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How to come up with the best chatbot names
By Alex Debecker, founder and CGO of ubisend
A close friend of mine is due to have a baby very soon. In a
couple of months, this new little being will walk the earth
(well, not walk just yet).
Beyond the obvious gender discussion (which always ends up
in excitement, whichever gender it actually turns out to be),
we talk names.
What does your chatbot do?
A great way to name your chatbot is by relating it to what
it actually does. What is its purpose? What does it help its
users do?
Example: TranslateBot, a chatbot that automatically trans-
lates content you send to it.
Finding the right name is important. Whether you are
birthing a real-life baby or a chatbot, you must find the right
name. Since I have already solved that problem for my friend
(told him to call his baby Alex, obviously), I thought we could
look at naming chatbots together. GetFitBot, a chatbot that keeps you motivated. (EDIT: Turns
out this name exists! It’s a Telegram chatbot you can test
here.)
At ubisend, we get to name all the chatbots we work on. The
reason is we almost always work under strong NDAs and
cannot mention anything in public. So, we end up having to
use code names for all our bots. And, as people do, we make
up funky little names for all these amazing chatbots we
build. Here’s what not to do: don’t have any brand mention into
your chatbot’s name. Don’t even try to be clever about it.
Avoid brand names
The only caveat is, obviously, if you own that brand. If you
are TripAdvisor, then, by all means, call your chatbot the
TripAdvisorBot.
Example (of what not to do):
Hopefully, the process we go through to do this will inspire
you as well. Trying to find the best name for your chatbot?
Follow these few steps/rules! BotteryBarn, a chatbot that helps you find home furniture (a
play on Pottery Barn, a famous furnishing company in the US).
Important: do NOT follow these steps/rules to name your
baby. Avoid being too descriptive
Almost human Now, I know I am sort of contradicting my previous to last
point, but this is important. Nothing bores me more than a
super-descriptive chatbot name.
When it makes sense, I like to give chatbots an almost
human name. Granted, this doesn’t always work but when it
does it sounds really smart. It is cool to use what your chatbot does as a starting point.
Just don’t make that the entire chatbot name, c’mon!
Someone at ubisend came up with the best one ever for
one of our builds. So good, in fact, the company we were
building it for ended up adopting the name for their official
release. Thus, I can’t even share it here (NDAs and all). What
a bummer. Learn Knitting Bot, a bot that teaches you how to knit.
*yawn*
Examples: iDa, a chatbot that teaches you to speak Russian
(Ida is a girl name, ‘da’ means yes in Russian). Got it? Be funny. Not that hard, damn it.
iRis, an optician appointment booking chatbot (for obvious
reason).
Example (of what not to do):
Be funny
Really, though, try to have fun with it (unless your bot is
something super serious like medical or tax-related). Most
of your users will have their very first chatbot experience
with yours; make their experience enjoyable.
Winter 2018
globalcustodian.com
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