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AI chatbots for small business websites

By AskGeeks editors · Updated · About AskGeeks

AI chatbots for small business websites
Photo: Jernej Furman, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

A good website chatbot answers the same twenty questions your team answers every day, accurately, at any hour, and hands over to a person when it should.

What it should do

  • Answer questions from your own content: FAQs, policies, service pages and price lists.
  • Capture contact details for follow-up.
  • Hand over to a human by email, chat or phone when needed.

How to set one up

  1. Collect your source documents and fix anything out of date first.
  2. Choose a tool that answers only from your documents. Many website chat tools, such as Intercom, Tidio and HubSpot, now include AI chatbots; you can also build one with your AI assistant. See the FAQ chatbot playbook.
  3. Write the rules: what it must never do, such as promise refunds or give medical, legal or financial advice.
  4. Test it with 30 real customer questions, including awkward ones.
  5. Launch with a clear label that it is an AI assistant, and a visible way to reach a person.
  6. Review conversations weekly and update your documents.

Mistakes to avoid

  • Letting it answer from the open internet instead of your content.
  • No human handover.
  • Collecting personal data without a privacy notice.

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