Building intelligent, non-linear conversations

How is Voiceflow different from flowcharts? How do I jump from one topic to another? 

One of the most important features and advantages of Voiceflow is its ability to facilitate nonlinear conversations. This gives an assistant the flexibility to adapt to the user's objectives and respond dynamically to multiple conversational topics. 

Traditionally, conversation design for many users has looked like a rigid, linear flowchart from one direction to the other. Different types of blocks were indicated using shapes and or colours, and turning the design into a chatbot is a cumbersome, manual process.

With Voiceflow, the assistant does not only follow the direction of the arrows of the design until the conversation finishes. The assistant is able to move from one conversational flow to another through the use of topics, intents and actions, and can recognize and respond to a user's unexpected responses through no match sequences. 

 1). Topics

Topics are subsections of your assistant that correspond to a specific function. You can use topics to separate conversational flows into different pages to streamline your workflow and enable better collaboration. Your assistant is able to jump into another topic by adding a go-to action to a step or using intent steps. Learn more about using topics to organize conversations here

2). Intent steps

Intents represent a collection of user phrases, called utterances, that map to the same user intention. An intent step can be used to direct the assistant to take a certain course of action if the user response matches the specified intent. 

3). No match 

This is a toggle in capture and choice steps to configure the assistant's progression if the user response does not match any defined user intentions. 

4). Components

A component is made of one or more blocks combined into a singular step. This can help you build repeatable conversational flows that are used in the exact same way across an assistant. Component instances are updated across the assistant and cannot be independently changed. Learn about using components here