How to build a chatbot your users will love

GUEST: While the tech industry has been busy losing its mind over bots, I’ve been observing from the sidelines, underwhelmed. I’ve tried to buy into the mania, but after testing a handful of bots, I found that most were boring, frustrating, and more complicated to use than a website, an app, or even picking up the phone.
So how can bots evolve to become useful, and — dare I say it — lovable? I was recently challenged with building one, and here is what I learned:
Planning