Most small business websites get the same handful of questions over and over. Are you open on Sunday? Do you take my insurance? How much is the first visit? A chat assistant on your site can answer those at any hour, so your team spends its time on the conversations that need a person.
What a trained chat assistant is
A chat assistant is a small window on your website where visitors can type a question and get an answer straight away. The useful kind is trained on your own business’s information: your services, prices, hours, policies and the questions your team hears most. It is set up to answer from that information and to say so when a question is not covered, rather than guess.
What it does well
- The repeat questions. Hours, prices, parking, what to bring, how billing works.
- Out-of-hours enquiries. Someone asks at 11 pm, gets an answer, and leaves their details for the morning.
- Taking the next step. Booking requests, estimate requests and new enquiries are collected and passed to your team.
- Qualifying the job. A trades business can ask the two or three questions it always asks before an estimate.
What it shouldn’t do
A good assistant knows its limits. It should not give medical, legal or financial advice, and it should not invent a price or a promise your team has not made. For health businesses in particular, we keep it to fees, bookings and directions, and leave anything about symptoms to your staff. When it does not know the answer, the right response is “I will pass that to the team,” not a guess.
Handing over to a person
The point is not to replace your team. It is to make sure that when someone does need a person, your team receives a clean note: who they are, what they asked and how to reach them. That can go to an inbox, or straight into a client list.
The best test of a chat assistant is what it does when it does not know the answer.
What it takes to set one up
Mostly your information. We need your price list, your policies and the questions your team hears most, and we gather the rest from your website. It is styled to match your brand, so it looks like part of the site, and it needs updating when your hours or prices change, which is quick to do.
Try one
Millie, the assistant on this site, is one. Open the chat and ask her what we do, or how our previews work. Chat assistants are part of our custom software, quoted per project, on their own or alongside a new website. There is a fuller description on the services page.
