Every day, bots gain more and more popularity. Their usage has become a common practice in our life: whether you need to buy a ticket or use some postal and banking services.

But what is a chatbot, anyway? It is a special program providing options to build communications with clients 24/7. A typical chatbot has predefined scenarios that allow users to order some services or goods (or to find an answer to some questions) all by themselves.

There is a lot of information on the web on how to build a chatbot but very little data on how to test it. Hence, in this article, we’ll provide a comprehensive answer to this question. We will consider the features and specifics of testing modern chatbots using Viber and Telegram as the most popular web products in this area.

Comparative Analysis of Basic Capabilities of Viber / Telegram

Features	Viber	Telegram
Send messages with the ability to sync with connected devices	+	+
Desktop version	+	+
Nickname	–	+
Ability to connect several accounts	–	+
Group chats	+	+
Expend group chat	–	+
Search for the user via @	–	+
Channel development	+	+
Storage of information in the cloud	–	+
Safety	+	+
Availability of bots	+	+

The differences from the table above are easily noticeable. However, it is worth noting that these messengers are not just a way of communication that each of us uses daily. They become a kind of platform for promoting a wide variety of business ideas.

Since both these platforms support chatbots, you can take a closer look at the features of functioning for each of them.

Features of Viber and Telegram Performance

Features	Viber	Telegram
Basic conception	Chatbot to optimize business processes with the possibility to interact with public accounts	Integration with selected services within the Telegram platform
Basic implementation	Via Viber API	Via Bot API
Bot attributes	Public account level settings	Address, name, photo, short description
Nominal Creation Limits	Bot requirements and public account settings requirements	–
Supported content types	Text blocks, links, graphic content, contact, geolocation	Everything supported on the Telegram platform (personal data, files, survey, location)
Level of communication in chats	Yes, message-based and flexible keyboards	Yes, using commands, keyboards, and text messages
Possibility of monetization	Based on public accounts	+
Adding bots to other chats	–	+
Permission to chat	–	+
Bot development	Based on Viber REST API	Via bot @BotFather / Bot API

Pros and Cons of Bots

To analyze it, we should come back to the concept of the chatbot we mentioned above. Note that there are two types of bots:

• Chatbots with logged information in the database. Their work is programmed for a limited range of behavioral scenarios (for example, prompter bot and button bot);
• Chatbot based on AI with parameters of self-learning and self-updating of information (for example, “smart bot”).

It should also be noted that chatbots with fixed data are more reliable in operation because they do not contain AI developments, that is, they cannot get out of the programmers’ control. AI bots, on the other hand, are more “responsive”, and their intelligence is the technical ability to react depending on the current situation.

Now we can highlight the pros and cons for chatbots after they have been tested in a quality assurance company.

Advantages:

1. Work 24/7;
2. Instant response;
3. Simple graphical interface;
4. Continuous expansion of platform coverage;
5. You don’t need to install software to interact with the chatbot.

Disadvantages:

1. Excess of functions;
2. Sometimes, unusual user behavior can cause a malfunction;
3. Not suitable for all types of businesses.

From this comparison, we can see that Telegram has more features when developing a classic chatbot, which means that the potential set of functionalities is also larger. This suggests that there is simply no fundamental difference in checking chatbots for Telegram and Viber!

Chatbot Testing

First of all, you should analyze the reasons for chatbot development, find out its potential target audience and tasks. For example, you can ask the project manager what commands can be used in the future when interacting with the chatbot.

It is worth paying attention to the list of commands for Viber and Telegram. Most likely, it will vary significantly. It is also necessary to determine which specific countries the chatbot will target and which languages it will support. And you can further clarify which operating platforms the chatbot will be developed for.

Right at the beginning of testing a chatbot, you need to run the basic positive scenarios and analyze how user-friendly the interaction with the chatbot is. Your test dialogs with bots should not contain dead-ends – the chatbot should answer any user action.

If the bot supports different localizations, you should test the availability of translations for potential dialogues with the chatbot and the correctness of their design, based on the culture and traditions of a particular country, grammatical and spelling features of word combinations.

Additionally, you need to pay attention to the registration part, validation of address and phone, whether it exactly matches the format of the selected country.

And the last thing, you need to assure that elements and objects that mean the same thing are named the same. If you delete some elements, you’ll see the confirmation message. Testing the current compliance with the validated design (layout) is great if the graphic display of the chatbot is designed in the same style and color scheme for different operating platforms.

Conclusion

Of course, it’s impossible to test all the scenarios. But it is the direct responsibility of the QA engineer to check the chatbot based on the approved test documentation, to fulfill all the positive scenarios agreed with the client and research tests.

The approach to testing chatbots should be similar to testing a web application, although each area has its nuances and similarities. These nuances exactly were considered in this material, which will be useful to dedicated experts.