How to Create a Telegram Chatbot in 2022
Telegram has been growing in popularity ever since it was launched close to a decade ago. The app has close to 540 million users, 38% of whom are from Asia. The app offers a powerful alternative to WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger and claims to be more secure than both these platforms. In fact, speed and security are Telegram’s USP.
What is a telegram bot?
As the name suggests, a Telegram chatbot is a chatbot that lives on the Telegram platform and facilitates automated conversations between a human and a computer through the Telegram app.
The chatbot functions just like a human being with whom you are chatting using Telegram, with the only difference being that the responses are canned and you might get the same response for similar questions.
Why use a telegram chatbot?
If a large percentage of your target audience is active on Telegram, then it only makes sense to use the platform to provide better customer engagement using chatbots. Chatbots can give replies to common queries within seconds, rather than days.
Telegram is considered to be one of the most secure messaging platforms out there, thanks to its end to end encryption. This means customers will feel more secure dealing with a Telegram Chatbot than say, a human agent. Telegram is available on Android, iOS, Windows phones, desktop apps and also has a web version. This platform-agnostic feature of Telegram makes a strong case for creating a Telegram chatbot for your customers who may be using different devices.
How does a Telegram chatbot work?
Just like a normal person, a Telegram chatbot first analyzes what the user is asking for and then tries to give a response it feels best suits the situation. For example, imagine chatting with a Telegram bot of a restaurant. If you ask the question, “Can I see the menu, please?”, the bot understands the word “menu” and returns the Menu to the user. While there may be a lot of programming magic behind all this and we may be over-simplifying things, this is the gist of how a Telegram chatbot works.
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Pricing of Telegram Chatbot
The pricing of the Telegram chatbot varies depending on the chatbot builder that you use. There are a tonne of chatbot builders available in the market, and a simple Google search will reveal that building a bot for say, 1000 messages will range from anywhere between $17 a month to $37 a month. For most users though, creating a chatbot is free, and all you have to do is search for Botfather and follow the on-screen instructions.
Without further ado, here are the steps involved in integrating Telegram with Kommunicate.
The integration presented in this blog post will teach you to:
- How to Integrate a Chatbot with Telegram.
- How to Connect a Bot to Kommunicate.
How to create a bot in Telegram
Open Telegram messenger, sign in to your account or create a new one.
Add the steps for this also a telegram.
Step 1: In the search bar, search for @botfather
Note, official Telegram bots have a blue checkmark beside their name
Step 2: Select the botfather channel and click /start.
Click on the “Send” button.
Step 3: Select /newbot — create a new bot.
Step 4 :Add a bot name to call ( channuJan22Bot) and enter bot name to display ( kmJan22Bot)
Step 5: Copy the API key that is generated under “Use this token to access the HTTP API”
How to Integrate a Chatbot with Telegram
Open Your Kommunicate Dashboard
Step 1: Click on Integrations
Step 2: Click on telegram card setting link
Step 3: Paste the API key into the Telegram integration card from the Kommunicate Dashboard and click the “Save and Integrate” button.
Step 4: Go to the channel that you have just created ( kmJan22bot) in Telegram and start a conversation.
You can now receive messages in the Kommunicate dashboard.
At Kommunicate, we are envisioning a world-beating customer support solution to empower the new era of customer support. We would love to have you on board to have a first-hand experience of Kommunicate. You can signup here and start delighting your customers right away.
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How to Create a Telegram Chatbot in 2022 — Kommunicate Blog was originally published in Chatbots Life on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.