When it helps
- You get lots of repetitive questions: hours, prices, availability, directions, what to bring.
- Customers contact you outside business hours.
- It can actually do something: book, take a deposit, start a quote, hand off to a person.
When it hurts
- It answers from general knowledge instead of your real information and makes things up. Businesses have been held to what their chatbots told customers.
- It loads heavy scripts that slow the site on phones.
- It hides your phone number behind a chat window.
- It collects personal or health information without the protections that needs.
Safeguards a good one needs
We build AI features with guardrails like these, and we run AI moderation in VYVE every night on real guest submissions, so we know where it goes wrong.
- Answers only from information you’ve approved, and says “I don’t know, here’s how to reach us” otherwise.
- Never states prices, availability or policies it can’t check.
- Hands off to a person easily.
- Says it’s an automated assistant.
- Doesn’t store more than it needs, and you know where conversations go.
Written by Nikita Huttenlocher, founder and lead engineer at Huttenlocher Technologies, a web design and software company in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.