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First bot message: greeting formula and four options
The first message of the bot is read by everyone who clicked “Start” - and many decide at this moment whether to continue. A bad greeting is not rude or long, but useless: “Hello! I’m a bot from company N. How can I help you?” does not say what can be done here, and leaves the person alone with the keyboard. Below is a formula of three elements, requirements for length and buttons, four ready-made texts for typical tasks (leads, support, recording, lead magnet), how it is configured in CHBT on the /start trigger and what changes in MAX, VKontakte and in the widget on the site.
What does the first message decide and where is it shown?
The first message has one purpose - get action: Pressing a button or answering a specific question. Everything else—introducing yourself, explaining, making an impression—works only to the extent that it leads to action. If after greeting the person doesn't know what to click, the message didn't work, no matter how polite it was.
In Telegram, the bot has two more texts that are seen before greetings, and they are often forgotten:
- Description “What can this bot do?” — is shown on the screen before you click “Start”. Set by @BotFather by the team
/setdescription, up to 512 characters. This is effectively a null message: if it is empty, the person sees a white screen and a button. - "About the bot" — short text in the bot profile,
/setabouttext, up to 120 characters. Visible when the bot is searched for or its card is opened.
Both texts live on the Telegram side, CHBT does not set them - fill them out from @BotFather once. And the greeting itself is a script: in CHBT it begins with a trigger /start and the first block "Message". What follows is about him.
Formula: who - what can do - what to press
The work greeting answers three questions in that order.
1. Who. One line. Not “I am a virtual assistant,” but the name that a person expected to see: “This is a bot from the Svet studio” or “Repair+ service assistant.” If the bot leads on behalf of a person, the person’s name: “Bot of Anna Petrova, psychologist.”
2. What he can do. Two or three specific things, rather than “I’ll answer any questions.” Good: “make an appointment for a haircut, show the prices, pass the question on to the hairdresser.” Bad: “I will help with any questions about our services” - this does not promise anything and does not exclude anything.
3. What to press. Direct indication of the buttons below the message: “Choose what you need” or “Let’s start with the button below.” Without this line, some people start typing free text, and the script goes into the “Any message” thread.
Put together:
This is a bot from the Svet studio. Here you can sign up for a haircut or coloring, see prices and ask a question to the master. Choose where to start.
Three lines, 150 characters, then the buttons “Sign up”, “Prices”, “Ask a question”. The formula can be tested in reverse: remove any of the three elements, and the message immediately becomes worse. Without “who,” it’s unclear whether he got there. Without “what he can do,” it’s unclear why he should stay. Without “what to click”, it’s not clear what to do.
Length, shape, restrictions
Length Three to five lines on the phone screen - 150–300 characters. If the greeting does not fit on the screen along with the buttons, it will not be read. Anything longer is not a greeting, but a response to a button.
One message, not three. A greeting consisting of three consecutive messages - “Hello!”, “I’m a company bot...”, “Select...” - looks like a bombardment of notifications. One “Message” block with buttons.
No emoji wall. One or two are appropriate, one for each line is no longer appropriate. Buttons are better without them at all: the text on the button is short, emoji take up space and look different on different devices.
Be careful with the name. Variable {{name}} substitutes the name from the contact card. In Telegram, it is usually taken from the profile - and the profile can be called “🐝🐝🐝” or “Director”. In the widget on the site, there is no name at all before filling out the form. So don't start with "Hello, {{name}}!" - use the name further when asked explicitly.
Line about data. If the bot asks for a phone number or email, a short line about consent to data processing is appropriate in the first message or before the first question: “By leaving contacts, you agree to the data processing policy” with a link. There is no separate consent checkbox in the bot; text is the only tool; more details in the article about 152-FZ and the bot.
Buttons: how many, which ones, where they lead
The buttons under the first message are the bot's menu. The rules are simple.
- Two to four buttons. One means no choice; with five or more, people read the list instead of tapping. If there really are many tasks, make the first buttons categories, with details on the next step.
- A verb or an action noun. “Book”, “Prices”, “Ask a question”, “Where are you”. Not “Information”, not “More”, not “Menu”.
- Short text. Up to 20–25 characters: anything longer gets cut off with an ellipsis on a phone.
- Order by frequency. Put the most-tapped button first. Usually it's not “About us”.
- Always a way to a person. “Ask a question” or “Message a manager” → the “Operator” block. Without this button people type into the void.
In CHBT the “Message” block has two button types: callback, which goes to the next block of the flow, and URL, which opens a link (website, map, channel). In a greeting almost all buttons are callback: the goal is to keep the person in the conversation. A URL button fits “Where are you” (map) or “Our channel”.
Channels differ in limits: VK allows up to 10 buttons, two per row; MAX up to 30 buttons, one per row; Telegram has no hard limit on the number of inline buttons under a message, but no more than four to six read comfortably on a phone. If you use one flow everywhere, design for the tightest channel.
Four options for the task
The formula is the same, but the accents are different. Below are texts that can be inserted into the “Message” block and adjusted to suit you.
Applications
Bot from the “Warm House” company: we calculate the cost of insulation and call a surveyor. To name the price, I’ll ask three questions - it’ll take a minute. Shall we start?
Buttons: “Calculate cost”, “Call a surveyor”, “Ask a question”. The peculiarity is the promise about the time (“minute”) and the number of questions: the person understands the volume before the start. Next is a quiz of button questions and contact collection.
Support
Repair+ support. I’ll tell you the status of the lead, the timing and cost of diagnostics, and I’ll pass on complex issues to an engineer. What's happened?
Buttons: “Application status”, “Deadlines and prices”, “Another question”. The peculiarity is that it is immediately stated what the bot will convey to the person: the support client wants to know that he will not get stuck in the menu. “Another question” leads to “Operator” or to a thread with “Any message” and keywords.
Record
This is Marina's bot, a manicurist. I am making an appointment for procedures: write a convenient day and time - I will confirm within an hour. I can also show prices and work.
Buttons: “Sign up”, “Prices”, “View works”. The peculiarity is that it is honestly stated how the recording is structured: time in text, confirmation by a person. There is no calendar or slots in CHBT, and the greeting should not promise “select an open window.”
Lead magnet
Here, the greeting with /start is often not shown at all: a person comes via a deep link from a post, and the “Deep Link” trigger with payload is triggered in CHBT. The first message in this thread is not a presentation, but a delivery of what was promised:
Checklist “12 checks before launching a channel” - follow the link below. Would you like an analysis of your mistakes? Leave your phone number and we’ll write in this chat.
Buttons: “Open checklist” (URL button to the page with the checklist), “I want analysis” (→ “Data collection” block with phone). Feature - the contact is asked after issue or as an option, and not as a condition. Please note what is not in this text: a promise to send a PDF or a letter. The CHBT bot does not send files to Telegram, MAX and VK, nor does it send e-mails to clients, so the material is provided as a link, and the continuation is in the same chat. Such a bot also needs a general greeting with /start - for those who find it themselves - but in short: who are you and what are you giving out here.
How is this configured in CHBT
In the “flows” the script begins with a trigger. For greeting this /start: The first block after it is “Message” with text and buttons. Each callback button leads to its own block: “Prices” - to “Message” with prices, “Sign up” - to “Data collection”, “Ask a question” - to “Operator”.
Next to /start there are usually three more triggers, which also give the “first message”, but differently:
- “Deep link” — entry with payload from the link, bypassing the general greeting (the “lead magnet” option above).
- "Key word" — the person immediately wrote “price” or a code word; We answer on the topic, not with a greeting.
- “Any message” — wrote in text instead of pressing a button. Do not show the greeting here a second time: a short “Understood, I’m passing it on to the manager” or repeating the buttons in one line.
Three tools speed up your work with text. Templates — each of the 23 already has a greeting for the task, it’s easier to correct it than to write it from scratch. AI script editing (Basic plan) - a command with text like “reduce the greeting to three lines and add a “Prices” button.” “Check script” — test chat in the editor: you can see how the message looks with buttons without leaving Telegram. How to build everything that comes after the greeting - branches, dead ends, access to the operator - is discussed in the article about designing a bot script.
What's changing in MAX, VKontakte and widget
One script CHBT works in all connected channels, but the first message is seen in different environments.
MAX. Analogue /start - event bot_started, it also carries a deep link payload, so the “/start” and “Deep Link” triggers work like in Telegram. The MAX audience more often writes from the phone and in short - a greeting in three lines and buttons in one or two words.
VKontakte. The bot responds in community messages. The “Start” button in the conversation with the community is the start of the flow. There are up to 10 buttons, two in a row - you can expand the menu wider than in Telegram, but you shouldn’t: the “two-four” rule works here too. Keep in mind that some people come from an already open conversation with the community where the person previously answered - the greeting should not look like a break in the conversation.
Widget on the site. There is no /start command. The first message is set in the section settings “Widget” — the “Welcome” field, plus the agent’s name and avatar. It can be preceded by a pre-chat form (name, e-mail, phone), and the script starts based on a trigger “Opening a widget”. Proactive triggers - by time on the page, by URL, when leaving the site - show a separate short message, and it is also “first”: one line with a specific reason (“Choose a size?” on the product page), rather than a general greeting.
If the script is the same for all channels, the “Condition” block for each channel allows you to give different greeting texts: in Telegram - full, in MAX - short, in a widget - with a link to the site page.
Six mistakes that are visible in the first second
- “How can I help?” without buttons. The open question in the first message is an invitation to write anything, and the script is not ready for “anything.”
- Greetings about the company. Three paragraphs about history, mission and awards. This is for the website; in the chat they read one line.
- A promise that the bot will not keep. “I’ll answer any question in a second,” and then “I don’t understand, reformulate.” Promise exactly what is in the buttons.
- Hidden bot. The text pretends to be a live manager. The very first template answer breaks trust more than an honest “this is a bot, I’ll pass on the difficult things to a human.”
- Phone number in first message. “Leave your number and we’ll call you back” before the person understood why. First the benefit, then the contact.
- There is no way out to the person. All buttons lead to automatic replies; there is no “write to manager” option. A client with an atypical question leaves silently.
These errors are at the top of the list of things you'll encounter when parsing scripts; a complete list of typical problems and how to fix them is in the article "10 Mistakes in Bot Scripts".
How to check that the greeting is working
One indicator: percentage of people who clicked the button after the first message. There are no counters for script blocks in CHBT, but there is a workaround through tags: for each welcome button - “Action” → Add a tag (“clicked-prices”, “clicked-record”). After a week, filter by tags in the section “Contacts” will show how many of the new contacts clicked at least something and what exactly. The total flow - incoming messages by day for 14 days and conversations by channel for 30 days - on the dashboard in Analytics.
You can compare two text options using the action "Random thread" in the “Action” block: after /start, the bot randomly sends everyone one of the branches: approximately half of the people receive greeting A, the rest - B, each branch puts its own tag. After two weeks, compare the share of clicks on tags. If the difference is noticeable and lasts when there are at least several dozen people in each thread, leave the winner.
Work order: put together a greeting using the formula → run it through “Check Script” on your phone → add tags to the buttons → look at “Contacts” after a week → correct the order of the buttons or text. The first message is the cheapest block for edits and the most expensive in terms of influence: everyone goes through it. If the bot accepts requests during non-working hours, the greeting should be coordinated with the night flow - how it works is described in the article about autoresponder in Telegram.
Templates with ready-made greetings open in one click, the “Steps” editor and all channels are available on the Free plan - 30 conversations per month are enough to test the first text on real people. Bot connection - on the page Telegram bot designer. Write the first message of your bot →
Telegram bot constructor“Lead capture” templateHow to Design a Bot Script10 mistakes in bot flows