Is Building Chatbots THE Hustle For 2025?

No coding skills required! Cyrus Kioko reports how it's done.

What if I told you we’re in the middle of a market boom—and you’re sleeping on it? You read that right! While everyone’s busy stanning over AI’s shiny toys like self-driving cars, kuna forward-thinkers wanakulia big bucks by leveraging AI to automate customer service, and they’ve been real quiet about it.

Unakumbuka time Social Media Marketing Agencies (SMMAs) ziliblow up? AI Automation Agencies are on a similar trajectory, and customer service automation is the hottest ticket in town.

If you’ve been looking for a way to make money with AI, this might be it. The best part? Si must ujue kucode.

Tip: you can already use AI to create show stopping images for your marketing. Peris explains how.

Research inasema the global AI chatbot market size is already at $7.01 billion and will double in the next few years. I’ve been following these projections since chat GPT was launched, and they’ve been spot-on so far.

Clearly, izi vitu ziko na market, and their demand will only keep growing.

But what exactly are they?

Customer service AI chatbots ni software programs zenye utumia AI kuhold conversations with a business’s customers or leads. Safaricom’s Zuri is a great example of a customer service chatbot, although it can’t handle queries that require contextual understanding because it’s not AI-powered.

Modern AI-powered customer service chatbots like DNB Bank's Chatbot and Bank of America’s Erica zinaeza handle more complex queries than Zuri ju zinatumia Natural Language Processing (NLP) na machine learning to:

• Understand conversational conversations, which allow them to respond accurately to queries even if customers use different words when asking follow-up questions.

• Learn patterns from past conversations with a customer, which they then use to personalize future interactions and anticipate that specific customer’s needs.

Tip! There is nothing like good old fashioned customer service.

AI chatbots automate the time-consuming repetitive customer service tasks like:

• Responding to frequently asked questions, particularly those relating to account balances, order tracking, and return policies. Zinaeza answer product-related FAQs pia.

• Helping customers with account management issues like updating account details, resetting passwords, or retrieving forgotten log-ins.

• Walking customers through processes like account creation, troubleshooting common technical problems, checking out, form submissions, etc.

• Collecting and logging important consumer info like buying behavior, pain points, and preferences and handing it over to human agents and higher-ups for analysis.

• Setting up appointments, sending reminders, and confirming upcoming bookings.

• Reaching out to customers to share things like product updates, new product launches, and special offers. The best part? They choose what info to share with a specific customer based on their purchase history and interests.

Here’s how you can make money helping businesses integrate AI bots into their customer service operations:

Remember when I mentioned unaeza unda izi stuff bila coding? I wasn’t kidding. No code like platforms like Voiceflow zimefanya the process as simple as drag and drop.

Wondering where you can learn all this?

Here’s a step-by-step walkthrough by Liam Ottley, the guy who coined the AI Automation Agency (more commonly known as “AAA”) business model: How to Build Chatbots | Complete AI Chatbot Tutorial for Beginners

He covers everything you need to know in about three hours, including:

• Why building chatbots is such a high-income skill today.

• The different types of chatbots you can build and sell (there are more types than just customer service bots).

• The best software tools to use as a beginner.

• Knowledge bases, prompting, deployment, and other key concepts

He also builds basic and advanced versions of each chatbot type in that video. Overall, this is the best tutorial for anyone looking to get their foot in the door.

Usiwatch io tutorial pekee. Spend some time poking around Liam Ottley’s Youtube Channel. Ako na a lot of other helpful tutorials where he tackles common challenges agency owners and AI consultants face when starting, like prompt engineering, pricing, setting up contracts, how to create different types of AI agents, etc.

On top of that, ako na Skool community with over 44,000 AAA owners, which I’m personally part of. I highly recommend joining it if you’re serious about starting an AI Automation Agency – link ya kujoin iko kwa description ya io tutorial nimepaste apo juu.

You might have mastered chatbot design, but you’re not quite ready to start your agency yet. For now, I’d rather have you focus on putting your skills into practice (and making some money along the way) instead of getting bogged down with start-up logistics.

Working as a freelancer itakupea kitu uwezi pata through theory: experience. The best part? You’ll likely work as part of a team, meaning you’ll handle small bits of the development process. This is much better than getting thrust straight into the deep end of handling everything, which you would be doing if you started your agency right after learning.

Freelance platforms like Upwork and Freelancer ziko na plenty of remote chatbot development gigs. These aren’t your only options. LinkedIn, Indeed, and many other platforms ziko na izi opportunities. Just search “remote chatbot development jobs” and choose a platform that works for you from your search results.

Liam Ottley’s Skool community has a dedicated “jobs” section. If you’d rather not go through the hassle of setting up a profile and bidding on gigs on platforms like Upwork, this can be a great place to find chatbot development jobs. Heck, I even managed to land a copywriting job with decent pay from that job board even though it’s meant for dev jobs.

Landing that first client inaeza kua tricky since hauna any experience or measurable results to showcase. Some people recommend doing free or discounted work in exchange for testimonials, but that can be time-consuming, not to mention you might not get any takers for that discounted/free work offer in the first place.

Top tip:The best way to land your first client ni kuwatumia a live demo!

Here’s how to create one:

1. Whenever you’re sending an application or cold pitch to a company, find their website and scrape as much customer service-related info from it as much as possible.

2. Prompt chat GPT to build a knowledge base using that info (the video guide I gave you earlier covers this).

3. Tumia prototyping tools like Dante AI kujenga demo and then send it demo along with your cold pitch/job application. Again, the video guide outlines all this.

This works because you’re showing clients exactly how you can improve business, which is way more persuasive than just telling them. The best part? Demos don’t have to be complex, so you can whip them up pretty quickly. Plus, you can turn demos that don’t get any takes into mock-up projects that you can use in your portfolio!

It’s great that you’ve landed one or two clients as a freelancer, but you’re still not ready to start an agency. What you need to do now is get those clients to write you some good testimonials (preferably ones that mention quantifiable results) and allow you to showcase what you built for them in your portfolio.

These two things zitakupea foundation fiti ya kujenga portfolio yenye iko na social proof na measurable results. Portfolios with these elements ndio uleta high-paying clients, and you need a client base of such clients to get your agency off the ground.

Sure, unaeza land one or two clients using demos and mock-up projects, but those won’t cut it for clients wenye ulipa big bucks. Don’t get me wrong; you’ll still need to send demos to land high-paying clients, but this time they’ll be accompanied by a solid portfolio with measurable results.

If you don’t have the resources to set up a portfolio website, use LinkedIn’s Featured section to showcase your work. Ukishaunda portfolio, start prospecting like your life depends on it. Use all the tools at your disposal, including:

• Cold outreach via LinkedIn, email, or social platforms like Instagram.

• Setting up a Fiverr gig.

• Offering your services on Upwork

• Applying for AI consultancy positions on job boards.

The purpose of doing this is to see if you can get enough traction to build a full-blown agency around selling AI customer service chatbots. The technical term for it is business idea validation, and it’s a great way to set your agency up for success.

The goal should be to book at least 5 high-paying clients – these can be medium-to-large business owners or established companies. Only after attaining that goal should you proceed to the next step.

Otherwise, just keep billing the few clients you already have as a freelance consultant until you get enough traction to warrant investing time and resources into launching an agency.

This is a big step, but if you get it right, inaeza kua life-changing. You’ll want to sort out the start-up logistics first. These include:

• Registering your business

• Getting a business permit.

• Setting up a website

• Hiring a cold outreach team (unless you plan on handling prospecting).

You might also need to hire a team of no-code developers just like you to help you with the workload. You might be an expert at building AI chatbots at this point, but the sheer extra responsibilities you’ll take on as an agency owner will be overwhelming.

What you might not need, however, ni physical company premises. A lot of AAAs uoperate purely remotely, with clients and employees from all over the world.

Ukishasort start-up logistics, the next item on your to-do list itakua kuscale agency yako by:

• Optimizing your internal operations to cut costs.

• Expanding your services to offer more types of AI chatbots like staff training and lead generation bots. This will help expand your client base.

• Leveraging automation tech to handle growth without compromising quality.

This is all easier said than done, and you’ll likely need a well-rounded team to make it happen. But you’ll cross that bridge when you get there. For now, focus on learning and bagging that first client.

That’s all for today. Hopefully, umelearn a new way of making money with AI. The market is still relatively young in Kenya, but the best thing about selling automation services is that unaeza ifanya remotely.

Plus, it’s only a matter of time before customer service automation ikue necessity even for local companies. When that happens, businesses zitaneed experts to build, maintain, and optimize these systems, na unaeza kua one of those experts if you start learning and practicing today. All the best!