An assistant that says "I don't know" beats one that guesses.
The difference between useful and infuriating is entirely upstream of the chat window. It is about what you wrote down first.
There are two ways for something to answer a customer question.
It can tell them what you wrote down. Or it can make a sensible guess.
The second one sounds better in a demo. It is the one that ends up with a customer standing outside your shop on a Sunday because something told them you were open.
"I do not know" is a feature
It does not feel like one. It feels like the tool failing.
But think about what the alternative costs. A wrong price you then have to honour, or argue about. A promise of Saturday work you do not do. A customer who turns up expecting something nobody offered.
One honest "I am not sure, let me get you to the owner" costs you nothing and protects everything.
What to write down before switching anything on
This is an afternoon of work and it decides whether the whole thing is useful.
- Where you work. Real place names. And the edge: how far you go before it costs extra, or you say no.
- When you work. Including the awkward truth. Not weekends. Not August. Phones off after six.
- What things cost. A range is fine. "Most of these are between X and Y, and here is what pushes it up" is a real answer.
- What you do not do. The most valuable list and the one always missing. It saves you the enquiries you were going to turn down anyway.
- How it works. Deposits, payment, how long a job takes, whether they need to be there.
- The five questions you actually get. From your own messages, not from guessing.
What to leave out on purpose
Anything that changes weekly and you will forget to update. A wrong answer is worse than no answer.
Anything that needs seeing the job. Do not let anything quote a damp problem it cannot look at.
Anything about other people's business. Not your staff's hours. Not a supplier's stock.
Test it with the awkward questions
Everyone tests with the easy ones, sees a good answer and switches it on.
Test the other ones. Ask about a service you do not offer. Ask for a discount. Ask something rude. Ask about a town two hundred miles away.
You are not checking whether it is clever. You are checking what it does when it should stop.
Then read it every month
Fifteen minutes with the transcripts. This is how you find the answer that has been quietly wrong since your prices changed in March.
Nobody sells you this step, because it is work rather than magic. It is also the difference between a tool that helps for years and one you turn off in disgust.
It is how we built ours, for what it is worth. hailera only says what the owner wrote, and the owner reads it before anyone else does.
Written by the team at hailera — we help small businesses answer customer questions without being there.