How we build a chatbot that actually knows your business

A few people asked after our last chatbot post what actually goes into building one. So this is the nerdy version.

It starts with what you know

First we gather everything. The website, obviously. But the good stuff is usually not on the website. It’s in the venue info pack, the price spreadsheet, the email your office manager has typed out so many times she could do it in her sleep. We always ask for that email. It’s gold.

A chatbot is only ever as good as what you feed it, so we spend more time on this step than any other.

Then we find the holes

We write out the 30 to 50 questions customers ask most, and check whether the answers actually exist anywhere. Usually a good chunk of them don’t, or they’re buried somewhere vague. So we write them properly with the client. Funnily enough, this often improves the website as much as the chatbot, because those answers should have been on a page all along.

A chatbot is only ever as good as what you feed it.

Setting the rules

Every chatbot gets a set of instructions it has to follow. Only answer from the information provided. Say “I’m not sure” rather than guess. Never quote a price that isn’t listed. Offer to hand anything tricky to a real person. And we set the tone, which is very different for a bush lodge than for an investment firm.

The bit you see

The chat window is a small piece of code on the site. It loads after everything else so it doesn’t slow the page, and we style it to match the brand. Behind it, it talks to the AI through our own servers, so nothing sensitive like API keys ever ends up sitting in someone’s browser.

Getting the leads to you

When someone wants to book, buy or be called back, the chatbot asks for their details and sends them, along with the whole conversation, wherever the client wants. Email is the most common. Some clients want it in their CRM.

Then we try to break it

This is honestly our favourite part. Before anything goes live, we try every way we can think of to trip it up. Off-topic questions, trick questions, rude questions, questions in Afrikaans. We want to be sure it won’t invent a price or a date or promise something the client can’t deliver.

And we keep reading

For the first few weeks after launch, we go through the conversation logs with the client. Every question it couldn’t answer tells us what’s missing. Most of the improvement in the first month comes from just doing that.

Running costs depend on how much it gets used, so we have a couple of plan sizes rather than one fixed price. We’ll happily talk you through which one fits.