Buttons, lists or free text: choosing how customers answer

Conversational bot design should choose buttons, lists, or free text for each question based on whether the full set of valid answers is genuinely known: structured inputs suit controlled, closed choices such as appointment slots, service selections, and low-stakes confirmations, while free text is better for descriptive needs, first contact, unusual circumstances, and situations where customers possess more information than the business. The discussion warns that forcing users into an incomplete menu produces misleadingly clean but inaccurate data, and recommends accepting typed replies even when buttons are offered, avoiding repeated options after an unmatched response, and providing an easy route to explain a need or request human help. Platform constraints such as option limits, short labels, translation differences, inconsistent rendering, and accessibility concerns should shape message design, while consequential actions involving payments or cancellations require stronger confirmation than a single tap and records of the exact button wording. It also recommends monitoring typed responses, unused choices, drop-off points, and response times to identify flawed questions, and describes CodeWords as an automation tool for building and connecting such flows across integrations.

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