A chatbot for a small business: what it can and cannot do
A good chatbot answers the questions you get asked fifty times a week, at any hour, and knows when to hand over to a person. A bad one makes things up, argues with customers and ends up on social media.
Where they earn their keep
Opening hours, prices, what is in stock, how to book, where to park, what to bring, cancellation policy, whether you do gluten-free. If a question has a factual answer that lives on your website or in a document, a bot trained on that content will answer it well and consistently.
Where they do not
Anything that needs judgement, empathy or authority: complaints, refunds outside policy, medical or legal advice, negotiating. A well-built bot recognises these and hands over, with a summary, to a human.
How we build them
- Trained only on your content: pages, FAQs, price lists, policies. Not the open internet.
- Told what it is not allowed to do, and tested against it.
- Hand-over to email or WhatsApp with the conversation attached.
- Usage caps so a busy week never becomes a surprise bill.
- A monthly review of the questions it could not answer, which is also a free list of what your website is missing.
The result is less a robot receptionist and more a very patient FAQ page that talks back. Ask us about one.
Want a hand with this?
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