A few years ago, instant customer response outside office hours was a luxury only larger companies could afford. That's no longer true.
What a good chatbot does well
- Answers repetitive questions instantly — pricing, hours, services offered
- Collects the right information from a lead before a human gets involved
- Offers to book a consultation directly, without back-and-forth emails
- Works outside business hours, when a real person can't
What it shouldn't try to do
A chatbot shouldn't pretend to be human, and it shouldn't invent answers it isn't confident about. The best implementations are honest about their limits and hand off to a real person when needed.
Getting started
You don't need a huge budget to add a chatbot to your site — you need clear FAQs, a defined lead-capture flow, and a sensible handoff point to a human. That's usually enough to see a real difference in how many enquiries you capture.