What we learned building our bot

We built our bot, Operator, to solve a very specific problem - collecting contact information from users who want to chat with humans but are not available at the time. We learned five important lessons while building it: people don't want to talk to bots if they form expectations, your bot doesn't need a character or personality, words actually matter and can change user's assumptions and expectations, avoid the "bot jail" by providing clear options and escape hatches, and bots should have manners. We reframed our concept of a bot as an assistant to conversation rather than a participant, and built a manners engine to ensure our bot is always on its best behavior.