What a useful bot actually does

Most chatbots fail for the same reason: somebody built a bot that can talk about anything instead of a bot that does one thing well.

Start from your own messages. Open WhatsApp Business or your page inbox and read the last hundred incoming messages. You will find that a small number of questions make up most of the volume. Opening hours. Price. Do you deliver to my city. Is this in stock. Where is my order. How do I book.

That list is your bot. Nothing else.

A bot earns its place in three ways.

It answers instantly at two in the morning. Not better than you, just present. For a small business this is most of the value, because the customer who gets no reply messages your competitor next.

It collects before it hands over. By the time a person picks up the conversation, the bot has the name, the city, the product and the budget. That turns a ten minute exchange into a two minute one.

It never gets bored of the same question. The fortieth person asking about delivery charges gets the same patient answer as the first.

What it should not do: negotiate, make promises about dates, handle a complaint, or guess. Each of those needs a human, and a bot that tries will cost you the customer it was meant to save.

Write the job down in one sentence before you open any tool.