’s necessary to provide ready responses. You can share articles, videos, or step-by-step guides to solve issues depending on the problems customers face. When users want to track the progress of their orders, you can send a message containing the necessary link. When clients have billing problems, it’s necessary to share a link where they can update their payment method.
4. Add a bot to human handoff. Regardless of how good or well-trained your chatbot is, it’s always a good idea to add a button that allows customers to connect with a human specialist. When the bot can’t resolve the problem, consider adding a message asking whether customers need such an option. If they are positive about chatting with a human specialist, your chatbot will transfer the chat to an agent.

Sales

Finally, when you aim to convert prospects into customers, take different steps to grab their attention and encourage the desired action. Let’s check out how to develop your sales chatbot funnel.

1. Create a benefit-driven message as an opener. Whether you want to generate leads, qualify them, or convert them into customers, you should always create a compelling first message that communicates value. When writing these scripts, use friendly, casual language and include button options for users to choose from.
2. Personalize your offers. After collecting customer insights, use them to your advantage. Knowing the product prospects are interested in and problems they face enables you to share relevant offers, including demo videos, pricing information, product details, and a suitable service plan, etc. Always pay attention to leads’ needs, requirements, and pain points to recommend products that are tailored to each potential customer individually.
3. Provide concise and clear answers to FAQs. Usually, customers use chatbots to get answers to common questions. That’s why it’s necessary to develop short flows to address customer problems. There might be two types of responses for a chatbot. Depending on the type of inquiry, you can provide answers in chat or link to product pages.
4. Add visible CTAs. Once you've communicated the advantages of your product, end the message with a call-to-action button. It allows users to take the desired action whenever they want. Use simple, direct language that encourages more clicks and leads to conversions. Besides, consider adding a discount or a free trial so that users interact with your product more eagerly.
5. Include a human handoff button. If prospects want to buy but still have hesitations about the product, it’s better to transfer the chat to human agents. Any complex issues require the involvement of human specialists who can respond to the leads’ tone of voice and demonstrate empathy.

Now that you know how to develop chatbot funnels for different scenarios, it’s time to unveil some useful tips. They will help you reach your goals faster.

8 Tips to Create an Effective Chatbot Funnel

You can create your chatbot funnel using various techniques and approaches based on your industry and product. However, some crucial steps are a must for effectively reaching users. You’ll find them below.

1. Think about your primary goals. Before designing chatbot funnels, identify your desired result. There are various goals you can achieve by incorporating a chatbot into your business, including lead generation, lead qualification, onboarding, appointment booking, and product sales, among others.
2. Outline the user journey. It’s essential to map out your user journey step by step, so prospects can move smoothly toward conversion. You should visualize everything, starting with a welcome message, then collecting customer data, proceeding to the qualification process, and making personalized recommendations, resolving problems, or booking appointments. Think of different branches and scenarios that enable users with various needs, pain points, and preferences to receive relevant responses.
3. Focus on creating questions identifying intent. When you first start communicating with new users, it’s crucial to ask the right questions. They will help you not only get contact data but also identify people with high purchasing intent. You need to ask prospects about the following: the reasons they choose your brand, what they truly look for, and their main pain points. After receiving answers, the chatbot will be able to provide highly personalized and relevant responses to each lead.
4. Avoid asking too many questions at once. If you develop your chatbot funnel, ensure that you ask questions and provide information in a piece-by-piece manner. Prevent them from being overwhelmed by too many options or questions, as this might encourage them to simply leave the bot. Make the communication in a chatbot as simple as possible by adding quick reply buttons, making the flow intuitive, and providing “talk to human” options. When everything is simple and clear, users are more likely to engage with your chatbot than with a human agent.
5. Use polite, human-like language. Although chatbots can’t be compared to human agents when it comes to language, it’s necessary to make them as friendly and natural as possible. Messages should be human-like, concise, and clear, preventing users from experiencing any confusion or misunderstanding. Besides, the language needs to reflect your brand voice and make customers feel comfortable. Consider adding emojis when appropriate to make your chat not too formal.
6. Gather information essential for a personalized experience. Use your chatbot to collect information about prospects. This refers not only to contact details but also to purchasing history, relevant products, needs, and preferences. When you clearly understand these points, you can provide offers tailored to each customer, resulting in more customers purchasing your products or taking the desired actions.
7. Ensure your chatbot has a human handoff. Not all chats with users will go smoothly. Some may be more complex than anticipated, so prospects should always have an option for a bot-to-human handoff. When the conversation doesn’t proceed as planned, it’s essential to prevent customers from feeling annoyed or confused. By transferring such chats to human agents, you can offer relevant solutions, thereby improving customer satisfaction and experience.
8. Monitor your chatbot funnel and make improvements. Once your chatbot funnels are ready and you make your chatbots visible to users, you should still keep an eye on them. Always pay attention to customer feedback to understand how satisfied users are with these chatbots. By tracking completion rates, drop-off points, response rates, and lead quality, you will effectively identify gaps and optimize your chatbot's quality.

Now that you understand how to effectively design your chatbot funnel, it’s time to jump into the working examples. They will inspire you to develop your chatbot funnels and attain your primary business goals.

Examples of Chatbot Funnels That Work

There are numerous examples of chatbot funnels for different industries and audiences. We’ll provide you with successful examples for inspiration. So let’s explore.

Class reservation funnel

This example shows how a chatbot helps clients book their yoga classes without any human involvement. When you send greetings, the bot sends a message asking you to fill in the details, such as customer name, number of people, email address, phone number, etc. It also informs clients about the yoga studio’s rules. The example shown is an excellent example of a lead generation funnel.

Demo booking funnel

Below, you can see an example of a chatbot funnel for booking a demo. The bot asks users to provide their email addresses so the company can contact them and share information about the demo. Once users submit their emails, the chatbot informs them that sales representatives will reach out via email to schedule a demo. If prospects still have questions, they can continue communicating with the chatbot. The example you can see below clearly shows how sales chatbot funnels for B2C or B2B businesses look like.

Flight reschedule funnel

Chatbots can be used to obtain information about flight rescheduling, and below you’ll find one of them. Users can chat with the airline through one of the messaging apps, and in this case, it’s WhatsApp. They can select an airline and then proceed to the topic. Depending on the topic, the chatbot provides information about passengers’ further actions if their flights have been rescheduled. This flight rescheduling is a great example of a proper customer support chatbot funnel, enabling passengers to promptly resolve problems with tickets and flights.

To summarize, when creating chatbots, you need to understand the action users want to complete. Having a chatbot funnel means that you’ve already visualized all the steps, and customers will move smoothly toward their goals. It’s your chance to simplify communication with clients and make it pleasant both for your customers and your business.

Last Updated: 09.05.2025