“We want a chatbot on the website” is one of the most common requests we hear. Behind the same phrase, though, there are very different needs, with different costs and different results. If you don’t clarify from the start what you actually need, it is easy to pay for something that does not solve your problem.<\/p>\n
1. The simple FAQ assistant.<\/strong> It answers a limited set of routine questions: opening hours, payment methods, shipping times. The answers are more or less predefined. It is cheap and reliable, but it knows nothing beyond what you have given it.<\/p>\n 2. The knowledge assistant.<\/strong> It answers from your own documents and data: catalogues, manuals, procedures, terms, technical sheets. It finds the relevant part and phrases the answer, ideally citing the source so that someone can check it.<\/p>\n 3. The assistant that acts.<\/strong> It does not only answer, it does things: checks an order’s status, books an appointment, opens a support ticket, updates a system. To do that, it has to be connected to your systems, with proper access rights and logging.<\/p>\n If the questions you receive are few and repetitive, a simple assistant, or even a good FAQ page, does the job. There is no need to pay for something more complex.<\/p>\n When the information customers or partners look for is spread across many documents and changes often. In that case we often suggest starting internally<\/strong>: your own staff use it first, where a mistake is easy to spot, and it opens to customers only once it has proved its value.<\/p>\n When the answer depends on live data: “where is my order?”, “do you have this size in stock?”, “is there a free slot on Thursday?”. Here the assistant has to read from your online store, ERP or booking system. It is the most useful form, and also the one that needs the most careful design.<\/p>\nWhen the simple one is enough<\/h2>\n
When you need a knowledge assistant<\/h2>\n
When it needs to connect to your systems<\/h2>\n
Mistakes we often see<\/h2>\n